THE FEANKLIN EXPEDITION 463 



" The Schwatka expedition is memorable for having 

 achieved a very remarkable and almost unprecedented sledge 

 journey of over three thousand miles, in course of w^hich it 

 vras absent from its base of operations eleven months and 

 twenty days. It is difficult to say which most to admire — 

 the daring of the plan or the skill that wrought its success. It 

 was the first expedition which deliberately and systematically 

 placed its reliance for the support of its human members and 

 draught animals on the game resources of the country. It 

 was the first, moreover, in which the white men lived almost 

 wholly on the same food as their Eskimo allies. So well and 

 thoroughly did it do its work that we may venture the asser- 

 tion that probably not a single mart of the Eranklin expedition 

 now lies with unbleached bones on the inhospitable snow — for 

 each a decent grave had been dug. Where nature had not 

 anticipated their efforts, or the retreating crews themselves 

 performed the last sad office, and paid the last sad tribute of 

 respect to their comrades, it was discharged by Lieutenant 

 Schwatka and his companions. From the incomplete condi- 

 tion of the skeletons discovered, their inextricable confusion 

 and the wide area over which they were scattered, it was 

 difficult to compute with any certainty the number interred, 

 and while some estimated it as high as forty, others placed 

 it is as low as seventeen. 



" An impenetrable shroud of mystery has forever de- 

 scended upon the latest struggle and sufferings o'f Franklin's 

 ill-fated crews. We can but think of them as wan and 

 haggard skeletons rather than men, dragging their slow steps 

 across the rough and difficult ice, growing fainter, feebler 

 every hour, and at last succiunbing to the fatal influence of 

 the Arctic climate. 'No loving wife, mother or sister to 

 receive their last sigh — alone in that fearfully depressing 

 Polar silence they passed away to the Great Beyond !" 



Admiral Sir Frederick Richards, E.N., has stated that 

 comment on Schwatka' s remarkable undertaking seemed 

 superfluous, for the reason, so far as he knew, it stood un- 

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