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THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE

1821-1822

WITH the commencement of the return journey we resume a more detailed narrative; for, if the outward voyage belongs rather to the province of geographical history, and has, as such, been dealt with in the fullest detail by other writers on this subject, the story of the awful struggle back to Fort Enterprise is in a more emphatic sense the property of a biographer of Franklin, and has never, perhaps, been circumstantially related, save by one whom his own modesty forbade to do full justice to the splendid heroism of the exploit.

It is natural to inquire why Franklin took that decision to return to Fort Enterprise by a different route, which was fraught with such disastrous and wellnigh fatal consequences for the expedition; but it appears from his journal that he had no choice. His original intention had been to return as he had come, by way of the Coppermine River, but his very scanty stock of provisions, and the length of the voyage to the mouth of that river, in the very forward state of the season, 'rendered it necessary', he says, 'to proceed to a nearer place; and it was determined that we should go hence to Arctic Sound, where we had found animals very abundant, and entering Hood's River', so named, of course, after Franklin's young officer, 'to advance up the stream as far as it was navigable, and there construct small canoes out of the longer ones. We had already experienced that the country between Cape Barrow and the Coppermine River was inadequate to supply our party, and it seemed probable that it would be still more impracticable now. Besides, we must expect the frequent recurrence of gales, which would cause much detention, if not danger, in proceeding along this very rocky part of the coast.'

So, then, it was resolved, and so done. The fateful decision to return by way of Hood River was taken, it seems, on August 23, and two days later the explorers reached the mouth of the stream to which they had determined to commit themselves and their fortunes. 'Our pemmican', writes Franklin, 'was now reduced so low that we could only issue a few mouthfuls to each person.' Already, indeed, the grave apprehension seems to have occurred to them that they might not live to tell the tale of their adventures. In crossing Riley's Bay 'a tin case was thrown overboard, containing an outline of our proceedings hitherto, and the latitude of the part we turned back from, with a request that it might be forwarded to the Admiralty if picked up.' For another ten days they pursued their way up the Hood River, but on September 3 it became evident that they must abandon it. It was bearing far too much to the westward, and their observations told them that to follow its course would lead them away from the direct route to Fort Enterprise, their destination. Accordingly, on the day named, they definitely resolved to quit its banks, and to strike across the country in a south-westerly direction. Henceforth their journey had to be performed almost entirely on foot over a stony and barren country, but they carried their canoes with them against the event of having to cross any lakes or rivers that might lie on the route, or that flowed in the right direction. And at this point begins a story of unexampled sufferings and of unrivalled fortitude—an ordeal extending with rare and brief intermissions over a period of more than two months.

'We sat down to breakfast at 10.30 on September 4', writes Franklin in his manuscript journal; 'and this', he adds quietly, 'finished the remainder of our meat' Henceforth, and until they should arrive at the distant station where they hoped to find provisions stored for them, they were to be dependent on what they could find in that inhospitable region for their daily food; and they did not find much. Later in the day the hunters 'saw several reindeer, principally males, going to the southward, but could not get them.' To add to their discomforts, a violent storm of wind and rain set in and lasted for the better part of three days. The party, while it was at its height, remained in their tents, but on the third day they determined to push on. They feared from this sudden and totally unexpected change in the weather that winter had begun in earnest, and thought that by delay they would be exposed to increased difficulties, which they would be less able to combat when reduced to a more weakly state by the pangs of hunger. Orders were accordingly given for a start, but it was no easy matter to carry them out. 'The tents and bedclothes were frozen, and even our garments were stiffened by frost and exposure to the keen wind, which blew so piercingly that no one could keep his hands long out of his mittens, and the men, therefore, had great difficulty in arranging their packages. We had no means of making a fire, the moss, at all times difficult to kindle, being covered by the ice and snow. On being exposed to the air I became quite faint with hunger? but on eating a small piece of portable soup I was soon sufficiently recovered to move on with the party. We commenced our cheerless march at 10 A.M. The ground was covered with snow a foot in depth, and we had to pass across swamps and marshy places, sometimes stepping up to the knee in water, and at others on the side of a slippery stone which often brought us down. The men who carried the canoes had a most laborious task. They even frequently fell down, either prostrated by the violence of the wind or by the insecurity of their steps.' One of these accidents had a very serious result. 'The best canoe was so damaged as to be rendered wholly useless. This was indeed a serious misfortune to us, as the remaining canoe had been made through mishap too small, and we were doubtful whether it would be sufficient to transport the party across any river.' But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. 'As the accident could not now be remedied, we determined on turning the materials to the best account. We made a fire of the bark and timbers, and cooked the remainder of the soup and arrowroot' The meal, though scanty enough for men who had been three days fasting, seemed to allay their hunger and refresh them. 'We proceeded in the afternoon over some gravelly hills and across small marshy meadows, and encamped at 6 P.M. A few partridges were killed, and half a one was issued to each person. This, boiled with a small quantity of tripe de roche, formed our supper. A few willows were collected from under the snow, which served to cook our meal and thaw our frozen shoes so that they could be changed.'

