368 SIMPSON'S EXPLORA TYOTV^S'— 1836-39. 



covered and named Hargrave Eiver, and on the 22d he passed a conspicu- 

 ous hill which he named Mount George, and a headland which he named 

 Point Ballenden. On the 23d (the men already suffering much from swell- 

 ing and inflammation in the legs) the travelling was exceedingly painful — 

 the beach and slopes being formed of loose stones, and traversed by numerous 

 brooks and streams. The party, however, continued to push on with great 

 spirit and pluck, full of eager expectation respecting the coast they were 

 traversing and the line of high land, away across the ice, which they had first 

 seen a few days previously, and which ran parallel to the coast they were 

 traversing at a distance of about twenty miles north. " Along the distant 

 shore of this strange land," writes Simpson, " the beams of the declining sun 

 were reflected from a broad channel of open water ; while on the coast we 

 were tracing, the ice still lay immovable, and extended many miles to seaward. 

 As we drew near, in the evening, an elevated cape, land appeared all round, 

 and our worst fears (that the coast-line of the Polar Sea was not continuous 

 eastward) seemed confirmed. With bitter disappointment I ascended the 

 height, whence a vast and splendid prospect burst suddenly upon me. The 

 sea, as if transformed by enchantment, rolled its free waves at my feet, and 

 beyond the reach of vision to the eastward. Islands of various shape and 

 size overspread its surface ; and the northern land terminated, to the eye, 

 in a bold and lofty cape, bearing east-north-east, thirty or forty miles dis- 

 tant, while the continental coast trended away south-east. I stood, in fact, 

 on a remarkable headland, at the eastern outlet of an ice-obstructed strait. 

 On the extensive land to the northward I bestowed the name of our most 

 gracious sovereign Queen Victoria. Its northern visible extremity I called 

 Cape Pelly, in compliment to the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company ; 

 and the promontory where we encamped Cape Alexander, after an only 

 brother." Cape Alexander, a rounded, rocky ridge, two or three hundred 

 feet high, is in lat. 68° 56' N., long. 106° 40' W. 



The route of the party was now south-south-east round the eastern shore 

 of Kent Peninsula, and at six p.m. on the 24th they discovered a large bay 

 running far away to the south and south-east, and studded with islands. 

 The five days allotted for outgoing were now expired, and the leader there- 

 fore prepared for the return journey. Two miles south of his encampment 

 (lat. 68° 43' N., long. 106° 3' W.) he discovered and named Beaufort Eiver. 

 There had been no occasion to use the portable canoe they had brought 

 with them ; they therefore buried it in the sand at the foot of a noticeable 

 rock on the beach, that they might know where to find it the following 

 year, and thus lightened they commenced retracing their steps to Boat- 

 haven, where Mr Dease had been left in charge of the boats and the re- 

 mainder of the party. As they marched along in the piercing wind, they 

 noticed a number of sandpipers and other birds lying dead in several places 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



