1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



529 



on this sacred ark the flame had no power. 

 It whirled and swept, in a red orb, round 

 the untouched symbol of the throne of 

 thrones. Still Salathiel lived ; but he felt 

 his strength giving way ; the heat withered 

 his sinews the flame extinguished his sight 

 he sank upon the threshold ; rejoicing 

 that death was inevitable but once again he 

 heard the words of terror ' TARRY TILL 



I COME.' 



The work abounds with splendid pas- 

 sages, descriptive of peril and activity, and 

 some of great moral beauty and pathos ; but 

 the general effect, it must be allowed, is little 

 interesting ; the incidents are uniformly of 

 too exaggerated and marvellous a cast, and 

 complicate too thickly ; and the hero, all 

 along, is under a stimulus, which common ex- 

 perience will not measure ; and the author, 

 in consequence, bold and powerful as he is, 

 often labours under the impossibility of giv- 

 ing adequate expression to the vehemence 

 and intensity of his conceptions. 



Narrative of an Attempt to reach the 

 North Pole, in 1827, by Captain W. E. 



Parry; 1828 This voyage originated 



entirely in Captain Parry's representations. 

 The intention was to take a ship to Spitz- 

 bergen, and from thence to cross to the Pole 

 by means of machines, convertible into 

 boats or carriages, according as ice, or land, 

 or water might be met with. Captain Parry 

 had been led into a conviction of the prac- 

 ticability of this scheme from the statements 

 of Captain Lutwidge, the associate of Cap- 

 tain Phipps, in the expedition towards the 

 North Pole, in 1773, who describes the ice 

 to the north-eastward, to the distance of ten 

 or twelve leagues, as one continued plain, 

 smooth and unbroken, and bounded only 

 by the horizon. Captain Phipps's chart also 

 represents it, to the north of Seven Islands, , 

 as flat and unbroken ; and, again, in the 

 same parallel, but more to the west, the 

 main body of the ice is described as lying 

 in a line, nearly east and west, quite solid. 

 Mr. Scoresby, again, more recently, a gen- 

 tleman connected with the whale fishery, 

 and well acquainted with the arctic regions, 

 bears the same testimony. "I once saw," 

 says he, " a field (which means a space of 

 ice without apparent limits) so free from 

 any fissure or hummock (a mass above the 

 common level), that had it been free from 

 snow, a coach might have been driven many 

 leagues over it, in a direct line, without ob- 

 struction or danger." To the same pur- 

 pose was the evidence of numerous whalers. 

 The inference was perhaps hastily made, 

 that similar plains of ice might extend to the 

 Pole, or, at the worst, but little interrupted. 

 But the hopes which Captain Parry had 

 formed, and the plan proposed by him to 

 the Admiralty, were principally founded on 

 the suggestions of Captain Franklin, whose 

 own experience, and that of Captains Bu- 

 chan and Beechey, had led them to suppose 

 it practicable. 



M.M. New Series VOL. V. No. 29. 



The plan was sanctioned by the Admi- 

 ralty ; and two boats, at once light and 

 capacious, were prepared, and in March 

 1827, Captain Parry started in the Hecla, 

 with his two boats on board. At Hammer- 

 fest, on the coast of Lapland, according to 

 his instructions, he called to take in some 

 reindeers-directions had been forwarded to 

 have them in readiness ; but these not ar- 

 riving, some days were lost in procuring 

 them an officer was obliged to be des- 

 patched for them to Alien, a distance of 

 sixty miles. In the interval, snow shoes 

 were obtained for the travelling party, and 

 the men practised walking with them in 

 deep snow, and of course enjoyed the fun. 

 When the reindeer came, a day or two 

 more was spent in learning to drive them ; 

 but this required no great skill they were 

 very docile, and their harness not very com- 

 plicated. Nothing more was necessary than 

 a collar of skin, and a single trace of the 

 same material, passing between the legs, 

 and attached to the sledge, with a rein like 

 a halter round the neck. When the rein 

 was thrown over on the off side of the ani- 

 mal, he set off at full trot, and stopt short the 

 instant it was thrown back on the near side. 



After embarking the deer, with a supply 

 of moss for their food, Captain Parry steered 

 out of Hammerfest for Spitzbergen on the 

 20th of April. In their passage several 

 whalers were met, who augured ill of the 

 expedition, from the state of the ice being 

 more unfavourable than they had known it 

 for many years. On the 14th of May they 

 passed Magdalena Bay, and began to look 

 for anchorage in Smerenberg harbour, 

 which, unluckily, they found completely 

 blocked up with ice. They had now, how- 

 ever, reached eighty degrees the highest 

 latitude it had been proposed to carry the 

 ship, and the object was now to find a place 

 to lay her up. The deer were in good or- 

 der and thriving they made excellent 

 sailors, and did not seem to mind bad wea- 

 ther, always lying down when there was 

 any sea. The men, too, were in high 

 spirits and nobody seems to have antici- 

 pated the coming difficulties. The search 

 for anchorage was soon, however, checked ; 

 they got suddenly entangled in ice, and no 

 little labour was spent in digging and 

 loosening. The wind, too, freshened, and 

 drove them more among the ice every 

 where broken, huddled, and piled, past all 

 hope of extrication. It consisted mainly of 

 loose pieces, fifteen or twenty yards square, 

 with smaller ones interposed, thrown up, by 

 the recent pressure from the driving wind, 

 into ten thousand shapes, and presenting 

 high and irregular masses at every step. 

 The men compared the scene to a stone 

 mason's yard, " which, indeed," says Cap- 

 tain Parry, " except in size, it very much 

 resembled." 



With the ship thus fixed, and no hope of 

 getting her into harbour, Captain Parry be- 

 3 Y 



