BOOKS.

OSBORN'S NARRATIVE OF M'CLURE'S DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST PA.SSAGIE."

SHERARD °snow; is known to the world, not only as an Arctic explorer, but as a natural and vivid describer of Arctic scenery and of nautical enterprise and endurance. These qualities are as prominent in this account of his friend M'Clure'a solution of the long-sought problem of the North-West Passage from M'Clure's logs and journals as in the compiler's own "Stray Leaves." He rapidly passes over .the daily details of nautical maneuvering,or of life during the wintry detention, which things render the generality of Arctic narratives flat if not tedious ; and confines his story to rarer and more striking incidents, such as the dan- gers of the navigation in a narrow channel with an iron-bound coast on one side and ice-cliffs really more deadly on the other— the universal good spirit and, good feeling of officers and men, shrinking from no hardship or danger, or even from hope de- ferred—the first solution of the great problem from Prince of Wales's Strait by an expedition over ice to the shores of Mel- ville's Sound when prevented from reaching it in the good ship Investigator by the obstacle of an icy sea—and the dramatic meeting with Lieutenant Pim, despatched by Captain Kellett to the assistance of the frozen-up mariners in the Bay of Mercy on Bank's Land. The third Arctic winter and a reduced allowance had told upon the health of the ship's com- pany ; scurvy had made its appearance ; the first death had taken place ; and Captain M'Clure had determined to form the un- healthiest men into two sledge-parties and send them away on the chance—a very slender chance—of reaching some place of refuge, he remaining by his ship with the others. A notification of his whereabouts that M'Clure had left at Winter Harbour, Melville Island, had been discovered by a sledge expedition of Captain Kellett ; and on the first opportunity that officer de- spatched a small party to the Harbour of Mercy. The incident, we believe, has been published already, but not in M'Clure's own words.

" The 6th of April 1853 came in. A fine deer was hung up ready to be cut up for a hearty meal, and all hands were to partake of it before their separation, which was to takep lace in the following week ; when an event occurred which rescued them from further suffering and trials of fortitude. I give Captain M'Clure's journal almost verbatim upon this day.

" While walking near the ship, in conversation with the First Lieute- nant upon the subject of digging a grave for the man who died yesterday, and discussing how we could cut a grave in the ground whilst it was so hardly frozen, (a subject naturally sad and depressing,) we perceived a figure walking rapidly towards us from the rough ice at the entrance of the bay. From his pace and gestures we both naturally supposed at first that he was some one of our party pursued by a bear ; but as we approached him doubts arose as to who it could be. He was certainly unlike any of our men; but, recollecting that it was possible some one might be trying a new travelling dress preparatory to the departure of our sledges, and certain that no one else was near, we continued to advance. When within about two hundred yards of us, this strange figure threw up his arms, and made gesticulations resembling those used by Esquimaux, besides shouting at the top of his voice words which, from the wind and intense excitement of the moment, sounded like a wild screech : and this brought us both fairly to a stand-still. The stranger came quietly on, and we saw that his face was as black as ebony ; and really at the moment we might be pardoned for won- dering whether he was a denizen of this or the other world : as it was, we gallantly stood our ground, and, had the skies fallen upon us, we could hardly have been more astonished than when the dark-faced stranger called out, " I'm Lieutenant Pim, late of the Herald, and now in the Resolute. Captain Kellett is in her atDealy Island." " ' To rush at and seize him by the hand was the first impulse, for the heart was too full for the- tongue to speak. The announcement of relief being close at hand, when none was supposed to be even within the Arctic Circle, was too sudden, unexpected, and joyous, for our minds to compre- hend it at once. The news flew with lightning rapidity ; the ship was all in commotion ; the sick, forgetful of their maladies, leaped from their ham- mocks ; the artificers dropped their tools, and the lower deck was cleared of men ; for they all rushed for the hatchway to be assured that a stranger was actually amongst them and that his tale was true. Despondency tied the ship ; and Lieutenant Pim received a welcome, pure, hearty, and grateful, that he will assuredly remember and cherish to the end of his days.'

" In a very short time the dog-sledge with two men arrived, and long and eager were the conversations and questionings which ensued. The In- vestigators felt perfectly bewildered with the rescue which had reached them just in time to save, in all probability, the lives of the thirty persons who were about to attempt to reach home with sledges and boats (as well as of that forlorn hope who were to remain behind) ; and when the fact had per? fectly realized itself to all, it may be imagined what their feelings were."