As the Arctic delicacy above referred to is destined to play a very prominent though not very agreeable part in the subsequent narrative, it may be as well to pause at this first mention of it to give a brief account of its character and properties.

Tripe de roche, then, is simply a lichen peculiar to these latitudes, and known to botanists, by reason of its circular form and the surface of the leaf being marked with curved lines, as Gyrophora. It is described, with some excess of scientific politeness, as 'edible'; the fact being that it can be eaten, though with extreme difficulty and distaste, by most people, and by others not at all. Hood, as will appear later, belonged to the latter class. Dr. Richardson's account of its qualities and effects is highly unfavourable. 'We used it', he says, 'as an article of food, but, not having the means of extracting the bitter principle from it, it proved nauseous to all, and noxious to several of the party, producing severe bowel complaints.'

On this wretched stuff and what remained to them of their 'bag' of partridges they subsisted for the next three days; and on the 10th, when matters were again becoming serious, they espied, to their great joy, a herd of musk-oxen grazing in a neighbouring valley.

The party instantly halted, and all the hunters were sent out. We beheld their proceedings with the utmost anxiety from the brow of a hill for nearly two hours, and many, I have no doubt, offered fervent prayers for their success. At length they fired, and, to our infinite satisfaction and relief, we beheld an animal fall to the ground, and a second badly wounded, which escaped from them and fled with the rest of the herd. This success infused spirit into our breasts, and animated every countenance. We hastily proceeded to join the hunters, but before our arrival the animal was skinned and cut up. Our appetites were so keen that the raw intestines were eaten on the spot, and pronounced to be excellent. The men requested we might encamp. The tents were quickly pitched; some willows which peeped above the snow were speedily gathered, a fire made, and supper cooked, which was eaten with avidity, the first hearty meal we had had since the morning of September 4. Two of the hunters went after the herd after supper, but could not come up with them.

The flesh of the musk-ox lasted them for three days; and on the fourth they were reduced to their fungoid diet once more. Their journey, too, was now interrupted by discouraging obstacles. On the 13th they found their way barred by a vast lake, and were compelled to coast its rocky shores all that day and part of the next, in the vain endeavour to find a suitable crossing-place. Finding at length that it appeared to terminate in a river at a few miles from their last night's encampment, they resolved on proceeding thither. 'Here,' writes Franklin, 'I cannot forbear mentioning an act of kindness performed by Perrault, one of our Canadian voyageurs, which won the deepest gratitude from every officer. When they were assembled round a small fire, and on the point of starting, he presented each of us with a small piece of meat which he had saved from his own allowance. This act of generosity, so totally unexpected, and coming at such a seasonable time, drew forth tears.'

Hardly had this touching incident occurred, when gunshots were heard in the direction the party were proposing to advance, and soon afterwards the voyageur Crédit appeared with the welcome intelligence that he had killed two deer. Once again, then, they had been rescued from starvation; but it was, on the whole, a day of more disaster than good fortune. The canoe in which Franklin attempted to cross the river was upset, and, although he himself escaped and made his way with difficulty to the opposite bank, the portfolio containing the greater part of his astronomical and meteorological observations was irrecoverably lost. The fate of the canoe itself was for some time in doubt, and 'I cannot', records Franklin, 'express my sentiment on viewing the melancholy scene. Standing, as I did, perfectly alone, unprovided either with gun or ammunition, separated from my companions by the fatal stream, and conscious that if the canoe should be destroyed or rendered so ineffective as to be unable to carry the party across, I never could regain them, my relief and joy can easily be imagined when I perceived the canoe was safe. The officers were so kind as to embark a person to make a fire for me by the first conveyance.' They afterwards moved a little higher up, and the whole party, with their baggage, effected a crossing in safety, though the canoe filled with water at every traverse.

This was September 14, and for another week they struggled slowly on, subsisting mainly on tripe de roche, with the occasional addition of a chance partridge or two, though they were reduced on one day of exceptional straits to devouring some fragments of deer skin and bones, the leavings of the wolves that had killed the animals in the previous spring. So they fared till the 26th, when again they were lucky enough to shoot five small deer, and to fill their bellies for the first time for many days with a substantial meal. But the leader of the party could have found little in these chance strokes of good fortune to relieve the anxiety which his ever-darkening prospects must have inspired. A new cause of disquietude had now presented itself in the demoralisation of the Canadian voyageurs. Peltier, who had received several severe falls in carrying the remaining canoe, refused to be burdened with it any longer, and it was handed over to Vaillant, one of his comrades. The man seemed at first to be managing it so well that Franklin left him a little in the rear, and went on to join the party in advance; but some time afterwards, on going back to search for the men, who were long in coming up, Franklin found to his horror that they had left the canoe behind them. It had been, they alleged, so completely broken by another fall as to be rendered incapable of repair and entirely useless. 'The anguish this intelligence occasioned may be conceived,' he writes, 'but it is beyond my power to describe it. Impressed, however, with the necessity of taking it forward, even in the state in which these men represented it to be, we urgently desired them to fetch it; but they declined going, and the strength of the officers was inadequate to the task. To their infatuated obstinacy on this occasion a great portion of the melancholy circumstances which attended our subsequent progress may perhaps be attributed.' But the wretched voyageurs had, it is evident, got completely out of hand. 'The men now seemed to have lost all hope of being preserved; and all the arguments we could use failed in stimulating them to the least exertion.'

