SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

TRAVELS,

Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America, effected by the Officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, during the years 1836-39. By Thomas Simpson,

Esq. Bentley.

HISTORY,

Rome as it Was under Paganism and as it Became under the Popes. In two volumes.

Madden and Co.

Fierrow,

Ben Bradshaw°, the Man without a Head ; a N..vel. In three volumes.... Newby.

'SIMPSON S NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERIES ON THE NORTH COAST OF AMERICA.

Is late though not perhaps the latest maps of North America, the reader will see two blanks on the coast of the Northern Ocean, one between the 149th and 156th, the other between the 96th and 108th degrees of West longitude ; FRANKLIN having been unable to proceed further in the direction of the Pacific than Return Reef, (near 150 degrees,) or in that of the Atlantic than Bathurst Inlet, (109 degrees) ; whilst BACK only attained Point Ogle, on his way towards Bathurst Inlet. The Hudson's Bay Company determined to complete the survey of this coast if practicable, and gave orders to fit out an expedition for the purpose. In July 1836, the formal orders were issued by their American Governor to Messrs. DEASE and SIMPSON, as commanders; but they did not actually commence Arctic explorations till the following year. The plan pursued was to winter at Fort Chipewyan, a trading establishment of the Company, about 60 degrees N. latitude and 110 degrees W. longitude ; to reach the Polar Sea by the Slave River, Great Slave Lake, and the Mackenzie River, in boats built expressly for the purpose of the navigation they had to conduct ; and then to sail or row to Cape North if practicable, and if not, to proceed over the ice, or along the shore. The season of 1837 having been favourable for their object, the ex- pedition successfully passed the Return Reef of FRANKLIN; and though ice and fogs impeded their navigation at a point ap- propriately called Boat Extreme, yet, leaving Mr. DEASE in charge of the vessels, Mr. SIMPSON and some volunteers proceeded on foot along the coast till they reached the desired point ; and from Cape North or Point Barrrow, our explorer gazed towards the West upon " a broad lane of water "; and so "inviting was the prospect in that direction," that he would not have "hesitated a moment to have prosecuted the voyage to Behring's Straits and the Russian settlements," in a skin canoe, borrowed from some Esquimaux to cross arms of the sea.

Returning successfully, the party wintered at the North-eastern extremity of the Great Bear Lake, in order to descend the Copper- mine River as soon as the ice broke up ; and then to proceed along the coast to the Eastward by the same means as in the former ex- pedition. But the season was unfavourable—foggy, and bitterly cold; so that though SIMPSON on a land-journey passed further by about four degrees of longitude than FRANKLIN had attained in this di- rection, and saw across the ocean an unknown land, which he named Victoria, the party was compelled to return without accomplishing the whole of their object. This was successfully achieved the next year, with more favourable weather. The coast between BACK'S and FRANKLIN'S discoveries was surveyed ; the sea between the main continent of America and Boothia Felix was partially examined ; and in returning, the adventurers coasted along the newly-dis- covered region of Victoria Land, and safely arrived at their head-quarters: on the Great Bear Lake. Mr. SIMPSON proposed another expedition to complete the survey between the point he had last reached and the straits of the Fury and Heck. With their wonted spirit and liberality, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany immediately acceded to the proposal : but some hitch or delay had occurred in the transmission of the letters ; SIMPSON, impatient, started for Canada, with the view of going to England ; and he was killed on the road. The facts are clear enough, though the cause is obscure. Leaving his party with four companions, half-breeds, he shot two of them a few days afterwards; the survivors returned to the main body ; and the next day Mr. SIMPSON was killed by some of them: but whether he shot the half-breeds in self-defence, as he was obnoxious to the

of the race, or whether, as is surmised, his mind had given way under the hardships and excitement of the expedition, is a mys- tery. His impatience and restless movements would rather point to the last inference.

The principal part of this book naturally consists of the narrative of the expedition ; in which the account of their journey is varied by incidental sketches of Arctic landscapes, and pictures of hard- ships endured without a murmur, and as matter of course, by the hardy adventurers. These things are told briefly and well; for Mr. SIMPSON writes with distinctness and spirit, though somewhat curtly except when his theme bears him up beyond his usual level. But we suspect that the full extent of suffering and privation, or what other people would call suffering and privation, is not fully impressed upon the reader ; because use has so " bred a habit " in the men, that whatever may be suffered appears part and parcel of the laws of nature around them. To navigate an icy and a stormy sea in open boats—to have the spray freeze upon the rigging and the oars in the Dog-days—to be reduced to go without fire either for warmth or cookery—to wade, waist high, through rivers or arms of the sea, when the thermometer was below freez- ing-point—to have wet incrust your garments with ice as with a robe, and lie down in a wet boat and be frozen to the planks—all look like the extreme of misery to people at home : yet, as long as health lasts, they seem to be the excitement of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, and even during sickness to be borne as a common lot. We learn them for the most part incidentally, as impeding the expedition, cr affecting the good health of somebody, or causing a particular discomfort opposed to the usual wellbeing. The most elaborate account of their personal difficulty is the ascent of the Coppermine River ; which HEARNE, FRANKLIN, and RICH- ARDSON, had each pronounced impracticable, but which our author, from certain indications in the full water, conceived possible in the autumn when the river was low. Accordingly, we have a sketch of the toil of towing up the boats ; the men harnessed, it would appear, like horses, and in difficult footing moving like horses upon all fours, or wading when snow had begun to fall and ice to form, and so forth. This, however, is not told as a hardship, but as a feat. In fact, nothing in these men but doth suffer an Arctic change ; and in an overland journey during the wintry season, when a piercing wind and bad weather compelled a halt, and their screen was sledges turned edgewise, Mr. SIMPSON is provoked to wonder how people can be frozen to death in Great Britain.

