t their weary work.

April comes, and has nearly gone, when the command is given. The men
look their last upon the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, give them three cheers,
and go away into the desolate waste--to die! Point Victory their
object. They gained it, and then their helplessness came and stared
them in the face. In a cairn on the point Fitzjames placed a brief
record, and that is all. They have only food for a month more, and day
by day the strong are growing weak and the weak are dying.

The increase in the number of the latter necessitated a division. The
sick must remain till help comes, or go back to the ships. We can
picture the fearful alternative. Many remained, and of that number two
skeletons were afterwards found, and on board one of the ships the
"bones of a large man with long teeth!" That is all!

The remainder pushed on to Cape Herschel, and left a record in a cairn.
They were desperate and dying men, yet they endeavoured to reach the
Great Fish River, but alas! alas! the skeleton found lying face
downwards, left unburied as he fell, tells us as much of the fate of the
whole party as if the record had been kept.

"The Polar clouds uplift
One moment, and no more."

For a long time no one knew the fate of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, until
Lady Franklin sent out McClintock in the _Fox_ to lift the veil which
hung over the last voyage of the intrepid John Franklin. But before
giving the account of McClintock's successful search we will enumerate
the various attempts made by Government to ascertain the fate of
Franklin. Our summary must be a very brief one.

Three years after Franklin had set out considerable uneasiness was felt
in Great Britain concerning him. In 1848 two ships, the _Herald_ and
the _Plover_, were sent out by the Admiralty to afford assistance, but
Sir John Richardson and Doctor Rae had anticipated the Government
vessels, and gone via New York to the Mackenzie, which he had already
twice visited with Franklin. Captain Sir James Ross also was searching
by the Lancaster Sound, and he experienced many hardships; but in 1850
his vessels (the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, under Collinson and
McClure) were sent, and later on an international squadron was
dispatched to Lancaster Sound under Captains Austin and Penny, Sir John
Ross in the _Felix_, and Mr Grinnell's two American ships under
Lieutenant De Haven, as well as the _Albert_, sent out by Lady Franklin
at her own cost,