246 
GROUNDS OF HOPE. 
countries, produces its results rapidly. It requires 
liardly a single winter to tell who are to be thfe heat¬ 
making and acclimatized men. Petersen, for instance, 
who has resided for two years at Upernavik, seldom 
enters a room with a fire. Another of our party, George 
Riley, with a vigorous constitution, established habits 
of free exposure, and active cheerful temperament, has 
so inured himself to the cold, that he sleeps on our 
sledge-journeys without a blanket or any other covering 
than his walking-suit, while the outside temperature is 
30° below zero. The half-breeds of the coast rival the 
Esquimaux in their powers of endurance. 
“ There must be many such men with Franklin. The 
North British sailors of the Greenland seal and whale 
fisheries I look upon as inferior to none in capacity to 
resist the Arctic climates. 
“ My mind never realizes the complete catastrophe, 
the destruction of all Franklin’s crews. I picture them 
to myself broken into detachments, and my mind fixes 
itself on one little group of some thirty, who have found 
the open spot of some tidal eddy, and under the teach¬ 
ings of an Esquimaux or perhaps one of their own 
Greenland whalers, have set bravely to work, and 
trapped the fox, speared the bear, and killed the seal 
and walrus and whale. I think of them ever with 
hope. I sicken not to be able to reach them. 
“It is a year ago to-day since Ave left New York. I 
am not as sanguine as I was then: time and experience 
have chastened me. There is every thing about me to 
check enthusiasm and moderate hope. I am here in 
