310 EXPEDITIONS OF PARRY AND ROSS— 1827-23. 



" Victory." The vessel was again moving in free water, and at four in the 

 morning Eoss cast off, and with reefed topsail stood to the north-east along 

 the shore on his return voyage up Eegent's Inlet towards the home he pined 



for. " Unluckily," continues Eoss but we need not quote further. It 



was the old, old, detestably old, story of atlverse winds driving the vessel on 

 a rocky, ice-fringed shore. After running four miles, the " Victory " entered 

 a little bay, " which," says Eoss, with a naweU one would hardly give him 

 credit for, " we found to be secure from all points of the compass, except 

 four." One might almost as reasonably talk of the shelter afforded by a 

 coverless umbrella. The bay in which the " Victory " was moored was 

 found to be in lat. 70° 18'. On the 31st a survey of the situation was made, 

 and Eoss found " everything blocked up with ice." Two hares were shot, 

 and it Avas with a mournful foreboding that the sportsmen noticed that the 

 fur of the animals was white — in other words, that winter had already com- 

 menced its reign in these happy regions of Boothia Felix. 



The " sweet little cherub that sits up aloft," and is supposed to look after 

 the interests of " Poor Jack," does not appear to have been a passenger in 

 the "Victory." In all the annals of Arctic Exploration it would be difficult 

 to name any vessel that was so long and so continuously unlucky. There 

 was assumption, if not presumption, in naming her the " Victory," for even 

 her advances were only a succession of defeats ; and now, after three years 

 of fruitless, or nearly fruitless, exploration within the Arctic circle, she was 

 frozen up for the third winter in what is perhaps the worst harbour in the 

 Arctic regions. " It was out of the track of animals," says Eoss, " there 

 were no rivers, and we did not know of any fish in the small lakes near us. 

 If we could not, therefore, look for any supplies from these sources, neither 

 could we from the natives, as the interval between them and us was filled 

 with unpassable ice. If our aspect was a southern one, yet there were high 

 hills to the southward which much shortened the already too short visits of 

 the sun." Yet to this inlet of starvation the gay commander was incon- 

 siderate enough to give the name of Victoria Harbour ! The only victory 

 likely to manifest itself in this quarter was the victory of the grave. 



Arid, dull, and dreary as his winter home is Eoss's record of his sojourn 

 in Victoria Harbour. Toward the close of the year scurvy began to affect 

 the crew. On the 10th January 1832, James Dixon, one of the seamen, 

 died; and Buck, another seaman, who had been for some time sub- 

 ject to epilepsy, soon after became blind. " Our medical report," writes 

 Eoss on the 31st, " begins now to be very different from what it had hitherto 

 been. All were much enfeebled, and there was a good deal of ailment with- 

 out any marked diseases. An old wound in my own side had broken out 

 with bleeding, and I knew too well that this was one of the indications of 

 scurvy." Altogether, the spirit of the Arctic realm seemed resolved to assert 



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