As Captain Kellett was the first to rescue the Investigator's crew, so he had been the last to speed the good ship on her voyage. Some three years before, he had been cruising of Behring's Straits ; and, as he was the senior officer, it depended upon his fiat whether M'Clure should proceed or be delayed for the chance of Captain Collinson's arrival in the Enterprise. "At last Captain Kellett consented that the Investigator should part company ; but he first of all supplied Captain M'Clure's wants, by .giving him three volunteers, and furnishing him with such articles as his own stores would admit of. The reader will sympathize with the generous feel- ings of those who, like the captain and officers of the Herald, were thus, for the last time perhaps, in this world, shaking by the hand men bound upon a service as hazardous as it was glorious, and they will understand bow trying a moment it must have been for one circumstanced as Captain Kellett was to say to such a body as the Investigators—' Go on ! ' when he knew full well that from where they then stood there lay before them for full nine hundred miles, upon the one hand a shoal and dangerous coast, upon the other a heavy and hopeless sea of ice.

• The Discovery of the North-West Passage by H. AL S. Investigator, Capt. R- M'Clure, 1850,1851, 1852, 1853, 1854. Editcd by Commander Sherard Osborn, Au- thor of " Stray Leaves from as Arctic Journal." From the Logs and Journals of Captain Robert Le If. H.Clure. Illustrated by Commander. Gurney Oresswell, .12.Y. Published by Longman and Co.

" The Investigator had not long borne up on her solitary course under a heavy press of sail, when the signal was made—' Had you better not wait forty-eight hours I ' The reply was characteristic—' Important duty. Can- not upon my own responsibility.' In a few hours the Investigator was alone, the wind changing to the N.E. quarter."

It is not only in the selection of the matter and its presentation that Captain Osborn's book differs from the generality of " voy- ages and travels." Although the principal, M'Clure's is not the only expedition exhibited. A general account is given of the voyage of Captain Collinson, the superior officer of M'Clure, from whom he was parted by stress of weather and other incidents of navigation ; a coup d'eeil also is presented of the other efforts that were made during the whole period of • M'Clure's voyage 1850-'54. This plan brings before the reader a view of the whole subject, and enables him to apprehend all that was doing in those Northern regions, rendering the work not only popular but complete. At the same time, this readableness is gained by an occasional appearance of rather too much writing, not in the sense of word-spinning, but of obvious composition. There is, too, a freedom of censure, nearly always after the event ; as well as a long examination of Sir Edward Belcher's conduct in aban- doning the vessels, and some imputation of motives which it would be difficult to prove, and much of which had better have been reserved for that Sequel to his Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal which Captain Osborn promises. It will be recollected, that the expedition of Captains Collinson and M'Clure started from the Pacific to make their way Eastward, while all the others proceeded from Baffin Bay to work their course to the West. Beyond the common difficulties of navigation among the ice, the obstacles to meeting from these two opposite quarters are embraced within a few hundred miles. Neither Collinson nor M'Clure found any very great obstacles to making their way from Behring's Straits between the coast of North America and the ice to within a comparatively short distance of Melville Sound. Collinson indeed reached it within twenty-five miles in his second season, (having started late,) and M'Clure not quite so near in his first season. When M'Clure found himself stopped by the ice at the Northern mouth of Prince of Wales Strait, (lying between Banks' and Prince Albert's Lands,) he returned on his steps, and sailed, with danger certainly but without insuperable impedi- ments, till he reached the Bay of Mercy, almost opposite " Parry's Farthest West of August 1820." Vessels starting from the other or Baffin Bay side meet only the usual difficulties of t

Northern navigation till about the mouth of Wellington Channel they seem able to get out and home in a single season. Beyond Wellington Channel to the Eastern part of Melville Island (in about 105 degrees West longitude) the difficulties and uncer- tainties multiply ; a vessel may be frozen up and delayed two or three years or more. The two hundred intervening miles are the great and according to experience insurmountable labour. Captain Kellett, in 1852, pushed on nearly as far as Winter Har- bour, but could get no nearer to Parry's Farthest. This last point is some fifty miles from M'Clure's Harbour of Mercy, where his ship was left, but lies on nearly the same parallel of longitude as Collinson's Farthest on Prince of Wales Strait, a frozen sea only intervening. Thus, though the North-West Passage is de- monstrated, it has not been made by a vessel, though the sea 'has been passed over by seamen, and the passage itself been accom- plished by M'Clure and his crew.

