EXPLORATION OF TIE GREAT FISH RIVER. * 507 
modated, the seamen disposed of, and all was done for us wnich 
eare and kindness could perform. 
“Night at length brought quiet and serious thoughts ; and I 
trust there was not a man among us who did not then express, 
where it was due, his gratitude for that interposition which had 
. raised us all from a despair which none could now forget, and 
had brought us from the very borders of a most distant grave, 
to life and friends and civilisation. Long accustomed, however, 
to a cold bed on the hard snow or the bare rock, few could sleep 
amid the comfort of our accommodations. JI was myself com- 
pelled to leave the bed which had been kindly assigned me, and 
take my abode in a chair for the night, nor did it fare much 
better with the rest. It was for time to reconcile us to this 
sudden and violent change, to break through what had become 
habit, and to inure us once more to the usages of our former 
days.” 
I have no time to relate how Ross was received in England, 
and what honours were heaped upon him; honours conferred 
with all the better grace that the nation had not forgotten him 
during his long-protracted absence, and had no cause to blush 
for culpable neglect. For Britain has ever considered it her 
duty to help and assist the men who venture their lives in the 
cause of science and for the advancement of her glory; nor will 
she allow the officer who carries her standard into unknown 
lands, and there falls a victim to nature or to man, to perish 
without feeling his last moments gladdened by the conviction, 
that, however distant his grave, the eye of his country rests upen 
him. 
Thus when Back, that noble Paladin of Arctic research, 
volunteered to lead a relief expedition in quest of Ross, £4000 
were immediately raised by public subscription to defray the 
expenses of the undertaking. While deep in the American wilds 
Back was gratified with the intelligence that the object of his 
search had safely arrived in England, but, instead of returning 
home, the indefatigable explorer resolved to trace the unknown 
course of the Thlu-it-scho, or Great Fish River, down to the 
distant outlet where it pours its waters into tle polar seas. It 
would take a volume to recount his adventures in this wonderful 
expedition, the numberless falls, cascades, and rapids that ob- 
structed his progress; the storms and snow-drifts that vainly 
