relief was a matter of toil and difficulty. However, during this period, and indeed all along after the acute pains of hunger, which lasted but three or four days, had subsided, we generally enjoyed the comfort of a few hours' sleep. The dreams which, for the most part, but not always, accompanied it, were usually (though not invariably), of a pleasant character, being very often about the enjoyments of feasting. In the day time we fell into the practice of conversing on common and light subjects, although we sometimes discussed with seriousness and earnestness topics connected with religion. We generally avoided speaking directly of our present sufferings, or even of the prospect of relief. I observed that, in proportion as our strength de cayed, our minds exhibited symptoms of weakness, evinced by a kind of unreasonable pettishness with each other. Each of us thought the other weaker in intellect than himself, and more in need of advice and assistance. So trifling a circumstance as a change of place, recommended by one as being warmer and more comfortable, and refused by the other from a dread of motion, frequently called forth fretful expressions which were no sooner uttered than atoned for, to be repeated perhaps in the course of a few minutes. The same thing often occurred when we endeavoured to assist each other in carrying wood to the fire; none of us were willing to receive assistance, although the task was disproportioned to our strength. On one of these occasions Hepburn was so convinced of his waywardness that he exclaimed,Dear me, if we are spared to return to England, I wonder if we shall recover our understandings.' At length on the 7th of November, three Indians, sent by Mr. Back, arrived with relief. They cleaned out the room, cooked their victuals, had the survivors washed and made comfortable, and, after leaving the fort, attended them to the spot where their tribe were engaged in hunting; giving up their own snow-shoes, keeping by their sides, lifting them up when they fell; and finally conducting them in safety to the nearest of the company's posts, where they met with their companion, Back whose sufferings had scarcely been less than their own, and to whose exertions the survivors of the party unquestionably owed their safety. One of the two Canadians who had accompanied Mr. Back, fell a sacrifice to cold, hunger, and fatigue. With respect to the coun try over which the expedition travelled, partly by land, but chiefly by water; a journey not less (including the navigation of the Polar Sea) than 5,500 miles, a great sameness of surface every where prevails; every valley is a lake, and every river a string of lakes. There is little variety in the trees, consisting chiefly larch, spruce, and poplar, which diminish in quantity and in size, in advancing to the northward. The shrubby plants, the birds, the beasts, and the fishes, are everywhere nearly the same. Neither did the few straggling tribes of Indians afford any essential characteristic differ ence. and herbaceous The climate is as bad as the country is uninteresting. For three or four days in the course of the summer, the mercury ascended to 80° or 90°, and for as many months in the winter was down to 30°. 40° or 50° below zero; once even to-57°, or two degrees lower than the lowest that Parry found it at Melville Island. The general line of the northern coast of America was found to lie in the direction, nearly, of east Account of CAPTAIN PARRY'S SECOND VOYAGE. ON the 10th of October, the Fury and Hecla arrived at Lerwick. Having made the northern coast of England on Thursday the 16th, captain Parry, lieutenant Hoppner, and the reverend Mr. Fisher (the chaplain and astronomer to the expedition) were landed, and set off for London, which they reached on the 18th. Meanwhile the ships sailed for the river, and on the 22nd moored off the dockyard at Deptford. The outward voyage in 1821, was fair and prosperous. Passing up Hudson's Straits, the navigators kept near the land on their South, and explored the coast towards Repulse Bay. The farthest West which they attained was 86° of longitude, and the highest latitude only 69° 48′ N.; and they finally brought up for winter quarters at a small isle which they named Winter Island, in 82. 53. West longitude, and latitude 66. 11. N. The chief part of the summer of 1821, was occupied in examining Repulse Bay, and some inlets to the eastward of it, through which they hoped to find a passage into the Polar Sea. In this they were disappointed, for all the openings proved to be only deep inlets, which ran into the continent of America. While thus occupied, early in October the sea began to freeze; and on the 8th the ships were laid up for the winter. Here at Winter Island, the expedition was frozen up from the 8th of October 1821, to the 2nd of July 1822. The vessels were within two or three hundred paces of each other; and occupations and amusements, similar to those practised in the preceding voyage, were resorted One of the principal events worthy of notice in this period, was the beneficial effect produced by the system of heating the ships with currents of warm air. These were directed to every requisite part by means of metallic tubes. The lowest temperature experienced during the winter was 35° below zero. In the second winter it was ten