Iii the Arctic lug ions. 4GD 



CHAPTER XVII. 



On the 26th of May, 1S45, Franklin— long since 

 made Sir John Franklin — with the " Erebus" and 

 " Terror," two strong and well made vessels, with 

 140 men set out on his last Arctic Expedition, and 

 from which he has never returned. 



A letter from Sir John Franklin, dated from the 

 Whaiefish Islands, Baffin's Bay, July 12, 1845, is the 

 last communication from the Expedition ever received 

 in England : their first winter-quarters have been dis- 

 covered, as we shall relate presently ; hut from the 

 spring of 184G all traces vanish ; no grave, no cairn, 

 no relic marks their progress ; no broken spar or shat- 

 tered mast give even the melancholy certainty of ship- 

 wreck and death ; the waters and the wilder] 

 guard their strange secret well, and " there is neither 

 voice nor any that answereth," to guide the progress 

 of the noble-minded men who voluntarily dare the 

 same dread fate in their Bearch for their missing com- 

 rades. How arduously and well that search has been 

 prosecuted, it will be impossible here to relate. 