On the 26th of the month they at last struck the Coppermine River, and, as their shortest way to Fort Enterprise was to cross to the opposite bank as soon as possible, the loss of the canoe was now severely felt; for, though the current was swift and there were two rapids in this part of its course, it could have been crossed in a canoe with ease and safety. The river was carefully examined for a ford, but in vain. Then it was suggested that a raft might be made of the willows growing in the neighbourhood, or even that the framework of a boat might be constructed with them and covered with the canvas of the tents; but both those schemes had to be abandoned through the obstinacy of the interpreters and the most experienced voyageurs, who declared that neither raft nor boat would prove adequate to the conveyance of the party, and that they would only be losing valuable time in making the attempt. The fact was that the men did not believe they had reached the Coppermine River, and it needed all the repeated and confident assurance of their officers that they were within forty miles of Fort Enterprise to rouse them from their despondency. They at last began to look more favourably on the boat-building scheme, but it was found that there were no willows tall enough to form the frame of a sufficiently large canoe. The alternative of the raft had to be definitely adopted, and a search was made along the border of Point Lake, which they had reached by this time, for timber suitable to the purpose. The search was fruitless. It led them only to an arm of the lake stretching so far away to the north-east that the idea of rounding it and travelling over so barren a country was 'dreadful', the more so as it was to be feared that other arms equally large might obstruct their path, and that the strength of the party would fail long before they could reach the only part where they were certain of finding pine wood, a point twenty-five miles distant in a direct line.

'While we halted to consider of this subject and to collect our party, the carcase of a deer was discovered in the cleft of a rock into which it had fallen in the spring. It was putrid, but it was little less acceptable to us on that account in our present circumstances, and, a fire being kindled, it was devoured on the spot' Refreshed by this horrible meal, the voyageurs took a more favourable view of the willow considered as a raft-building material, and declared their belief that it would be quite possible to cross the stream on a willow-built raft. The party accordingly having returned about a mile towards the rapid, encamped in a willow copse, and the work of construction was at once set about.

The day following (September 29) was signalised by an act of such splendid and indeed reckless devotion, that, though Franklin himself was not the hero of it, the course of this narrative must be arrested for a moment in order to record it in his own words:—

The men commenced at an early hour to bind up the willows in faggots for the construction of the raft, which was completed by seven o'clock, but as the sticks were green the raft was not sufficiently buoyant to support more than one man. We hoped, however, that if a line could be carried across by this person, the whole party might be transported over the river by hauling the raft backwards and forwards. Several attempts were made by Belanger and Bénoit to convey the raft across, but ineffectually for want of oars. Whenever they had got a short distance from the shore they could not reach bottom with the longest pole we could construct (by tying all the tent-poles together), and then their paddle, which was the only substitute for an oar we had, was inefficient to prevent the raft from being driven into the shore again by the current and a strong breeze, which blew from the opposite side of the river. During these trials all the men had suffered extremely from the coldness of the water (the temperature being 38°), in which they were necessarily immersed, and having witnessed these repeated failures we began to consider the scheme as hopeless. At this time, Dr. Richardson, prompted by a noble and humane desire to relieve his suffering companions, proposed to swim across the river with a line, and when landed to haul the raft over; but this service had near cost his valuable life. He launched into the stream with the line round his middle, but when he had got a short distance from the land his arms became benumbed with the cold and he lost the power of moving them. Still he persevered, and, turning on his back, had nearly gained the opposite shore, when to our infinite alarm we beheld him sink. Happily, the direction he had previously given to haul upon the line was understood, and by our doing so he again appeared upon the surface and was then gently dragged to the shore. He could just articulate when landed. We placed him between blankets, which were arranged before a fire near the spot, and fortunately he was in a state to give some general directions respecting the manner of treating him, and by the blessing of God, and to our great relief, he recovered strength gradually, and after a few hours could converse. We regretted then to learn that the skin of the left side of his body was deprived of feeling owing to the too great heat of the fire, and I am sorry to add he suffered from that inconvenience some months. When he was about to step first into the water he placed his foot on a large dagger-like stone, and received a gash to the bone, but this misfortune did not prevent him from attempting to execute his generous undertaking.