degrees lower; but this was not near so difficult to endure, nor so inconvenient as the cold in captain Parry's first voyage. The provision cases did not turn out so well; for, though the meats were preserved fresh, they were found to be very insipid on constant use, and the men got as tired of them as they generally do of salt provisions. From the quantum of boiling needed in these preparations, the nutritious juices are extracted, and the taste so reduced that it is not easy to tell veal from beef. They, however, (like French cookery done to rags), made a change, and were so far acceptable. Fish was caught, and formed another welcome variety. They were chiefly a species of small salmon of about 7 or 8lbs weight, of which about 300 were taken; the coal-fish, and the Alpine trout, which latter was found in a fresh water stream, on an island to the westward of Winter Island. This river, according to the native accounts, flowed from a lake, whence also another river ran into the sea on the other side; that is to say, one stream flowed in a south-easterly direction towards Hudson's Bay, and the other in a southwesterly course towards (perhaps) the Polar Sea. Nothing occurred, during the first part of the winter, deserving of any particular notice; but one morning, in the beginning of February, our people were surprised by the appearance of strange forms upon the snow-plain in their vicinity, and of persons running to and fro. This was a tribe of about fifty Esquimaux, who were erecting their 'snow-huts, and taking up their residence at a short distance from the vessels. They one of those wandering hordes which roam along the shore in search of food, and make their habitations wherever it can be obtained in sufficient quantity. The great dependence of these people upon the produce of the sea for their sustenance, seems to confine their migrations to the coasts. The intercourse of the voyagers with their new and singular neigh bours, afforded them much amusement during the remainder of the winter; as, never having seen Europeans before, their manners and customs were quite original. The snow began to melt about the beginning of May, and put an end to their intimacy. In the season of 1822, the vessels having steered along the coast to the North, penetrated only to the long. of 82. 50. and lat. 69. 40.; and after exploring several inlets, &c. in their brief cruise, they were finally moored for their second winter, about a mile apart, in 81. 44. W. long., and lat. 69. 21. N. Here, close to another small isle, they remained from the 24th of September, 1822, to the 8th of last August. They had latterly entered a strait leading to the westward. From the accounts of the Esquimaux, and their own observations, they had every reason to believe that this strait separated all the land to the northward from the continent of America. After getting about fifteen miles within the entrance of it, however, they were stopped by the ice, but from the persuasion that they were in the right channel for getting to the westward, they remained there for nearly a month, in daily ex pectation that the ice would break up. In this last hope they were again quite disappointed; and ot the 19th of September the se having begun to freeze, they left these straits, and laid the ships up in winter quarters near the small island above alluded to, and called by the Esquimaux Igloolik. Thus it is evident, that the expedition failed in its leading objects. The magnetic pole was not crossed; all the electrical appearances, lights, haloes, meteors, &c. were seen to the south. In natural history, the acquisitions are very scanty. Twenty-eight botanical specimens, dwarf willow, saxifrage, grasses mosses, &c. nearly comprehend the stunted vegetable world of these northern latitudes. In the second winter, a more numerous tribe of the Esquimaux, about 150, including the visitors of the preceding year, settled near the ships, and were in daily intercourse with them. They are re presented as peaceable and good natured: not stupid, but not emi nent for feeling or intelligence The first tribe lived together terms of perfect liberty and equality; in the second there was an Angekok or conjuror, who exercised a certain degree of influence and authority. There are no signs of the worship of a Supreme Being among them, nor have they apparently any religious rites at marriages or burials. An Esquimaux bespeaks his wife while she is yet a child, and when she is of marriageable age she is brought home to him, and there is a feast on the occasion. Their funerals are equally simple: if in winter, the corpse is merely covered over g with snow; if in summer, a shallow trench is dug, where it is deposited, and two or three flat stones at top complete the rude sepulchre. They are careful not to allow any stones or weighty matter to rest on the body and seem to think that even after death it may be sensible to the oppression. They appeared to have some crude notions of a future state: but all their ideas on these matters were so blended with superstition, that they hardly deserve to be mentioned. Two wives were possessed by several of the natives, and one is almost always much younger than the other; yet the co-partners seemed to live on very good terms with one another. The children rarely appear to be more than two, three, or