On the 14th of May, the "Reliance" and "True Blue" sledges reached a wide break in the continuation of the land, looking like a channel, and some heights to the S.W. appeared to mark the opposite shore of a channel full twenty-five miles wide. Captain Ommanney and myself ascended an elevated mass of table-land, and looked upon the wide-spread wintry scene. Landward, to the south, and far over the rugged and frozen sea, all was death-like and silent as the grave: we felt we might have been the first since "creation's morn" to have looked upon it; the very hills were still clothed in their winter's livery, and the eye could not detect the line of demarkation between land and sea. The frozen foot-prints of a musk-ox excited our curiosity, as being the first and only ones we had seen, and, together with like traces of reindeer, a short distance from Cape Walker, was the sum total of the realization of all our once rosy anticipations of beef and venison to be found during the southern journey.
Ptarmigan, in small numbers, were occasionally seen, and about four brace shot; and now and then a stray fox was espied, watching us, although their numerous tracks showed them to be pretty plentiful: traces of hares were very numerous, but none were fallen in with by our sportsmen, except at Cape Walker, where many were seen by later visitors, and several shot; indeed, it appeared as if it was the limit, in this direction, of animal life: the Polar bears, and ergo the seals, not showing themselves west of the same headland in our route.
On the 17th May the "Reliance" and "True Blue" parted company, each having provisions left to enable them to advance for a further period of five days; Captain Ommanney generously allowing me, his junior, to take the search up in a westerly direction, whilst he went down the channel to the southward, which after all ended in a blind bay. I went some fifty miles farther, and, finding the coast trend to the south, endeavoured to march in a westerly direction across the floe. The sledge was light, with only ten days' provision, and the men were well inured to their work; but I saw, that from the severe strains that were brought on the fastenings of the sledge, that wood, iron, and lashings would not long stand it; and as every foot we advanced, progress became more laborious, and risk greater, I desisted in the attempt; for, situated as we were, nigh three hundred miles from our ship, the breaking down of the sledge would have entailed fearful misery, if not destruction, to my party. Turning southward, we again closed the land, when another severe storm, on the 21st of May, obliged us to take shelter in our tent, and remain there until it was time to return.
CONCLUSION OF JOURNEY.
The journey homeward was light work: the sledges were now half emptied; the weather had become mild, being only a little below freezing-point; we knew the ground, and could make short cuts, and by forced marches we succeeded in making two days' journey in one, thereby giving ourselves a double quantity of food to consume. Lost flesh was quickly recovered; and the two sledges, again rejoining, reached by the night of the 4th of June a dépôt formed at Snow-blind Bay.
Here we met Lieutenant Mecham. He informed us that neither by our parties, or those of Penny's, had intelligence of Franklin been brought back by the supporting sledges. There was, however, hope yet: the long parties had not yet come in; and Captain Penny had been stopped by water—open water—early in May. He had again gone out with a boat; and all attention was directed to Wellington Channel, for every one felt that on no other route was there a chance of Franklin being heard of. Lastly, great fears were entertained lest our long parties should not beat those of the "Lady Franklin" and "Sophia" in time and distance; a piece of esprit-de-corps highly commendable, no doubt, but which, I blush to say, I took no interest in, having gone to the Arctic regions for other motives and purposes than to run races for a Newmarket cup, or to be backed against the field like a Whitechapel game-cock.
Whilst Captain Ommanney went to Cape Walker for some observations, we pulled foot (with forced marches) straight across the floe for Griffith's Island. Every hour wasted in the return journey was a crime, we felt, towards those whom we had come here to save. The fast increasing heat told that the open season was at hand: and even if we could not get our ship to the water, we had brought out a number of beautiful boats, built expressly, at a great expense; our foot journeys in the spring had been new and successful, what might we not yet expect from boat expeditions when the floes were in motion?
On reaching that part of the frozen strait which was evidently covered with only one season's ice, namely, that of about three feet in thickness, symptoms of a speedy disruption were very apparent; long narrow cracks extended continuously for miles; the snow from the surface had all melted, and, running through, served to render the ice-fields porous and spongy: the joyful signs hurried us on, though not without suffering from the lack of pure snow, with which to procure water for drinking. At last Griffith's Island rose above the horizon; a five-and-twenty-mile march brought us to it, and another heavy drag through the melting snow carried us to our ships, on the 12th June, after a journey of five hundred miles in direct lines, in fifty-eight days. We were punished for our last forced march by having five out of the sledge-crew laid up with another severe attack of snow-blindness.
Eight-and-forty hours afterwards, Captain Ommanney arrived; he had crossed some of the cracks in the floe with difficulty, aided by a bridge of boarding-pikes; and Lieut. Mecham, with the sledge "Russell," coming from Cape Walker, on the 17th of June, was obliged to desert his sledge, and wade through water and sludge to Griffith's Island, and thence to the ships: showing how remarkably the breaking up of the ice in Barrow's Strait promised to coincide in date with the time it was first seen to be in motion, by Sir E. Parry's squadron, in 1820.
All the parties were now in, except three sledges and twenty-one men, towards Melville Island; the supports in that direction had suffered in about the same ratio as ourselves to the southward; the progress, however, as might be expected where the coast-line was known, was more rapid. The total number of accidents from frost-bites amounted to eighteen, and amongst them were several cases in which portions of injured feet had to be amputated; only one man had fallen, John Malcolm, a seaman of the "Resolute;" he, poor fellow, appears to have been delicate from the outset, having fainted on his road to the place of inspection and departure, in April, 1851.