jTinrch, is6fs.] Preparations for Visiting the Strait. 335 



served vegetables, soups, tobacco, sugar, flom-, &c., still remained (a mucli larger 

 supply than could be Ibuud at many of the Hudson's Bay trading-posts) ; besides, 

 the people would have been in the direct road of searching parties or whalers. 

 The distance to Fury Beach from where the ships were abandoned, roughly 

 measured, is, as nearly as possible, the same as that between the ships and the 

 true mouth of the Great Fish Eiver, or about two hundred and ten geographical 

 miles in a straight line. Had the retreat upon Fury Beach been resolved upon, 

 the necessity for hauling heavy boats would have been avoided, for during the 

 previous season (that of 1847) a small sledge party might have been dispatched 

 thither to ascertain whether the provisions and boats at the depot were safe and 

 available. The successful performance of such a journey should not have been 

 difficult for an expedition consisting of 130 men, who, in the record found in 1859 

 by McClintock, were reported all well in the spring of 1847. 



[In connection with these views of Rae, and in recording Hall's 

 enthusiastic expectations, with the repeated and uniform accounts 

 given to him of some white men having been seen on the peninsula 

 later than 1854 (together with their monument and tenting-place, 

 which he did discover), the questions at this point of the Narra- 

 tive seem irrepressible ; — " Is it possible that some of Franklin's 

 men did make their way eastward to Melville Peninsula!" Will the 

 expedition of 1878 from New York, under Schwatka, or some future 

 explorer lighting on a cairn, ever give the world some answer to this 

 inquiry? for it seems by no means certain that all of the 105 remained 

 under Crozier's leadership toward Back's River. Will the Franklin 

 Records ever be recovered for England and for the world ?] 



During the first three weeks of March, Hall busied himself in 

 making his preparations. After providing for the four white men 

 whom he would leave at the encampment at Talloon, he made his 

 usual deposit of records and stores. An epidemic had again visited 

 the dogs, and his own team had been reduced from twenty-three to 

 eight. Some having died from the disease, he had killed others \o 



