nson's
expedition,--but not a stick nor straw to show where Franklin or his men
had lived or died. Two officers of the "Investigator" were sent home to
England this summer by a ship from Beechey Island, the head-quarters;
and thus we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the Northwest
Passage.

After their crews were on board again, and the "Investigator's" sixty
stowed away also, the "Resolute" and "Intrepid" had a dreary summer of
it. The ice would not break up. They had hunting-parties on shore and
races on the floe; but the captain could not send the "Investigators"
home as he wanted to, in his steam tender. All his plans were made, and
made on a manly scale,--if only the ice would open. He built a
storehouse on the island for Collinson's people, or for you, reader, and
us, if we should happen there, and stored it well, and left this
record:--

"This is a house which I have named the 'Sailor's Home,' under the
especial patronage of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

"_Here_ royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed, and receive double
pay for inhabiting it."

In that house is a little of everything, and a good deal of victuals and
drink; but nobody has been there since the last of the "Resolute's" men
came away.

At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing and jumping in bags
and wrestling, all hands present, as at a sort of "Isthmian games,"
ended with a gale, a cracking up of ice, and the "Investigators" thought
they were on their way home, and Kellett thought he was to have a month
of summer yet. But no; "there is nothing certain in this navigation from
one hour to the next." The "Resolute" and "Intrepid" were never really
free of ice all that autumn; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's
Straits till the 12th of November; and then froze up, without anchoring,
off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred and forty miles from their harbor
of the last winter. The log-book of that winter is a curious record; the
ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to make one day
differ from another. Each day has the first entry for "ship's position"
thus: "In the floe off Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second
entry, thus: "In the same position." Lectures, theatricals, schools,
&c., whiled away the time; but there could be no autumn travelling
parties, and not much hope for discovery in the summer.

Spring came. The captain went over ice in his little dog-sled to
Beechey Island, and re