530 THE FRANKLIN SEAECff— 184:8-51. 



application of a simple remedy, the symptoms vanish almost as rapidly as 

 they arise. 



Onward went Ommanney and Osborn, with their crews sorely tried, but 

 always cheerful and ready for any hard work, along the west coast of Prince 

 of Wales Land, until they had reached a point distant about three hundred 

 miles from their ships. Nothing whatever had been discovered to prove 

 that any European had ever set eyes on these solitary and savage shores. 

 Indeed, Markham informs us that " from the shoalness of the water at con- 

 siderable distances from the shore, and the great thickness and apparent age 

 of the ice, it is probable that these seas are seldom, if ever, navigable for 

 ships." This was to a certain extent primd facie evidence against Franklin's 

 having landed here, and although since the time that Markham wrote, opinion 

 respecting the permanence of ice in any tract of the Arctic Sea has been much 

 changed, stiU it was unlikely that the missing ships could have visited these 

 shores, however favourable the season, since no traces of encampments or 

 cairns were discoverable. But Ommanney was chiefly disappointed that no 

 signs of Franklin were to be met with at Cape Walker, a spot so distinctly 

 named in his ofl&cial instructions, — a spot which he could hardly have avoided 

 visiting if he attempted the passage by a southward route at all. But now, 

 neither at Cape Walker, nor along the east and west shores of Prince of 

 Wales Land, southward from the cape, was any trace of the missing expe- 

 dition seen ; all that rewarded the hardy explorers was the view of a barren 

 coast, covered with snow and bounded by the frozen sea — ^monotonous, 

 dreary, and inhospitable. 



Captain Ommanney commenced the return journey to the ships on the 

 6th June. Of most return journeys there is little of interest to be told, but 

 on the 12th, the day before he reached the ships, the gallant captain met 

 with " an adventure." The party had encamped, and the men had just got 

 into their blanket-bags, when, we are informed, " a peculiar noise as if of 

 something rubbing up the snow outside was heard." In these regions of con- 

 tinuous oppressive silence, aU sounds are interesting from their rare occur- 

 rence, if not alarming. But whatever the danger, it was the part of a British 

 seaman and the captain of a discovery ship to be ready to meet it. Om- 

 manney therefore seized his gun, loaded it, cocked it, and then ordered the 

 tent door to be opened. Astonishment, not unmixed with consternation, 

 was depicted on several of the faces that peered out from the blanket-bags, 

 when the opened door disclosed a huge bear at the tent entrance. The cap- 

 tain fired, but owing perhaps to the fact that his limbs were benumbed with 

 cold, or that the light of the Arctic night was ghostly and glimmering, or to 

 the excitement naturally caused by the imusual, not to say tremendous, cir- 

 cumstances of the case, he missed. But his intention was obvious, and the 

 bear, enraged at the uncivil salute, entered the canvas house, knocked over 



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