CHAKLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INISTJITS. 



467 



of the Esquimaux. I now return to their country able to speak with them, to 

 live among them, to support my life in the same manner that they do theirs ; 

 to migrate with them from place to place, and to traverse and patiently explore 

 all the region in which it is reasonable to suppose Franklin's crew travelled and 

 perished. I shall be accompanied by the two intelligent Esquimaux, Ebierbing 

 and Tookoolito, who, having accompanied me on my return from my first 

 expedition, and after remaining with me for two years, now go back with me 

 on this second voyage. I enter upon this undertaking with the liveliest hope 

 of success. I shall not, like previous explorers, set my foot on shore for a few 

 days or weeks, or, like others, journey among men whose language to me is 

 unintelligible. I shall live for two or three years among the Esquimaux, and 

 gain their confidence ; and I have the advantage of understanding their lan- 

 guage, and of making all my wishes known to them." 



This second expedition of Hall, instead of the two or three years which he 

 had anticipated, occupied more than five years, during a great part of which 

 he was shut out from all communication with the world. Up to 1867, he 

 wrote as opportunity afforded to his fast friend and warm supporter, Henry 

 Grinnell; but his letters gave only faint indications of what he hoped to 

 accomplish. He had expected to return in 1868, but in that year no whaling 

 vessels came back from the Arctic seas, and he Avas doomed to another year 

 in that region. Late in 1869 he returned, and was received with plaudits not 

 less warm than those which had welcomed Kane, fifteen years before. Con- 

 gress in a few months passed a bill making adequate appropriations for a 

 national expedition to the Arctic regions, to be placed under the direction of 

 Hall. On the day following Christmas, 1870, 1 met Hall in New York. He 

 was little changed in appearance from the aspect which he had borne five years 

 before, as shown upon page 434 of this volume. He was busily engaged in 

 preparations for his new voyage, and was in high spirits. " I have demonstra- 

 ted in my own person," he said, " that white men can live, with no extraor- 

 dinary sufferings, for years in the depths of the Arctic regions. I have lived 

 there for years, and can teach my associates how to do so. Upon this new 

 expedition I shall be amply provided with all means for a thorough explora- 

 tion. I shall have with me a scientific observer, a naturalist fully qualified 

 to report upon every thing in his department, ^nd an artist and photographer, 

 who will be able to depict every thing relating to the Arctic regions. Thus 

 abundantly supplied, and aided by my own experience of more than ten years, 

 I think that I shall be able to accomplish something worthy of the means 

 placed at my disposal." 



About the time when these pages meet the eye of the reader. Hall will 

 have set out on his third expedition. We bid him, by anticipation, " Hail, 

 and farewell." 



Livingstone says that he found it easier to perform his African journeys 

 than write the account of them. Something like this may be the case with 

 Hall ; at all events, so fully has he been occupied in fitting out his third expe- 

 dition that he has not found time to prepare the narrative of the one which 



