296 EXPEDITIONS OF PARRY AND ROSS~1827-SS. 



""We found the coast almost lined with coal," writes the captain ; " and it was 

 with no common interest that we proceeded to the only tent which remained 

 entire. This had been the mess-tent of the ' Fury's ' officers ; but it was 

 too evident that the bears had been paying it frequent visits. . . . Where 

 the preserved meats and vegetables had been deposited, we found every- 

 thing entire. The canisters had been piled up in two heaps ; and though 

 quite exposed to all the chances of the climate for four years, they had not 

 suffered in the slightest degree. There had been no water to rust them, and 

 the security of the joinings had prevented the bears from smelling their con- 

 tents. Had they known what was within, not much of the provision would 

 have come to our share." . . . Opening the canisters, and expecting to 

 find the contents of each a frozen mass, Eoss was agreeably disappointed. 

 Neither in appearance nor in taste had the articles suffered any deteriora- 

 tion. The wine, spirits, sugar, bread, flour, and cocoa, were found to be all 

 in equally good condition ; neither the lime-juice nor the pickles, indispens- 

 able as remedies for scurvy, had suffered much, and even the sails, which 

 had been well made up, were not only dry but seemed as if they had never 

 been wetted. 



Here, then, in the midst of what is perhaps the least sheltered region of 

 the Arctic zone, and the least productive in material useful for food, Captain 

 Eoss had made the extraordinary "find" of a commissariat plentifully and 

 almost completely stored with all that he should require to keep his expedi- 

 tion well supplied throughout the winter, even although he had not a day's 

 rations left in the hold of the "Victory." That vessel, however, had been 

 furnished with provisions for a thousand days, or roundly for two years and 

 a half, and though the stores had already been liberally drawn upon, enough 

 was left to secure the expedition against privation for at least one year. • It 

 is sometimes curious to note how Time "brings in his reveiiges." In 1818 

 Eoss had declared that Lancaster Sound was closed to the westward by a 

 rampart of mountains ; in the following year Parry sailed over the district 

 which these mountains were supposed to occupy, and proved, by opening up 

 Lancaster Sound, Barrow's Strait, and the North- West Passage (in this 

 latitude) as far west as Bank's Land, that Eoss, in his voyage of the previous 

 year, had been completely mistaken. It does not appear that Eoss ever quite 

 forgave the junior officer who had proved him to be in the wrong ; and in 

 the "Narrative " of his second voyage, the outline of which we are now trac- 

 ing, the senior navigator argues through two or three bitter pages that 

 Parry, when acting as his second in command in the expedition of the 

 "Isabella" and "Alexander" in 1818, was not of the opinion that Lancaster 

 Sound was open towards the west ; and -that if he did entertain such an 

 opinion, his first duty was to communicate his impression to his superior 

 officer. The discussion has sunk irrecoverably into the limbo of things never 



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