them hitherto to remain.

Up to 22nd April 1848, the total loss by deaths had been nine officers
and fifteen men. On the 22nd April 1848, Captains Crozier and
Fitzjames, with their officers and crews, consisting of 105 men,
abandoned their ice-bound ships, and landed on the 25th on King
William's Island, and started the following day for Back's Fish River,
which runs through the Hudson's Bay territories from the south.

Their hope was that they might, voyaging up that river, at length reach
some of the Hudson's Bay Company's trading posts. That they reached the
mouth of Fish River we have melancholy evidence. Here they probably
encamped, and, when the season advanced, proceeded some way up, but,
finding the difficulties of the navigation insurmountable, they returned
to the mouth of the river, with the intention perhaps of proceeding
along the coast to the westward through the North-West Passage, which
they now knew for a certainty to exist. Before, however, they could do
this, it was necessary to send to the ships for stores and any
provisions which might have remained on board.

For this purpose a strong party must have been despatched with a boat on
a sledge, showing that they started rather early in the summer season,
before the Straits were frozen over, or late in the spring, when they
might expect to have to return by water. They greatly overrated their
strength. When still eighty miles from the ships, they left the boat
with two or more invalids in her, and a variety of valuables, hoping to
reach the ships more speedily, and to return to her. One or more of
those left with the boat attempted to follow, and dropped by the way.
Some, perhaps, reached the ships, and attempted to regain the boat; but
the greater number, overcome with hunger, disease, and cold, fell on
their northward journey, never to rise again.

Two skeletons were found in the boat; and one, supposed to be that of a
steward, between her and the ships. Of the ships, one was seen by the
Esquimaux to go down, while the other drove on shore with one body only
on board, probably that of a person who had died during the final visit.
Certain it is that no one regained the boat on their return journey to
the south. Plate and vast quantities of clothing were found along the
route, showing that on leaving the ships the hapless men considered
themselves capable of considerable exertion; and as they carried a large
amount of powder and shot, they