412 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. XI. 



hension of similar dangers to those experienced on 

 the former expedition." 



When all was completed, on the 16th of Febru- 

 ary, 1825, Captain Franklin, Lieutenant Back, Dr. 

 Richardson, Mr. Kendall, Mr. Drummond, with 

 four marines, embarked at Liverpool, on board the 

 American packet Columbia, for New York. It 

 would be thought a waste of the reader's time to 

 wade through a detail of their reception in America, 

 and of their progress along the rivers, over the lakes 

 and portages, with the numerous obstructions and 

 difficulties they encountered, but rather to proceed 

 at once to land them in safety at Fort Chipewyan on 

 the 15th of July, 1825. Their early arrival it seems 

 caused great surprise to its inmates, being only two 

 days later than the time when Richardson and Hood 

 had arrived in 1819, though they came only from 

 Cumberland House, where they had wintered. 



It will be sufficient to say that the whole party as- 

 sembled on the banks of the Great Bear Lake River, 

 which flows out of that lake on the western side into 

 the Mackenzie River, down which thev were to de- 

 scend to the sea. On their arrival at its mouth, 

 the explorers were to divide themselves, agreeably 

 with their official instructions, into two parties ; the 

 one under Captain Franklin to proceed westerly, 

 along the northern coast of America as far as Icy 

 Cape, or to the entrance of Behring's Strait, where 

 he was told he might expect to find H. M. Ship 



