X PREFACE. 



sailed from Aberdeen on the 1st of July, 1857, 

 upon this eventful enterprise. 



Deep, indeed, was the mortification experi- 

 enced by every one who shared the feelings and 

 anticipations of Lady Franklin when the un- 

 toward news came, in the summer of 1858, 

 that, the preceding winter having set in earlier 

 * than usual, the ' Fox ' had been beset in the ice 

 off Melville Bay, on the coast of Greenland, and 

 after a dreary winter, various narrow escapes, 

 and eight months of imprisonment, had been 

 carried back by the floating ice nearly twelve 

 hundred geographical miles — even to 63|° N. 

 lat. in the Atlantic ! See the woodcut map, 

 No. 1. 



But although the good little yacht had been 

 most roughly handled among the ice-floes (see 

 Frontispiece), we were cheered up by the in- 

 formation from Disco, that, with the exception 

 of the death of the engine-driver in conse- 

 quence of a fall into the hold, the crew were 

 in stout health and full of energy, and that, 

 provided with sufficient fuel and provisions, a 

 good supply of sledging dogs, two tried Esqui- 

 maux, and the excellent interpreter Petersen 

 the Dane,* ample grounds yet remained to 



* Since his return to Copenhagen, Petersen has been worthily 

 honoured by his Sovereign with the silver cross of Dannebrog. 



