174 
LAS'! VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
misrepresentations, which are to be found in the narrative of all 
travellers from the time of Cain, whom we have good reason to 
suppose was the first traveller into a distant country, to that of 
Capt. Ross, for the discovery of the north west passage. 
It is under the impression of these inconvertible truths, that 
we have endeavoured to be as minute as possible in the descrip¬ 
tion of the pedagogic establishment of the Victory, as it may 
serve as a pattern to all future voyagers, whose destiny it may 
be to sojourn during the winter in the Arctic regions, with little 
but their own thoughts, and the prospect of being frozen to death 
to amuse them, during a dreary night of three months duration. 
Accordingly we have dived deeply into every document, in order 
to discover if the system of education adopted on board the Vic¬ 
tory was according to the plan of Bell or Lancaster, or whether 
the preference was given to the grammar of Cobbett or Murray ; 
considering the knowledge which we posses^ of the undeniable 
competency of several individuals on board, to form a correct 
judgment of the respective merits of the two works, but notwith¬ 
standing all our researches in that particular subject, we are as 
completely in the dark, as Capt Ross himself regarding the 
existence of the north west passage; nevertheless, we are enabled 
to state thus far much, and in which we are borne out by our own 
personal experience, that as far as regards the progress which 
the pupils made in the several branches of learning, it was so 
decidedly confirmed, that we discovered that if they could not 
read nor write when they entered on board the Victory, they 
were exactly in the same condition when they left it. This is 
however, not done with any intent to cast any slur upon the 
pedagogic talents of those who undertook the task, as arduous 
as that of discovering the north west passage itself, of teaching 
a full-grown sailor, who has hitherto known but four letters oT 
the alphabet, and those are engraved on the compass, in the 
binnacle, the art of reading the 1st Chapter of the 1st Book of 
Chronicles, or to indite a tender epistle to his inamorata in Rat- 
cliffe Highway, or the Point at Portsmouth, in which, although 
the writer was at the moment of its transcription, living in a 
temperature of 20 degrees below Zero, he could ex i ress his 
