CONCLUSION. 
487 
should have been excused, perhaps, for addmg a chap- 
ter also on the probabilities of Sir John Franklin's 
company being yet alive, and the duty of adventurous 
Christendom to persist in the effort for their rescue. 
But the story of our cruise is told ; and my readers 
will be almost as willing as I was to hurry onwards, 
to our own shores. Before these pages can pass through 
the press, I shall have given such assurance as it is in 
my power to give of my convictions that the missing 
party may be found, and should be sought for. If 
God shall favor me, I may be able to speak hereafter, 
from a renewed and more intimate personal knowledge, 
of the habits and feelings of the Greenland people. 
"We left the settlements of Baffin's Bay on the 6th, 
of September, 1851, grateful exceedingly to the kind- 
hearted officers of the Danish posts ; and after a run of 
some twenty-four days, unmarked by incident, touch- 
ed our native soil again at New York. Our noble 
friend, Henry Grinnell, was the first to welcome us on 
the pier-head. 