Then follows this piteously graphic detail:—

I cannot forbear to mention how shocked every one was at seeing his debilitated frame when he had undressed, a perfect skeleton of skin and bone. The sight drew from each person an involuntary sigh, and from many of our Canadian voyageurs the pathetic exclamation, 'Ah! que nous sommes maigres!'

A new and more efficient raft was constructed, but the wind, which had been rising, was now too high to allow of their using it. To add to their discomfort, heavy snowfalls set in, and for three days they were detained in their foodless condition, living on scraps of leather and tripe de roche, and unable to cross the river which lay between them and their homeward route. At last the gradual conversion of the voyageurs advanced a further stage. They had risen from the conception of a pinewood to that of a willow raft, and one of them now went further and 'proposed to make a canoe of the fragments of painted canvas in which we wrapped our bedding. The proposal met with an eager assent, and after two days spent upon it the work was pronounced finished. The canoe was brought to the beach, where all the party were assembled in anxious expectation. St. Germain embarked in it amid the heartfelt prayers of his comrades for his success, and contrived to reach the opposite shore. The canoe was then drawn back again by the rope attached to it, and another person transported; and in this manner, by drawing it backwards and forwards, the whole party were conveyed over without any serious accident.'

On their reaching the southern bank of the Coppermine River, which at this part of its course flows nearly east and west, the variable spirits of the voyageurs revived in an extraordinary manner. Each of them shook the officers by the hand, declaring that they now considered the worst of their difficulties over, and they did not doubt of reaching Fort Enterprise in a few days even in their feeble condition. Franklin, however, as he was not liable to their fits of profound depression, so did not share their excessive elation. Judging it to be impossible that the entire party could hold out against famine for the long period of time it would take them to reach Fort Enterprise in their debilitated state, he despatched Back, who was the youngest and most robust of the party, to the Fort with three of the voyageurs to bring back supplies with all possible speed from the store which he had engaged the Indians to deposit at that station. He himself, with Richardson, Hood, Hepburn, the eight remaining voyageurs, and an Iroquois named Michel, struggled on in the rear. Snow had been falling heavily and lay deep on the ground, making their progress distressingly slow.

Mr. Hood, who was now very feeble, and Dr. Richardson, who attached himself to him, walked together at a gentle pace in the rear of the party. I kept with the foremost men, to cause them to halt occasionally until the stragglers came up.

They supped that night off tripe de roche and some scraps of roasted leather. The distance completed by them had been only six miles. In the course of the next day two of the Canadians, Crédit and Vaillant, fell out of the party, and one of their companions came up with the main body bringing the sad tidings that they were unable to proceed further.

Some willows being discovered in a valley near to us, I proposed to halt the party there while Dr. Richardson went back to visit them. I hoped, too, that when the sufferers received the information of a fire being kindled at so short a distance they would be cheered, and use their utmost efforts to reach it; but this proved a vain hope. The Doctor found Vaillant about a mile and a half in the rear, much exhausted with cold and fatigue. Having encouraged him to advance to the fire, after repeated solicitations he made the attempt, but fell down in the deep snow at every step. Leaving him in this situation, the Doctor went about half a mile further back to the spot where Credit was said to have halted, but, the track being nearly obliterated, it became unsafe for him to go further. Returning, he passed Vaillant, who, having moved only a few yards during his absence, had fallen down, was unable to rise, and could scarcely answer his questions. Being unable to afford him any effectual assistance, he hastened on to inform us of his situation.

Another of the voyageurs, J. B. Belanger, then volunteered to go back to Vaillant and bring up his burden. On his return with it he stated that he had found the poor fellow lying on his back, benumbed with cold and incapable of being roused. The stoutest men of the party were earnestly entreated to bring him to the fire, but they declared themselves, as indeed might well be the case, unequal to the task.

A consultation was now held among the officers. Franklin felt that the time had come when the resolution which all no doubt had foreseen and all dreaded must at last be definitely taken. It had become only too clear that the remnant of the little party which had dared and suffered so much together must separate. The Canadians were too weak to bear their burdens further. They begged that they might be allowed to throw them down in order that they might make their way to Fort Enterprise before their strength failed them altogether. Franklin could not but feel that their prayer was irresistible, and that they must be relieved of their loads if their lives were to be saved. Hood, moreover, was now almost too feeble to advance further, and Dr. Richardson offered to remain behind with him and a single attendant, together with any other member of the party who might wish to halt, at the first place at which sufficient wood could be found and enough tripe de roche for ten days' consumption. Franklin in the meantime was to proceed as expeditiously as possible with the other men to the Fort, and send back to them an immediate supply of provisions. The greater part of the ammunition was also to be left behind with Richardson and Hood, as it was hoped that this deposit might be an inducement to the Indians to venture across the Barren Lands to their relief. 'This proposal', writes Franklin, 'was acceded to on my part, though the idea of even a temporary separation from my friends in affliction was extremely distressing to my feelings; but this would be the only arrangement which could contribute to the safety of the party.'