There are other matters, however, in Mr. SIMPSON'S Narrative; for all is not so wintry as what we have touched upon, and he has other topics than the account of the expedition of discovery. The descent of the Mackenzie River in July furnished some pictures of Northern Arcadia, where one chief factor, with a turn for garden- ing, raises potatoes of the size of pigeon's eggs; and even on the shores of the ice-bound ocean patches of flowers were found, which were very beautiful amid the surrounding desolation, or at least looked so to our toil-worn explorers. The overland journey from the settlements nearer Canada to the distant starting-sta- tions—the winters passed in these remote abodes surrounded by Indians and hunters—the management of the Company towards its people—together with sketches of the native tribes, and some winter-excursions in pursuit of game—add an agreeable va- riety to the volume. A more skilful and accomplished craftsman in authorship might have made a more brilliant book, but not so simple, unaffected, and convincing a story. Nor is there any defi- ciency in literature ; for Mr. SIMPSON was designed for the Scot- tish Church, and took University honours at Aberdeen, before fate cast him into the Hudson's Bay service ; as we learn from a brief memoir by his brother, prefixed to the volume. He had also acquired some scientific knowledge, and was the only geogra- pher of the party. In modern chemical ph) siology he had not made much advance, we should say, or he would have known whence the power was derived of braving cold. With the following facts before him, LIEBEG would have pronounced that each servant of the Hudson Bay Company burnt a fire in his lungs and carried his coal-cellar in his stomach.

FEEDING UNDER THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY.

By this time we had, through our indefatigable exertions, accumulated two or three weeks' provision in advance, and no scarcity was experienced during the remainder of the season. The daily ration served out to each man was increased from eight to ten and to some individuals twelve pounds of venison ; or, when they could be got, four or five white-fish, weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds. This quantity of solid food, immoderate as it may appear, does not exceed the average standard of the country ; and ought certainly to

appease even the inordinate appetite of a French Canadian. * • * Mr. Deese assured me, that under an ancient manager of Athabasca, who passed for a severe economist, and whose assistant he was at the time, the men succeeded in obtaining the exorbitant daily allowance of fourteen pounds, or one stone, of moose or buffalo meat.

INDIAN TRAINING.

Among the Indiana who came in about the close of the month, was a family, the youngest member of which, a boy scarcely two years old, and still unweaned, walked on snow-shoes. I bad the curiosity to measure them, and found their dimensions exactly two feet in length, including the curved point, by six inches at the broadest part. The little urchin was so fund of these pain- ful appendages, that be hugged them as a plaything, and bawled lustily when his mother attempted to take them from him.

A VALID REASON FOR LEAVING HOME.

In a conversation with the Dog-ribs, we afterwards learned that these mountain Indiana are cannibals, and immediately upon any scarcity arising cast lots for victims. Their fierce manners have been circumstantially de- scribed by an old man, who, while yet a stripling, fled from the tribe, and joined himself to the Dog-ribs, in consequence of his finding his mother, on his return from a successful day's hunting, employed in roasting the body of her own child, his youngest brother.

AN ARCTIC PROSPECT.

The wind having fallen, and the ice relaxed, in the forenoon of the 12th, we pushed out through it to gain clear water. The day was bright and fine. The mountains stood forth in all the rugged boldness of their outline, displaying their naked rocky peaks and steels descents with such marvellcus distinctness that they seemed to touch the coast of which they formed the bulwarks. The swell being with us, as bag as the calm continued we made some progress with the oars ; but a northerly breeze springing up raised such a cross sea, that we were in imminent danger of foundering, when we providentially discovered an opening through the ice, leading into the mouth of a small stream—between Bsekhonse and Malcolm rivers—flowing from an inner basin, where we found a secure and pleasant harbour. It was now threep.m.; and, incited by the beauty of the weather, I ascended the nearest hill, six or seven miles distant ; whence I enjoyed a truly sublime prospect. On either band arose the British and Buck- land mountains, exhibiting an infinite diversity of shade and form : in front lay the blue boundless ocean, strongly contrasted with its broad glittering gir- dle of ice; beneath yawned ravines a thousand feet in depth, through which brawled and sparkled the clear alpine streams; while the sun, still high in the West, abed his softened beams through a rich veil of saffron-coloured clouds, that overcanopied the gorgeous scene. Bands of rein-deer, browsing on the rich pasture in the vallies and along the brooks, imparted life and animation to the picture. Reluctantly I returned to the camp at sunset.

