506 THE PROGRESS OP MARITIME DISCOVERT. 



were not liberated in the ensuing summer, their diminishing 

 food gave them but little hope of surviving another year. 



It may be imagined how anxiously the aspect of the sea was 

 watched during the ensuing summer, and with what beating 

 hearts they at length embarked on the 15th of August. The 

 spot which the year before they had attained after the most 

 strenuous exertions was soon passed, and slowly winding their 

 way through the ice-blocks with which the inlet was encumbered, 

 they now saw the wide expanse of Barrow's Strait open before 

 them. With spirits invigorated by hope they push on, alternately 

 rowing and sailing, and on the night of the 25th rest in a good 

 harbour on the eastern shore of Navy Board Inlet. " A ship in 

 sight ! " is the joyful sound that awakens them early on the 

 following morning; and never have men more hurriedly and 

 energetically set out, never have oars been more indefatigably 

 plied. But the elements are against them, calms and currents 

 oonspire against their hopes, and to their inexpressible dis- 

 appointment the ship disappears in the distant haze. 



But after a few hours of suspense the sight of another vessel 

 lying to in a calm relieves their despair. This time their exer- 

 tions are crowned with success ; and, wonderful ! the vessel which 

 receives them on board is the same "Isabella" in which Boss 

 made his first voyage to these seas. 



They told him of his own death, and could hardly be per- 

 suaded that it was really he and his party who now stood before 

 them. But when all doubts were cleared away, you should have 

 heard their thrice-repeated thundering hurrahs ! 



The scene that now followed cannot better be told than in 

 Boss's own words : — 



" Every man was hungry, and was to be fed ; all were ragged, 

 and were to be clothed ; there was not one to whom washing 

 was not indispensable ;• nor one whom his beard did not deprive 

 of all human semblance. All, everything, too was to be done 

 at once. It was washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all inter- 

 mingled; it was all the materials of each jumbled together; 

 while in the midst of all there were interminable questions to be 

 asked and answered on both sides ; the adventures of the " Vic- 

 tory," our own escapes, the politics of England, and the news, 

 which was now four years old. 



*' But all subsided into peace at last. The sick were accom- 