The morning of the next day was mild, with a light breeze from the south, a change of temperature encouraging to the minds of men who contemplated encamping; and on arriving at a cluster of pines a few miles from their last night's resting-place, a tent was pitched, and Dr. Richardson, Hood, and Hepburn prepared to take up their quarters in it. The offer was again repeated that any of the men who felt themselves too weak to proceed at a quick pace should remain behind, but none accepted it. Franklin accordingly set off with seven of the voyageurs, and the party toiled painfully on through deep snow for about four miles and a half, when they were obliged to encamp; but by this time two of his companions were utterly exhausted. Belanger, one of the voyageurs, burst into tears and, declaring he could go no further, begged to be permitted to go back and join the officers in the rear on the following day. The Iroquois Michel soon afterwards joined in the request. Franklin consented to their returning if they felt as weak the next morning, but endeavoured, with that cheery and indomitable pluck which, seems never to have failed him for a moment throughout the whole awful ordeal, to dispel the gloom which this incident had thrown over the party by assuring them that it was but a short distance from the Fort, and that in all probability they would reach it in a few days. No tripe de roche was to be found, and supper consisted of a so-called tea made of herbs. The next morning, Belanger and Michel, not having recovered any of their strength, were sent back again with a letter from Franklin to Dr. Richardson informing him of a more eligible encampment in a pine wood a little further on than the halting-place which had been selected. Perrault was the next to give in and to be sent back, and later in the day Antonio Fontano broke down, and begged, and was permitted, to return. The number of Franklin's companions was now reduced to four—Peltier, Semandré, Bénoit, and Adam. With them he walked on about a mile further, and then encamped for the night under a rocky hill whereon some tripe de roche was seen growing; but the weed was frozen so hard upon the rock that the men could not gather it, and were obliged to sup again on the 'country tea' and some pieces of fried leather.

Next day, however, they were enabled to collect some of the lichen, and to enjoy the first meal they had had for four days past. On October 10 the famine-stricken men were mocked by the appearance on a neighbouring hill of a herd of reindeer, which they were too feeble and too cold to follow. Again no tripe de roche could be found, and once more the country tea and a few strips of fried leather had to serve them for supper.

At last, on October 11, five days after quitting the companions they had left behind them, Fort Enterprise came in sight, and as fast as their exhaustion would permit they hurried forward to enter it. But here the most cruel of all their disappointments awaited the starving wanderers. They staggered into the Fort to find it entirely empty! There was no store of food; no trace of the Indians who had been so straitly charged, and had so repeatedly promised, to provide it; no letter from Mr. Wentzel, the official of the North-western Company, who had travelled part of the way with them, to direct them to any spot where provisions might be found. Even at this appalling moment, however, Franklin's first thought was for others. 'Under these distressing circumstances,' he says, 'my mind was instantly filled with a fearful anxiety for our suffering companions who had been left in the rear, whose safety entirely depended on our sending speedy relief from this place. The whole party shed tears, for it was impossible to divest our minds of the melancholy apprehension that the lives of our companions would in all probability be forfeited.' For their sole comfort they found a letter from Mr. Back, dated the same day, and informing them that he was going to search for the Indians, but was of course doubtful whether he should meet them, as he had no direction to follow, and that, if he failed, he intended to proceed to Fort Providence, should the strength of his party permit, and thence send succour to us. It was evident, however, that any relief from Fort Providence would not only be long in reaching Franklin's party, but could not be sufficiently ample to afford succour to their companions behind.

The first thing, however, was to replenish, however scantily, their own fast-waning fuel of life. Food, if food it could be called, was sought and found, but they were now to partake of the poorest, not to say the foulest, of all their many miserable meals. They lighted in an outhouse on some rotting deer skins, the refuse of their last winter's sojourn at the Fort; they grubbed up some old bones from an ash-heap, and these, with tripe de roche, 'we considered would support us tolerably well for a time.' The bones, though quite acrid from decomposition, were 'pounded and boiled with the tripe de roche and made a very palatable mess.' It was devoured in a temperature ranging from 15° to 20° below zero. Their bodily condition was now truly distressing. They were so weak and emaciated as to be unable to move except for a few yards at a time; they were afflicted with swellings in their joints, limbs, and other parts of their bodies; their eyeballs were dilated; they spoke in hollow, sepulchral tones and their mouths were raw and excoriated, as a result of the fare on which they had subsisted. Adam in particular was suffering terribly, and grew daily worse.

After nine more days spent under these fearful privations, Franklin resolved to set out, with the voyageur Bénoit and the Eskimo Augustus, in search of the Indians, and, equipped with snow-shoes, they started forth on the 20th. On the day after his departure, however, he was unfortunate enough to break one of his snow-shoes, and, fearing lest the accident should retard the progress of the party, Franklin returned to Fort Enterprise after giving Benoit careful instructions as to the course he was to pursue. Another week dragged on its course under the same wretched conditions. Adam and Semandré were now unable to rise from their beds, and Peltier was often too weak to assist his leader in gathering tripe de roche and in searching for bones, which were now becoming more and more hard to find. Nothing, however, could shake Franklin's invincible fortitude or provoke from him a single word of complaint. On the 27th he writes in his journal:—

I have this day been twenty-one years in H.M. service, and exposed to many hardships in my professional career, but was never placed in such a melancholy and affecting situation as the present. However, with sincere praises to Almighty God for His past goodness and protection, I will humbly confide in His gracious mercy and hope for deliverance from this severe trial.