PASSING THROUGH THE ICE.

The ice appearing somewhat loosened on the morning of the 31st, we em- barked at nine, and forced our way through the crowded masses for about two miles, with serious risk to the boats. In this sort of progress, to which we so frequently had recourse, it must be understood that, except the bowman or steersman, all the crew were out upon the ice, with poles pushing aside and fending off the successive fragments. The advance thus effected was always slow, painful, and precarious ; and we considered ourselves particularly fortunate whenever we found a natural channel through the ice wide enough to admit our little boats. These narrow channels were generally very crooked; and when carry ing sail, it required the utmost tact on the part of the steersman, aided by the look-out in the bows, and men on either side standing ready. with poles, to avoid the innumerable floating rocks—if I may use the expresston- that endangered this intricate navigation. Again were we stopped, and com- pelled to encamp.

From the extreme coldness of the weather, and the interminable ice, the further advance of our boats appeared hopeless. In four days we had only made good as many miles.

The autumn fishery, on which the expedition depended for a supply during its winter residence in the wilderness, having partially failed, it became necessary to have recourse to hunting, to lay in a stock which was to furnish rations on the scale we have quoted. The party therefore took to hunting ; of which Mr. SIMPSON gives this sketch.

HUNTING IN THE WOODS.

In order to eke out our scanty and precarious subsistence, I spent a great part of the months of October and November in hunting excursions with those Indians who had recovered from their illness. The deer fortunately began to draw in from the North-east to the country between Great Bear Lake and the Coppermine; and as soon its any animals were shot, I despatched a share of the prey by our people and dogs to the establishment. At the same time, I highly relished the animation of the chase, and the absolute independ- ence of an Indiais life. Our tents were usually pitched in the last of the stunted straggling woods ; whence we issued out at daybreak among the bare snowy hills o the " barren lands," where the deer could he distinguished a great way off by the contrast of their dun colour with the pure white of the boundless waste. The hunters then disperse, and advance in such a manner as to intercept the deer in their confused retreat to windward, the direction they almost invariably follow. On one occasion I witnessed an extraordinary instance of affection in these timid creatures. Having brought down a fine doe at some distance, I was running forward to despatch her with my knife, when a handsome young buck bounded up, and raised his fallen favourite with his antlers. She went a few paces, and fell; again he raised her, and con- tinued wheeling around her, till a second ball—fur hunger is ruthless—laid hint dead at her side,

FACING THE WIND.

We were now at the commencement of a plain, twenty miles in breadth, which my guide required daylight to cross : we therefore breakfasted, and started at seven o'clock. The wind blew strongly from the Westward ; and to face it, where there was not a shrub, or even a blade of grass, to break its force, with a temperature of at least 40 degrees, was a serious undertaking. Muffling up our faces with shawls, pieces of blanket, and leather, in such a manner as to leave only the eyes exposed, we braved the blast. Each eyelash was speedily bedizened with a heavy crop of icicles; and we were obliged, every now and then, to turn our backs to the wind, and thaw off these obstructions with our half-frozen fingers.

SHOOTING RAPIDS.

From Sir John Franklin's description of the lower part of the Coppermine, we anticipated a day of dangers and excitement ; nor were we disappointed. Franklin made his descent on the 15th of July, when the river had fallen to its summer level ; but we were swept down by the spring flood, now at its very height. The swollen and tumultuous stream was still strewed with loose ice, while the inaccessible banks were piled up with ponderous fragments. The day was bright and lovely as we shot down rapid alter rapid ; in many of which we had to pull for our lives, to keep out of the suction of the precipices. along whose base the breakers raged and foamed with overwhelming fury. Shortly before noon we came in sight of Escape Rapid of Franklin; and a glance at the overhanging cliffs told us that there was no alternative but to run down with full cargo. In an instant we were in the vortex ; and, before we were aware, my boat was borne towards an isolated ruck, which the boiling surge almost concealed. To clear it on the outside was no longer possible; our only chance of safety was to run between it and the lofty Eastern cliff. The word was passed, and every breath was hushed. A stream, which dashed down upon us over the brow of the precipice more than a hundred feet in height, mingled with`the spray that whirled upwards from the rapid, forming a terrific shower- bath. The pass was about eight feet wide, and the error of a single foot on either side would have been instant destruction. As, guided by Sinclair's con- summate skill, the boat shot safely through those jaws of death, an involuntary cheer arose. Our next impulse was to turn round to view the fate of our comrades behind. They had profited by the peril we incurred, and kept with- out the treacherous rock in time. The waves there were still higher, and for a while we lost sight of our friends. When they emerged, the first object visible was the bowman disgorging part of an intrusive wave which he had swallowed, and looking half-drowned. Mr. Deese afterwards told me that the spray, which completely enveloped them, formed a gorgeous rainbow around the boat.