It will be understood that the difficulties of navigation along the coast of America are by no means slight. In making way against an adverse wind, the narrow channel compels continual tacking, often with hardly room to do it ; masses of floating ice encumber the sea, collision with which is dangerous ; shoals con- stantly beset the navigator, compelling incessant heaving of the lead ; while fogs and driving sleet or snow circumscribe the look- out. The great danger began when sailing along the more Northerly part of the Western coast of Banks Land. The Cape Kellett of the following extract is the most Westerly point of the Land.

"In the afternoon Cape Kellett was rounded, with some little difficulty, the ship passing, with sufficient water to float her, between the edge of grounded ice and the coast. The land was now so low that the hand lead- line became for awhile their best guide ; the soundings happily were regular, and, aided by it and a fair wind, they advanced apace to the Northward : throughout the 19th the ship sometimes ran as much as seven knots per hour, the width of the lane of water in which they were sailing varying from three to five miles. Noon that day found them in 73° 55' North lati- tude, and 123° 52' 30" West longitude, and already did Captain M'Clure count upon extending his voyage to the North of Melville Island, and then striking for some Strait or Sound leading into Baffin's Bay ! " That night, however, a sudden and remarkable change took place. They had just crossed Burnet Bay, within Norway and Robilliard Island, when the coast suddenly became as abrupt and precipitous as a wall ; the water was very deep, sixty fathoms by the lead-line within four hundred yards of the face of the cliffs, and fifteen fathoms water when actually touching them. The lane of water had diminished to two hundred yards in width where broadest ; and even that space was much hampered by loose pieces of ice aground or adrift. In some places the channel was so narrow that the quarter-boats had to be topped up to prevent them touching the cliffs upon the one hand, or the lofty ice upon the other ; and so perfectly were they run- ning the gauntlet, that on many occasions the ship could not 'round to,' for want of space. Their position was full of peril, yet they could but push on, for retreat was now as dangerous as progress. The pack was of the same fearful description as that they had fallen in with in the offing of the Mackenzie River, during the previous autumn; it drew forty and fifty feet water, and rose in rolling hills upon the surface, some of them a hun- dred feet from base to summit. Any attempt to force the frail ship against such ice was of course mere folly : all they could do was to watch for every opening, trust in the goodness and mercy of God, and push ahead in the ex- ecution of their duty. If the ice at such a time had set in with its vast force against the sheer cliff, nothing, they all felt, could have saved them

and nothing in the long tale of Arctic research is finer than the cool and resolute way in which al4 from the captain to the youngest seaman of this gallant band, fought inch by inch to make their way round this frightful coast.

" Enough has been said to give a correct idea of the peril incurred at this stage of the voyage, without entering into minute details of the hairbreadth escapes hourly taking place but one instance may be given as a sample of the rest. After the 20th of August the Investigator lay helplessly fixed oft the North-west of Banks' Land : the wind had pressed in the ice, and for awhile all hopes of farther progress were at an end. On the 29th clAugust, however, a sudden move took place, and a moving floe struck a huge mass to which the ship had been secured, and, to the horror of those on board, such was the enormous power exerted that the mass slowly reared itself on its edge close to the ship's bows, until the upper part was higher than the fore-yard ; and every moment appeared likely to be the Investigator's last; for the ice had but to topple over to sink her and her crew under its weight. At the critical moment there was a shout of joy, for the mass, after oscil- lating fearfully, broke up, rolled back in its original position, and they were saved. Hardly, however, was this danger past than a fresh one threatened, for the berg to which the ship was secured was impelled forward by the whole weight of the driving pack towards a low point of land, on which with frightful pressure the great floes were breaking up, and piling them- selves tier upon tier. The Investigator had no power of escape but every hawser was put in requisition, and hands stationed by them. An attempt to blow up a grounded berg, upon which the ship was driving, only par- tially succeeded ; the nip came on, the poor ship groaned, and every plank and timber quivered from stem to stern in this trial of strength between her and the ice. ' Our fate seemed sealed,' says Captain M'Clure and he made up his mind to let go all hawsers. The order was given and with it the wreck of the Investigator seemed certain : all the leader hoped for was, to use his own words, that we might have the ship thrown up sufficiently to serve as an asylum for the winter.' If she should sink between the two contending bergs the destruction of every soul was inevitable.