Two days afterwards, to the great surprise and, for a moment, the unmixed joy of the leader, who had almost given them up for lost, Dr. Richardson and Hepburn crawled painfully into the Fort. But Franklin's gratification at their safety was soon to be dashed by the tale of horror which they had to unfold. Poor Hood was dead, murdered, it was supposed, and it was Richardson's own hand that had executed justice on his murderer. Of the whole party that had remained behind and had been reinforced by those of Franklin's detachment whose strength had failed them, and who had been compelled to return, but these two now survived. Perrault and Belanger, the voyageurs who had fallen out of the advance party, were the first to be missed. They were never again heard of, and, though the manner of their death was never conclusively ascertained, there is the strongest ground for suspicion that they were killed by Michel in order that the wretched man might appease the pangs of famine by devouring their bodies. Before, however, their absence had given much anxiety, a more sinister cause for suspecting Michel had arisen. On the morning of Sunday, October 20, Richardson, who had gone out on an expedition to gather lichen, leaving Hood 'sitting before the tent at the fireside arguing with Michel', and Hepburn employed in cutting down a tree for firewood at a short distance off, heard the report of a gun, and shortly afterwards the voice of Hepburn calling to him in tones of great alarm, to 'come quickly.' Hastening back to the camp, he found Hood lying lifeless, shot through the head. Michel, who was standing near him, being questioned as to how it had happened, declared that he had not been present at the moment, and that Hood, whether intentionally or by mischance, had shot himself. But the character alike of the wound and of the weapon entirely precluded belief in the story. The shot had entered the back part of the dead man's head, and passed out at the forehead, and the muzzle of the gun had been applied so close as to set fire to the nightcap behind. The gun itself was of the longest kind supplied to the Indians, and could not have possibly been placed by Hood himself in a position to inflict such a wound. Hepburn, moreover, averred positively that Michel was not absent when the gunshot was discharged, but, on the contrary, was standing on the precise spot from which the fatal shot could have been fired. According to Hepburn's statement, Hood and Michel were speaking to each other in an elevated, angry tone, the former being then seated at the fireside and hidden from him by intervening willows; but on hearing the report he looked up and saw Michel 'rising up from before the tent-door, or just behind where Mr. Hood was seated, and then going into the tent. Thinking that the gun had been discharged for the purpose of cleaning it, he did not go to the fire at first, and when Michel called to him that Mr. Hood was dead a considerable time had elapsed.'

This last circumstance in itself sufficed to demonstrate the falsehood of Michel's account of the matter; for his explanation of his alleged absence was that Hood had 'sent him into the tent for the short gun', an errand which would only have taken a few minutes to execute, so that he must, on his own showing, have for some considerable time withheld the fact of Hood's death from his companions. Strong, however, as were their suspicions, they dared not at the moment openly evince them, and not a word was said to Michel to reveal their belief that he was guilty of the deed. The man, however, 'accused himself by excuse', repeatedly protesting that he was incapable of such a crime, and at the same time taking great care to prevent Richardson and Hepburn from being left alone together. But inasmuch as this chapter of tragic incidents was closed by an act of stern justice and self-protective necessity, which did not, however, escape the censures of the 'armchair critic' at home, it is desirable to let Dr. Richardson himself complete the narrative in his own words. Resolved to push on to the Fort at all hazards, he and his party had struck their camp on the morning of the 23rd, 'thick snowy weather and a head wind' having delayed their departure till that day. Hepburn and Michel had each a gun. Richardson carried a small pistol, which Hepburn had loaded for him:—

