SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA. 205 



getation consisted of various shrubby plants 

 in flower, grasses, and mosses ; the beach 

 covered with pebbles of granite, greenstone, 

 quartz, and lydian-stone. 



When Captain Franklin left England to 

 proceed on this expedition, he had to un- 

 dergo a severe struggle between the feel- 

 ings of affection and a sense of duty; his 

 wife then lying at the point of death, and, 

 with heroic fortitude, urging his departure 

 at the very day appointed — entreating him, 

 as he valued her peace and his own glory, 

 not to delay a moment on her account : she 

 died, we believe, the day after he left her. 

 This will explain the allusion to personal 

 sorrows in the following passage — a passage 

 which will speak to the heart of every one 

 who is capable of understanding the grace 

 that domestic tenderness lends to the gal- 

 lant fortitude of public enterprize : — 



" During our absence, the men had 

 pitched the tent on the beach, and I caused 

 the silk union-flag to be hoisted, which my 

 deeply-lamented wife had made and pre- 

 sented to me, as a parting gift, under the 



