XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 



generally could scarcely view it with favour, for the 

 reason that comparatively but a very inconsiderable 

 number of its members could hope to share in so small 

 an enterprise, while the honours and rewards which in 

 consequence fell to the lot of the favoured few who 

 could, indirectly tended to check the ordinary flow of 

 promotion in a service where advancement is proverbi- 

 ally not too rapid. Yet, against all these and other 

 obstacles, a few enthusiastic men, principally those 

 who had been engaged in former voyages, cordially 

 aided by — or perhaps, more correctly speaking, aiding — 

 ardent and influential geographers such as Murchison 

 and Eawlinson, succeeded in carrying their point. It 

 is probable, however, that without pressure of another 

 character, success might have been long delayed. 

 During our protracted inactivity other nations had not 

 been idle. The United States of America, which had 

 generously joined with us in the search for Franklin, 

 made several bold and more or less successful attempts 

 to reach a high northern latitude, and Hall in this 

 respect had all but won the palm from Parry. Peter- 

 mann, the eminent German geographer, had been as 

 warm and earnest an advocate of Polar research as 

 some of our own men of science, and had roused the 

 enthusiasm of his countrymen, who with Sweden and 

 Austria also entered the held ; and if, with their limited 

 means, they did not achieve great discoveries, they 

 proved that they were not less enterprising or less 

 endowed with those gifts of perseverance and endur- 

 ance than our own countrymen. Certainly, from a 

 scientific point of view, they did not accomplish less ; 

 but what was, perhaps, more convincing still, they 

 encountered greater perils and underwent more severe 

 hardships than any expedition from our shores, pro- 



