CHAPTER XII. 



COMMANDER BACK. 

 1833-34-35. 



Journal of a Land Expedition to the Eastern part of the 

 Polar Sea, through North America to the mouth of Back's 



River. 



To those readers, who have made themselves fami- 

 liar with the extraordinary and painfully interest- 

 ing adventures of Franklin and Richardson within 

 the Arctic regions of North America, and along 

 the shores of the Polar Sea, the name of Back, the 

 associate and sharer of all their privations and 

 sufferings, must also be familiar. In voluntarily 

 undertaking the present expedition, he was fully 

 aware of what he would probably, nay most cer- 

 tainly, have again to encounter— similar hardships 

 in his progress through the same country. The 

 motive was no less honourable to his heart than 

 the act itself was to his unflinching courage. 



Being in Italy, a rumour, he says, reached him 

 from England, that apprehensions were enter- 

 tained for the safety of the two Ross's, the uncle 

 and nephew, on the hearing of which (with a true 

 chivalrous spirit) he hastened home for the pur- 