four in a family; though in one case, six grown-up brothers and sisters were met with. live to a good age. The stature of the males is about the average of five feet four, five, or six inches; and none exceeding five feet ten inches. Their colour is a dirty-looking yellowish white, and their proportions by no means robust. Their snow-houses are curiously shaped and constructed, resembling three immense bee VOL. LXV. They hives grouped together, and entered by one long passage by all the three families to whom these yield an abode. A trefoil affords a tolerable idea of them. They are about nine feet in diameter, and seven or eight feet in height. The passage is about twenty feet in length, and so low that you must creep along nearly on all fours, in order to reach the hut. This is ingeniously intended to exclude the cold air, which it does effectually, though widened in parts for lodging the dogs belonging to the several households, and which are stationed in the last sort of anti-chamber, before the entrances turn off to the right and left for the two nearest huts. The huts themselves are entirely made of square blocks of solid snow, with a larger key-block at the top of the rotunda. The window is a piece of flat transparent ice. Round the interior runs a seat of the same material as the walls, upon which the skins of animals are thrown for seats and beds. The houses are without any artificial warmth, except what is produced by a lamp. In the winter of 1822-3, native dwellings or huts constructed of bone were also seen. The Esquimaux often eat flesh in a raw state; but it is sometimes cooked, and the women almost invariably submit their food to that process. The utensils are uncommon, though simple. They consist two vessels of stone; generally the pot-stone or lapisollaris, also used in parts of Germany for the same purpose. The lower vessel a good deal resembles an English kitchen ash-shovel : the upper one a trough, of a wide coffin-form. In the first, which is filled with oil, a number of moss wicks float, and are lighted for the S fuel. The oil is gradually sup plied from strings of fat hung up above the flames, the heat of which melts them into so many reservoirs of grease. In the second utensil, placed over the fire thus made, the meat is stewed. The natives are filthy in their eating, and hardly reject any thing, from the blubber of whale to the flesh of wolf. When hungry, they devoured the carcases of ten or a dozen of the latter, which were killed by our seamen. Their food, indeed, consisted chiefly of seals' and wolves' flesh; but, notwithstanding this, they appeared to be perfectly contented, nay, even happy. Their dresses were made entirely of skins, chiefly those of the rein-deer. The lapis-ollaris is originally so soft that it may be cut into form with a knife; and when it is not to be found, an extraordinary substitute is manufactured into pots and pans. This is a cement composed of dogs' hair, seals' blood, and a particular clay, which soon becomes as hard as stone, and bears the effects both of oil and fire below, and moisture and stewing above. The men had no hesitation in offering their wives and daughters to the sailors, for so poor a bribe as a nail, or two or three beads. These females have disagreeable features, and long and harsh, but exceedingly black, hair. A map was drawn by one of them (a remarkable instance of intelligence), in which she represented two islands to the north of the second winter's position of the ships, and others in different directions, giving rather sonorous names to them all. The nearest on the north is several days' journey across, and the roam ing of the Esquimaux tribes is schfined to these islands, as they never venture upon the continent They say that their race originally sprang from a beneficent female Spirit; and that from another wicked female Spirit are descended the other three creatures who in habit the earth, namely, the Itkali, or Indians, the Cablunce, or Eu ropeans, and (after long hesitation before they would express it) the Dogs which they drive! The Itkali they abhor and speak of as murderers, who never spare their tribes. Of the Cablune they had only heard by report, never having seen a European till they encoun tered those in the Fury and Hecla; but it is clear from their classing them with the Indians and dogs, that they have no very exalted idea of their virtues. With their own appellation of Esqui maux they are not acquainted, but call themselves Enuce. The other name is understood to be a term of reproach, meaning "eaters of raw flesh." They entertain a belief in cer tain spirits or superior beings; but their notions concerning them are extremely rude and rage. This was displayed by their Ange kok, or conjuror; who was, after much entreaty, prevailed upon to exhibit his supernatural powers in the captain's cabin of one of the ships. He was accompanied by his wife, and began his operations by having every glimpse of exter nal light carefully excluded. Stil the fire emitted a glimmering, and this was covered with a thick mst; so that at length all was utter darkness. The Angekok then stripped himself naked, and lay down upon the floor, and pretended that he was going to the lower re gions where the spirits dwell. His incantations consisted of hardly ar ticulate sounds, not appearing to |