464 THE FRANKLIN SEAIiCH—18A8-51. 



dinner was preparing, I walked to the highest point of the island, the soil of 

 which was pretty profusely strewed with flowers, and got a good view round." 

 The prospect, however, was not encouraging. It was Pullen's aim to sail 

 along the Arctic shores in a westward direction to about the mouth of the 

 Coppermine, and from this quarter to explore the shores of Banks Land and 

 Wollaston Land, on which, he surmised, Franklin and his party might pro- 

 bably be found. But the route westward, he now perceived, was closed by 

 an unbroken barrier of ice, and progress was, in the meantime, impossible. 

 Hitherto the weather had been exceedingly hot, and the mosquitoes and 

 gad-flies correspondingly tormenting. On the 20th, the temperature was 84° 

 in the shade, and the insects, clouds of which darkened the air, were insati- 

 able. " Apart from the great annoyance of the mosquitoes," writes Hooper, 

 on this day of tropical warmth, " it was curious to notice one of these little 

 torments settle upon one's skin, and how its shrunk carcase distended to 

 quadruple its original size as it gorged itself with blood, the crimson fluid 

 showing plainly beneath, until at last it became almost incapable of flight. 

 Each one of these tiny creatures will extract a large drop of blood, so that, 

 where they are numerous, one may suffer considerably by their homoeopathic 

 phlebotomy as well as by the distressing irritation they produce." 



Pelly Island was reached on the evening of the 22d. On Kendall Island, 

 on which the party encamped on the night of the 23d, the Indian hunters 

 who had been hired to accompany the expedition and keep it provided with 

 game, brought down a deer, which, when dressed, afforded 160 pounds of good 

 meat. Another deer was knocked over on Richard Island on the 24th, and 

 for a brief interval, at least, the explorers were gratified by having venison 

 steaks in place of the usual comfortless pemmican and cold water. After 

 three days' detention on the marshy beach of Hutchinson's Bay, the party 

 got away on the 29th ; but the day was spent in a vain endeavour to reach 

 the open sea over fields of ice, which lay in flat pieces several acres in extent 

 and seven or eight feet thick, or rose in masses twenty or thirty feet high, 

 like the ruins of a town of ice. In crossing these icy fields, the party suffered 

 much from cold. " It is difficult," exclaims Hooper, " for inexperience to 

 conceive how greatly chilled the wind becomes in its passage over ice ! Here, 

 in the month of July, a south breeze, which should have been the softest 

 and warmest exhalation of ^olus, stagnated the blood by its frost-becharged 

 breath. ... It was hoped," continues the same writer, " that, the season 

 being favourable, the expedition descending the Mackenzie would reach the 

 sea about the 23d of July, and gain Cape Bathurst in a few days. Thence 

 it was intended to strike right across for Banks Land, a distance of rather 

 more than 300 miles. This accomplished, future operations would have to 

 depend upon the contingencies then arising. It was not our good fortune to 

 achieve this grand undertaking. The season was, as regarded ourselves. 



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