le numerous other presents were made by various companies,
eager to show him in what high estimation his gallantry was held. His
officers and crew who had been made prisoners by the Federals, on their
arrival at Liverpool after their release, presented to him a valuable
sextant, to show their sense of his kindness to them during the voyage
from India, and of his noble conduct.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS.

THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

The discovery of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean has
been the darling project of numberless Englishmen of science as well as
navigators, from the time of Henry the Eighth down to the present day.
A short account of the various expeditions, and of the adventures of the
gallant men who have made the attempt, would alone fill a volume. By
these expeditions, unsuccessful though they mostly were in accomplishing
their object, the names of many of the bravest and best of England's
naval commanders have become immortalised. Well indeed may Englishmen
be proud of men such as Ross, Parry, Clavering, Lyon, Beechey, and
Franklin, and of others who have in still later days exhibited their
dauntless courage and perseverance in the same cause--Collinson,
McClure, McClintock, Sherard Osborn, Forsyth, and many more.

Nowhere can all the noble qualities which adorn the British seaman be
more fully called forth than during a voyage in the Arctic seas, and the
detention to which he is subject for years together on its ice-bound
shores. From the first entering these regions, dangers beset him.
Suddenly he finds his vessel among immense fields of floating ice,
through which he can with difficulty force a passage or escape
shipwreck. Then, in the darkness of night, icebergs of vast height are
seen close aboard, towering above the mast-heads, the sea dashing with
fury round their bases, from which, should he not scrape clear, his
destruction is certain. Sometimes, to prevent his vessel being drifted
on icebergs, or the rocky shore, or fields of ice, to leeward, he
secures her on the lee side of some large berg. The base of the mass
beneath the water is continually melting; and, while he fancies himself
secure, it decreases so much as to lose its balance, and its lofty
summit bending down, it may overwhelm him in its ruins. Then, again,
large masses become detached from its base, and, rising up violently
from far down in the sea, strike the bottom of the vessel wi