it, and two more vessels were
strengthened and equipped to be ready to follow on the track of the
_Erebus_ and the _Terror_ in 1848. As this last year advanced and
winter passed into summer, a shudder of apprehension was felt
throughout the nation. It was felt now that some great disaster had
happened, or even now was happening. It was known that Franklin's
expedition had carried food for at best three years: the three years
had come and gone. Franklin's men, if anywhere alive, must be
suffering all the horrors of starvation in the frozen fastness of the
Arctic.

We may imagine the awful pictures that rose up before the imagination
of the friends and relatives, the wives and children, of the one
hundred and twenty-nine gallant men who had vanished in the _Erebus_
and the _Terror_--visions of ships torn and riven by the heaving ice,
of men foodless and shelterless in the driving snow, looking out vainly
from the bleak shores of some rocky coast for the help that never
came--awful pictures indeed, yet none more awful than the grim reality.

A generous frenzy seized upon the nation. The cry went up from the
heart of the people that Franklin must be found; he and his men {120}
must be rescued--they would not speak of them as dead. Ships must be
sent out with all the equipment that science could devise and the
wealth of a generous nation could supply. Ships were sent out. Year
after year ships fought their way from Baffin Bay to the islands of the
north. Ships sailed round the distant Horn and through the Pacific to
Bering Strait. Down the Mackenzie and the great rivers of the north,
the canoes of the voyageurs danced in the rapids and were paddled
swiftly over the wider stretches of moving water. Over the frozen snow
the sledges toiled against the storm. And still no word of Franklin,
till all the weary outline of the frozen coast was traced in their
wanderings: till twenty-one thousand miles of Arctic sea and shore had
been tracked out. Thus the great epic of the search for Franklin ran
slowly to its close. With each year the hope that was ever deferred
made the heart sick. Anxiety deepened into dread, and even dread gave
way to the cruel certainty of despair. Not till twelve years had
passed was the search laid aside: not until, little by little, the
evidence was found that told all that we know of the fate of the
_Erebus_ and the _Terror_.

First in the field was Richardson, the gallant {121} friend an