rs looked serious till the English showed their
firearms, when the canoes paddled away and the Eskimos hid themselves.

With a fair wind the boats now sailed along the coast westward, till
stopped by ice, which drove them from the shore. Dense fogs, stormy
winds, and heavy rain made this Polar navigation very dangerous; but
the explorers pushed on till, on 27th July, they reached the mouth
of a broad river which, "being the most westerly river in the British
dominions on this coast and near the line of demarcation between Great
Britain and Russia, I named it the Clarence," says Franklin, "in honour
of His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral." A box containing a royal
medal was deposited here, and the Union Jack was hoisted amid hearty
cheers.

[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION CROSSING BACK'S INLET. From a
drawing, by Lieut. Back, in Franklin's _Second Expedition to the Polar
Sea_, 1828.]

Still fogs and storms continued; the farther west they advanced, the
denser grew the fog, till by the middle of August, winter seemed to
have set in. The men had suffered much from the hard work of pulling
and dragging the heavy boats; they also endured torments from
countless swarms of mosquitoes. They were now some three hundred and
seventy-four miles from the mouth of the Mackenzie River and only
half-way to Icy Cape; but Franklin, with all his courage and with all
his enthusiasm, dared not risk the lives of his men farther. "Return
Reef" marks his farthest point west, and it was not till long after
that he learnt that Captain Beechey, who had been sent in the _Blossom_
by way of Behring Strait, had doubled Icy Cape and was waiting for
Franklin one hundred and sixty miles away.

On 21st September, Fort Franklin was reached after three months'
absence. Dr. Richardson had already returned after a successful coast
voyage of some eight hundred miles.

When he had left Franklin he had, on board the _Dolphin_, accompanied
by the _Union_, sailed along the unknown coast eastward. Like
Franklin's party, his expedition had also suffered from fogs, gales,
and mosquitoes, but they had made their way on, naming inlets, capes,
and islands as they passed. Thus we find Russell Inlet, Point Bathurst,
Franklin's Bay, Cape Parry, the Union and Dolphin Straits, named after
the two little ships, where the _Dolphin_ was nearly wrecked between
two masses of ice. They had reached Fort Franklin in safety just before
Franklin's party, and, being t