624 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT, ROSS. 
depended upon the boats, and as the probability existed, that 
the Fury’s boats might either be washed off the beach, or had 
yielded to the rigorous influence of the weather, :t became a 
matter of no small importance to keep possession of the boats, 
which they had brought away from the Victory ; and therefore 
Capt. Ross was reduced to the desperate expedient of inventing 
some fictitious tale, which should lead his crew to believe, that 
the stores of the Fury would not be found on the beach, for 
which reason it was supposed, that they would redouble their 
exertions to take the Victory’s boats along with them. In this 
respect, however, the calculations of Capt. Ross turned out to 
be false: for, greatly as the men might be disposed to drag the 
boats along with them, it was found not to be within the com¬ 
pass of possibility ; and all, therefore, which Capt. Ross gained 
by his manoeuvre, was, that he had damped the spirits of his 
men, and laid himself open to the imputation of having adopted 
a line of conduct, at once senseless, selfish, and inhuman. 
For the first three days, after leaving the place where the 
boats were abandoned, the travelling was exceedingly bad, ami 
put the strength of the men to the utmost stretch. Capt. Ross 
was now found to be, in the expressive language of the sailors, 
a feather-bed traveller; and although the men grumbled not at 
dragging along the lame, the blind, and the halt, yet they ex¬ 
pected that some part of the boastings of Capt. Ross would be 
verified, and that he would employ whatever strength he had, in 
the dragging of the sledges, and animate his men, by the ex¬ 
ample of an active participation of their labor, and a proud 
resolution to share with them the slavery of their task. The 
reverse was, however, the case, for Capt. Ross generally booked 
himself as an inside passenger of the most commodious of 
the sledges, taking ever and anon a stimulating refresher from 
his provision bag, and enjoying the cold sublimity of the scene 
around him, with all the coolness of the most accomplished 
stoic. 
After four days travelling they arrived at a part of the coun¬ 
try, where the land was very low and swampy, and the progress 
they made, was slow and limited ; under these circumstances 