In the course of the march Michel alarmed us by his gestures and conduct, was constantly muttering to himself, expressed an unwillingness to go to the Fort, and tried to persuade me to go southward to the woods, where he said he could maintain himself all the winter by killing deer. In consequence of this behaviour and the expression of his countenance, I requested him to leave and to go to the southward by himself. The proposal increased his ill-nature; he threw out some obscure hints of freeing himself from all restraint on the morrow; and I overheard him muttering threats against Hepburn, whom he openly accused of having told stories against him. He also for the first time assumed such a tone of superiority in addressing me as evinced that he considered us to be completely in his power, and he gave vent to several expressions of hatred towards the white people, or, as he termed us in the idiom of the voyageurs, the French, some of whom he said had killed and eaten his uncle and two of his relations. In short, taking every circumstance into consideration, I came to the conclusion that he would attempt to destroy us on the first opportunity that offered, and that he had hitherto abstained from doing so from his ignorance of the way to the Fort, but that he would never suffer us to go thither in company with him. In the course of the day he had several times remarked that we were pursuing the same course that Mr. Franklin was doing when he left him, and that by keeping towards the setting sun he could find his way himself. Hepburn and I were not in a condition to resist even an open attack, nor could we by any device escape from him. Our united strength was far inferior to his, and, beside his gun, he was armed with his pistols, an Indian bayonet, and a knife. In the afternoon, coming to a rock on which there was some tripe de roche, he halted, and said he would gather it whilst we went on, and that he would soon overtake us. Hepburn and I were now left together for the first time since Mr. Hood's death, and he acquainted me with several circumstances which he had observed of Michel's behaviour, and which confirmed me in the opinion that there was no safety for us except in his death, and he offered to be the instrument of it. I determined, however, as I was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of the dreadful act, to take the whole responsibility upon myself, and on Michel's coming up I put an end to his life by shooting him through the head with a pistol. Had my own life alone been threatened, I would not have purchased it by such a measure; but I considered myself as entrusted also with the protection of Hepburn's, a man who by his humane attention and devotedness had so endeared himself to me that I felt more anxiety for his safety than for my own. Michel had gathered no tripe de roche, and it was evident to me that he had halted for the purpose of putting his gun in order with the intention of attacking us, perhaps while we were in the act of encamping. I have dwelt in the preceding narrative on many circumstances of Michel's conduct, not for the purpose of aggravating it, but to put the reader in possession of the reason that influenced me in depriving a fellow-creature of life.

Nothing, of course, could have mitigated the painful shock which Franklin received from the tidings of Hood's tragic end. It was the manner of his death rather than his loss which was so agitating to his leader, who, as appeared afterwards, had already abandoned all hope that his young comrade's life would be preserved. He seems to have been the only one of the party whose digestive organs obstinately revolted against the miserable food on which his companion could just manage to keep body and soul together; and discovering, as Franklin did when he reached Fort Enterprise, that this would have for an indefinite period to be the sole food of the party he had left behind him, he gave up Hood for lost. This, as will be seen hereafter, he brings out quite clearly, though with much tenderness and delicacy, in his reply to a subsequent communication from the bereaved father. But to return to our narrative.

Hepburn, just before reaching the Fort, had had the good luck to shoot a partridge. The starving men hurriedly tore the feathers from the bird, held it for a few minutes before the fire, and then, dividing it into equal portions, greedily devoured it. It was the first morsel of flesh they had tasted for thirty-one days, unless 'the small gristly particles' occasionally found adhering to the bones on which they had helped to support their lives could be so described.

From what inward reserves of strength and spirit the three Englishmen contrived to sustain themselves during the awful week that followed must ever be a mystery to all who have read the harrowing story. From the first, however, it was evident that whatever it was possible to do for the preservation of the party, by cutting wood for fires and preparing their scanty meals of animal refuse, would have to be done by Franklin and his two English companions. The three Canadians were all of them too weak to move. Adam, the interpreter, had been for some time disabled, and Peltier and Semandré were now equally helpless. Both complained of sore throats, produced by the acridity of the bone soup, and Semandré had the cramp in his fingers. The former felt the cold extremely piercing in his reduced state of body, and half a blanket was served out to him to repair his flannel shirt and drawers, which occupation, observes Franklin quaintly, 'afforded some amusement to him and Semandré in the evening and revived their spirits.' But on November 2 the end came. On the morning of that day both men were obviously at the point of death. Peltier sat up with difficulty and looked piteously, exclaiming frequently, "Je suis faible! Je suis faible!" and spoke often of the increased soreness of his throat. At length he slid down from the spot on which he was sitting on to his bed, which was placed near the fire, as if to sleep, and remained for two hours without our apprehending him to be in immediate danger, until we were alarmed by hearing a rattling noise in his throat. On Dr. Richardson examining him he was found to be speechless.' It was the speechlessness of death. Semandré lingered through the day, complaining always of increasing cold and weakness, and expired at daylight on the following morning. Dr. Richardson and Hepburn removed the two men's bodies from the room, 'but were quite unable either to inter them or carry them down to the water.'

Still, they remained the strongest of the four men to whom the party was now reduced; for Franklin, with his customary candour, admits that they had 'outstayed' him, and that during these last days the task of wood-cutting devolved wholly upon them, Franklin himself having only just strength enough to hunt for deerskins under the snow. After another two days, however, the strength even of the indefatigable pair began rapidly to decline. Yet, their leader adds, 'they were full of hope, and went to their labour of gathering wood cheerfully'. But on Tuesday, November 6, it became evident that they were on the verge of absolute exhaustion. 'To cut one log of wood is an occupation for half an hour to Hepburn, and to carry it into the house occupied Richardson almost the same time, though the distance does not exceed twenty yards. I endeavoured to render the men some assistance in this employment, but my aid was feeble. It is evident, however,' continues Franklin, with a rebound of his marvellously elastic spirits, 'that if their strength diminishes with the rapidity it has done for the last three days, I shall be the strongest in a day or two.'

