All The
Lives That Have Been Lost Among These Polar Regions Are Less In
Number Than The Dead Upon A Battle-Field.
The battle-field
inflicted shame upon our race - is it with shame that our hearts
throb in following these Arctic heroes?
March 31st, says Captain
James, "was very cold, with snow and hail, which pinched our sick
men more than any time this year. This evening, being May eve, we
returned late from our work to our house, and made a good fire, and
chose ladies, and ceremoniously wore their names in our caps,
endeavouring to revive ourselves by any means. On the 15th, I
manured a little patch of ground that was bare of snow, and sowed it
with pease, hoping to have some shortly to eat, for as yet we could
see no green thing to comfort us." Those pease saved the party; as
they came up the young shoots were boiled and eaten, so their health
began to mend, and they recovered from their scurvy. Eventually,
after other perils, they succeeded in making their escape.
A strait, called Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome, leads due north out of
Hudson Bay, being parted by Southampton Island from the strait
through which we entered. Its name is quaint, for so was its
discoverer, Luke Fox, a worthy man, addicted much to euphuism. Fox
sailed from London in the same year in which James sailed from
Bristol. They were rivals. Meeting in Davis Straits, Fox dined on
board his friendly rival's vessel, which was very unfit for the
service upon which it went.
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