Its light shall linger round us yet
Bright, radiant, blest.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN. I.
The sad fate of Sir John Franklin and his gallant companions is rendered still more melancholy by the reflection that some at least of them might have been saved. When no news arrived in 1846 prompt measures should have been taken, but the Admiralty asked advice and did nothing.
Dr King, who accompanied Sir George Back down the Great Fish River in 1833, made earnest and repeated appeals to the Admiralty and to the Colonial Office in 1847 to send a relief party down that river, and he pointed out quite correctly the position where the Erebus and Terror had been beset. His letters were not even answered. For Sir James Ross told them there was not any reason for anxiety and gave a strongly expressed opinion that the crews of the Erebus and Terror would never under any circumstances make for the Great Fish River. Other authorities concurred. This sealed their fate. Admiral Beechey alone thought that a boat should be sent down that river.
The year 1848 arrived, but no news reached England. Sir John Richardson was accordingly sent out to examine the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers, but not to extend his voyage to the mouth of the Fish River, where even then he might have saved a few. Two ships, the Enterprise and Investigator, were also fitted out to go to the relief of the lost expedition, and Sir James Ross received the command. He was on board the Enterprise, and his old Antarctic first lieutenant Bird, who had been his companion in three of Parry’s voyages, was Captain of the Investigator. But Sir James went in the full conviction that he would meet the Erebus and Terror, or that they would pass him and that he would find them in the Thames on his return.
In his ship were M’Clure, who had been with Back in the Terror, and M’Clintock, greatest of sledge travellers, who was then entering upon his glorious Arctic career. M’Clintock found a good friend in Sir James, who took a great liking for the young lieutenant. Sir James was then forty-eight, with an experience of polar work unrivalled by that of any living man, but he was somewhat shaken by Antarctic work, and lacked elasticity and the qualities of his youth, when he was foremost in keeping his shipmates in high spirits and good health. In person he was short but powerfully built, and was remarkable for his aquiline nose and very piercing black eyes.
The expedition was unfortunate. It was stopped by closely-packed floes across Barrow Strait and across Prince Regent’s Inlet. There was nothing for it but to take refuge for the winter in Port Leopold, at the north-east end of North Somerset.
From this position Sir James could only send a travelling party in the spring for 80 miles to Fury Beach, to ascertain whether any of Franklin’s people had visited the shore there; while he himself made a more extended journey along the northern and western shores of North Somerset. This journey is specially memorable as the initiation of M’Clintock in that art of sledge travelling which he afterwards brought to such perfection.
Sir James Ross arranged for an absence of 40 days, travelling with M’Clintock and two sledges, each dragged by six men. The two tents were 9 feet by 6. They travelled at night, starting after a cup of luke-warm cocoa. Luncheon at midnight consisted of a few mouthfuls of biscuit and frozen meat, with some snow water and half a gill of rum. After the tent was pitched supper consisted of 1 lb. of meat, and 1 lb. of biscuit and the other half gill of rum with lime-juice. But the meat was pork including bone, or preserved meat not weighing nearly what was pretended. It was really less than half a pound of meat, and was quite insufficient.