Sailing Round Melville Peninsula, We Come Into The Gulf Of Akkolee,
Through Fury And Hecla Straits, Discovered By Parry.
So we get back
to the bottom of Regent's Inlet, which we quitted a short time ago,
and sailing in the neighbourhood of the magnetic pole, we reach the
estuary of Back's River, on the north-east coast of America.
We
pass then through a strait, discovered in 1839 by Dean and Simpson,
still coasting along the northern shore of America, on the great
Stinking Lake, as Indians call this ocean. Boats, ice permitting,
and our "Phantom Ship," of course, can coast all the way to Behring
Strait. The whole coast has been explored by Sir John Franklin, Sir
John Richardson, and Sir George Back, who have earned their
knighthoods through great peril. As we pass Coronation Gulf - the
scene of Franklin, Richardson, and Back's first exploration from the
Coppermine River - we revert to the romantic story of their journey
back, over a land of snow and frost, subsisting upon lichens, with
companions starved to death, where they plucked wild leaves for tea,
and ate their shoes for supper; the tragedy by the river; the murder
of poor Hood, with a book of prayers in his hand; Franklin at Fort
Enterprise, with two companions at the point of death, himself
gaunt, hollow-eyed, feeding on pounded bones, raked from the
dunghill; the arrival of Dr. Richardson and the brave sailor; their
awful story of the cannibal Michel; - we revert to these things with
a shudder.
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