436 The Weak Part of HalTs Record. 



Land, ao'greg-atino" more tlian 3,000 miles. His vovag-e out and return, 

 his surveying work around Repulse Bay, and the sledge jou)-neys just 

 referred to, foot up in miles a considerable excess over the figures 

 10,000. 



It has not been out of place to say that, besides the extreme of enthu- 

 siasm, a fascination for Arctic life seems to have laid hold upon him — 

 the fascination which in one or another form makes the traveler restless 

 while off from his journey, as it does the sailor when off the sea. If 

 it seem strange to the landsman that the shipwrecked mariner is ready 

 for a new cruise, and, in his own feelings, safer in a storm on the sea 

 than on the land, it is as strange to contemplate the eager return to 

 Arctic adventure and dangers b}^ such sufferers as Franklin, Back, 

 Kichardson, Hall, and their comrades. Faith in an overruling Provi- 

 dence and in the cardinal doctrines of the Christian religion was 

 evidently inwrought in them ; in Hall, probably from the date of 

 his earliest home training. Full expression of this is found in his 

 journals. 



The weakest part of the record for the years of which this 

 KaiTative speaks is, perhaps, his permitting himself to tuni aside from 

 his long-proposed journey to King William's Land and lose a year by 

 his visit to the straits of Fury and Hecla. His motive, however, for 

 this was sincerely in keeping with the purposes of the expedition. The 

 possibility of yet finding a survivor of Franklin's party again loomed* 

 up before his enthusiastic view, and he thought himself fully justified 

 ill iiinking search for traces of those of whom the Innuits so confi- 

 <l('iitly nnd unitedly spoke as existing in the Peninsula. If his judg- 

 ment wfLS tlien at fault, his motives were as commendable as tliev had 



