EXPEDITIONS FROM THE PACIFIC SIDE. 



in nourishment, and after six table-spoonfuls we cried, ' Hold ! enough ! ' But there came 

 a day when we sat hungry and lean, longing for this coarse mess, and eating a pound of it 

 with avidity, and declaring it to be delicious ! " Frozen cold pork was found delicious with 

 biscuit and a steaming cup of tea. 



During the long winter, fancying it possible they were in the neighbourhood of 

 Franklin's party, rockets were fired and small balloons sent off. The latter carried slow 

 matches five feet long, which, as they burned, let loose pieces of coloured paper, on which 

 were printed their position and other information. A carrier pigeon, despatched on one 

 occasion by Sir John Ross from his quarters in the Arctic in 1850, reached its old home 

 in Ayr, Scotland, in five days, having flown 3,000 miles ! Numerous sledging parties 

 were despatched from the various ships above-named, but without obtaining any further 

 information regarding Franklin. 



M'Clure's expedition has been generally regarded only in connection with the dis- 

 covery of the North-west Passage, but he also engaged in the search for Franklin. 

 With him was associated Captain Collinson, and both were ordered to proceed via 

 Bearing Straits to the Arctic. The Enterprise, commanded by the latter, proceeded a 

 little in advance of the Investigator, commanded by M'Clure, which left Plymouth on 

 January 20th, 1850. Late in July the Arctic Circle was crossed, and shortly afterwards, 

 at different dates, the Plover and Herald were met. Captain Kellett, of the latter, 

 reported the discovery of the new land north of Behring Straits since always asso- 

 ciated with his name. It was covered with lofty and broken peaks, and Kellett thought 

 it to be the same as described by Wrangell, the Russian explorer, on the authority 

 of natives. Some doubt has at times been thrown on this discovery, but it has been 

 since sighted by an American whaler. 



On August 21st the Investigator reached the Pelly Islands, and crossed the mouth 

 of the great Mackenzie River. Little did M'Clure think that the day after, Lieutenant 

 Pullen, H.M.S. Herald, with a boat's crew, was returning from a visit to Cape Bathurst, 

 and must have passed at a distance of a few miles, a convincing proof of the easiness 

 of missing one another in the Arctic seas. Shortly afterwards they met a number of 

 natives, and held some communication with them. Osborn says that " when asked why 

 they did not trade with the white men up the big river (i.e., the Mackenzie), the 

 reply was they had given the Indians a water which had killed a great many of them, 

 and had made others foolish, and they did not want any of it ! " This statement is 

 rather doubtful, as the Hudson's Bay Company does not, as the writer well knows, 

 trade in spirits, at least in those remote districts ; and further, if they did, it would be 

 a very unusual circumstance for natives to decline it, as the whalers and traders on the 

 coast know full well. 



"On September 17th the Investigator had reached her farthest eastward position 

 in long. 117 10'; and a couple of days afterwards, it was decided, instead of returning 

 to seek a harbour, to winter in the pack ice. It was a dangerous, though a daring 

 experiment, but the fact that it might facilitate expeditions for the relief of Franklin 

 seems to have been uppermost in the commander's mind. The ice was not yet strong 

 enough to remain tranquil, and M'Clure had provisions and fuel on deck, and boats 