With this last utterance of an inexhaustible courage this last manifestation of a pride of endurance which had no doubt been not a little wounded by his companions superiority in physical strength, the long-drawn tale of suffering fitly closes. On the following day relief came. The manner of its arrival is described in Franklin's published narrative of the expedition; but an infinitely more touching record of it can just be deciphered on the soiled and dogs-eared page of the little paper-covered pocket journal that lies before me. Regularly, religiously, day by day throughout that grim struggle with death, its entries follow one another with methodical precision, and in the dim, blurred pencil-marks that record that heartfelt cry of thanksgiving on the page which has here been reproduced in facsimile one almost seems to be listening to the faint and broken utterances of the famine-stricken and almost dying man. On Sunday, November 4, he had written, so far as it is possible to decipher the entry:

May the devout prayers of the congregations on behalf of the afflicted find . . . before the Throne of Mercy.

Then follows, on the page which has been reproduced, an account of the incidents of the two following days—of their failure to discover any tripe de roche or bones; of their meal off fried skins and tea; of the increasing weakness of the Doctor and Hepburn: 'eats little, and was getting this day quite dispirited.' And then at the bottom of the page:

Wednesday, Nov. 7.—Praise be unto the Lord! We were this day rejoiced by the appearance of Indians with supplies at noon.

The trembling hand that penned these now barely legible lines is long since dust; and the dingy and crumpled little book that contains them would, but for the pious care which has preserved it, have perished years ago. But it was found among certain papers sealed and described in its owner's handwriting as 'The Original Notes of Capt. Franklin, written during the most distressing part of his last residence at Fort Enterprise in 1821—much defaced by being worn in his pocket'; and it has, of course, been cherished as among the most sacred of their possessions by his relatives. Nor is it possible, even for those who can only claim the kinship with him of a common humanity, to look unmoved upon this silent companion and daily confidant of a hero throughout the long agony of his fight with famine.

Sunt lacrymæ rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.

Dull indeed must be the imagination that does not feel its pathos, and sluggish the sympathies that it fails to stir.

FACSIMILE PAGES of SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S NOTE-BOOK [1]

FACSIMILE PAGES of SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S NOTE-BOOK [2]

It was to the gallant and devoted Back that they owed their lives. His sufferings since he separated from the party on October 4 had been no less severe than theirs. For days together he and the three men with him had supported life 'on an old pair of leather trousers, a gun-cover, and a pair of old shoes, with a little tripe de roche that they succeeded in scraping off the rocks.' On the 26th, one of his companions died of exhaustion; but the survivors, knowing that the lives of the party they had left behind them depended on their exertions, still pressed on. On November 4 they fell in with Akaitcho and his Indians, and at once despatched them to Fort Enterprise to Franklin's relief. The supplies they brought with them consisted of some dried deer's meat and a few tongues, on which the sufferers would have fallen like famished wolves had it not been for the warnings of Dr. Richardson. Yet never perhaps was the well-known admonition, 'Do as I say, but not as I do'—that soundest counsel of the professional adviser, alike in medicine and in morals—more amusingly illustrated; for Franklin admits in his official narrative that Richardson was himself 'unable to practise the caution he so judiciously recommended', and there is evidence in their private journals that the Doctor suffered more severely from distension than any other member of the party.

The Indians, to do them justice, endeavoured to the best of their ability to atone for their so nearly fatal neglect. The interpreter Adam, who was undoubtedly within a few hours of death when the relief arrived, owed his speedy convalescence to their attentive care; and they did their utmost, by procuring game and fish, and in other ways, to minister to the wants of the whole of the exhausted party. In little more than another week, so wonderful is man's recuperative power, their energies were sufficiently restored to enable them to proceed. On November 16 they quitted the station which had been the scene of their miseries, and on the 11th of the following month they reached Fort Providence. Hence, after resting a few days, they went on to Moose Deer Island, where they passed the remainder of the winter. On May 26, 1822, they started homeward, and, reaching York Factory about the middle of July, took ship for England, where they arrived in October, after an absence of three years and a half and journeyings by land and water of more than 5,500 miles.

Very shortly after their arrival, Franklin, who had in his absence been promoted to the rank of commander, was advanced to that of post-captain, and was about the same time unanimously elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in recognition of his services to the cause of geographical science. Those services, it is true, had been considerable, and well deserved the rewards, official and unofficial, which they had won. But the debt of the English nation—nay, of the whole human race—to the heroic explorers was far greater than that of the geographer; and the shores of the Coppermine River, the Barren Lands of Arctic America, and the rude shelter of Fort Enterprise, are sacred and memorable in human history, not as the mere monuments of a scientific conquest, but as the scene of labours and sufferings which have inspired the world with a new conception of the powers of human endurance, a new glory in the unconquerable soul of man.