t King William's Land, the scene of one of
the saddest tragedies of modern times! Only a few miles to the west
the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were lost.

The sailors of the _Forward_ were familiar with the attempts made to
find Franklin, and the result they had obtained, but they did not know
all the sad details. Now, while the doctor was following on his chart
the course of the ship, many of them, Bell, Bolton, and Simpson, drew
near him and began to talk with him. Soon the others followed to
satisfy their curiosity; meanwhile the brig was advancing rapidly, and
the bays, capes, and promontories of the coast passed before their
gaze like a gigantic panorama.

[Illustration]

Hatteras was pacing nervously to and fro on the quarter-deck; the
doctor found himself on the bridge, surrounded by the men of the crew;
he readily understood the interest of the situation, and the
impression that would be made by an account given under those
circumstances, hence he resumed the talk he had begun with Johnson.

"You know, my friends, how Franklin began: like Cook and Nelson, he
was first a cabin-boy; after spending his youth in long sea-voyages,
he made up his mind, in 1845, to seek the Northwest Passage; he
commanded the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, two stanch vessels, which had
visited the antarctic seas in 1840, under the command of James Ross.
The _Erebus_, in which Franklin sailed, carried a crew of seventy men,
all told, with Fitz-James as captain; Gore and Le Vesconte,
lieutenants; Des Voeux, Sargent, and Couch, boatswains; and Stanley,
surgeon. The _Terror_ carried sixty-eight men. Crozier was the
captain; the lieutenants were Little, Hodgson, and Irving; boatswains,
Horesby and Thomas; the surgeon, Peddie. In the names of the bays,
capes, straits, promontories, channels, and islands of these latitudes
you find memorials of most of these unlucky men, of whom not one has
ever again seen his home! In all one hundred and thirty-eight men! We
know that the last of Franklin's letters were written from Disco
Island, and dated July 12, 1845. He said, 'I hope to set sail to-night
for Lancaster Sound.' What followed his departure from Disco Bay? The
captains of the whalers, the _Prince of Wales_ and the _Enterprise_,
saw these two ships for the last time in Melville Bay, and nothing
more was heard of them. Still we can follow Franklin in his course
westward; he went through Lancaster and Barrow Sounds and reached
Beechey Island, where