FRANKLIN'S FIRST LAND JOURNEY 149 



had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty 

 degrees further west than Hearne had done. Three 

 years afterwards he started on his notable journey to 

 the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess Royal 

 Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky 

 Mountains, and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan 

 by way of Montreal, the first to cross North America 

 above the Gulf of Mexico. 



Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin 

 on his first land journey in 1819, the object of which 

 was to explore the coast between Hearne's farthest and 

 Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the 

 assumed northern promontory was to be found. 

 Franklin, who was sent out by the British Govern- 

 ment, had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr., 

 afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy 

 Robert Burns had lent Spenser's Faerie Quecne, a 

 naval surgeon with a distinguished record, who while 

 on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at 

 Edinburgh. Like another member of the expedition, 

 George Back, who had been with Franklin in the 

 Trent and Dorothea voyage, he was destined to gain 

 a great reputation among Arctic explorers. With 

 Back was another midshipman, Robert Hood, whose 

 fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois half-breed 

 who, through want of food, betook himself to canni- 

 balism. 



Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an 

 exciting voyage, on the 30th of August, Franklin, 

 disregarding local advice, pushed on across the continent 

 during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the 

 26th of March, the losses and trying experiences of 



