xxviii Introduction. 



our boldest sportsmen ; and a trip to the Polar 

 regions is thought as little of to-day as a hunting 

 excursion to Norway, or a visit to Iceland, was a 

 few years ago. 



Apart from all these facts, which a perusal of 

 Commander Markham's narrative will bring vividly 

 home to the reader, there will be found a synopsis 

 of the remarkable voyage made by the United 

 States discovery vessel " Polaris/' under the late 

 Captain Hall, up Smith's Sound, at the head of 

 Baffin's Bay. This information he was able to 

 procure from the officers of that ship, who were 

 picked up and brought home from her wreck by 

 our whalers during the past summer. It will be 

 remembered, that when England had completed her 

 part in solving the fate of the Franklin expedition 

 — a search which culminated in the voyage of the 

 " Fox," and in Sir Robert McClure's great achieve- 

 ment in. passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic, 

 which laid open the entire geography of the regions 

 between those two oceans — Arctic discovery was 

 for a while allowed to rest. 



But it was not so with our brethren in the 

 United States. They, fired by the achievements of 

 British explorers, and anxious to secure to their 

 countrymen the honour of being equally bold and 

 enduring, sent forth expedition after expedition 

 under Kane, Hayes, and, lastly, Captain Hall, in 

 the " Polaris/' with a view to penetrate the great 