" But at the very moment when the order to let go all hawsers' was given, and even before it could be obeyed, a merciful Providence caused the berg which most threatened to break up, and the Investigator was once more saved ; though still so tightly was she beset, that there was not room to drop a lead-line down round the vessel, and the copper upon her bottom was hanging in shreds or rolled up like brown paper."

Various incidents of resolution, self-devotion, and hairbreadth escape, are told of individuals, illustrative of the goodnatared courage and simple heroism of the British sailor. On th9 turn from the first ice journey .made to satisfy themselvsk that Prince of Wales Strait communicated with Melville Sound, and that the North-West Passage was really discovered in one direc- tion, Captain M'Clure himself had a narrow escape. "The return journey might have ended seriously for the leader of the party. On the 30th October, at 2 p.m., having seen the Princess Royal Isles, and knowing the position of the Investigator from them, Captain 'M'Clure left his sledge, with the intention of pushing for the ship, and having a warm meal ready for his men on their arrival. When still six miles from the ship the night overtook him ; and with it came a dense mist accompanied with snow-drift, which rolled down' the strait, and obscured every object. Unable to see his road, but endeavouring to preserve a course by the wind, M.Chire continued to hasten on, until repeated and heavy falls amongst the broken ice warned him to desist or incur the additional peril of broken limbs. I now,' he says, climbed on a mass of squeezed-up ice, in the hope of seeing my party, should they pass near, or of attracting the at- tention of some one on board the vessel by firing my fowling-piece. Un- fortunately, I had no other ammunition than what it was loaded with ; for I had fancied, when I left the sledge, that the two charges in the gun would be all should be likely to requi re. After waiting for an hour pa- tiently, I was rejoiced to see through the mist the glare of a blue light, evi- dently 'burnt in the direction in which I had left the sledge. I immediately fired to denote my position • but my fire was evidently unobserved, and, both barrels being discharged, position; unable to repeat the signal. My only hope now rested upon the ship answering ; but nothing was to be seen, and al- though I once more saw, at a greater distance, the glare of another blue light from the sledge, there seemed no probability of my having any other shelter for the night than that the floc afforded. Two hours elapsed : I en- deavoured to see the face of my pocket-compass by the light of a solitary Lu- cifer match, which happened to be in my pocket ; but in this hope I was cruelly disappointed, for it fizzed and went out, leaving me in total darkness. It was now half-past eight; there were eleven hours of night before me, a temperature 15° below zero, bears prowling about, and I with an unloaded gun in my hands. The sledge-party might, however, reach the ship, and finding I had not arrived, search would be made and help be sent ; so I walked to and fro upon my hummock until I suppose it must have been eleven o'clock, when that hope fled likewise. Descer.ding from the top of the slab of ice upon which I had clambered, I found under its lee a famous bed of soft dry snow, and, thoroughly tired out, I threw myself upon it and slept for perhaps three hours, when upon opening my eyes I fancied I saw the flash of a rocket. Jumping upon my feet, I found that the mist had

cleared off and that the stars and aurora-borealis were shining in all the splendour of an Arctic night. Although unable to see the islands or the ship, I wandered about the ice in different directions until daylight, when to my great mortification, I found I had passed the ship fully the distance of four miles.' Retracing his steps, Captain M'Clure reached the Investigator

on the 31st October very tired, but otherwise none the worse for his rough and dangerous exposure to a winter's night in 73' North latitude. A few hours afterwards the sledge arrived under Mr. Court ; and great was the joy on board, and hearty the congratulations at their safe return, and the glori- ous news they brought."

Some characteristic information respecting the Esquimanx is contained in the present volume. Of this tribe, when they are removed from the influences of Whites and Indians, both Captain M'Clure and Captain Osborn speak highly. At the same time, the praise bestowed appears to be grounded upon personal appear- ance and behaviour rather than good conduct. The interesting narrative by Captain Maguire of his winter at Point Barrow, pub- lished by Captain Osborn as an appendix, rather confirms the bad than the good view of the Esquimaux character.

As the great problem of the North-West Passage has been solved, and the fate of Franklin and his gallant band too surely established, it is probable that the remoter Arctic regions will now be left to their primeval solitude. Captain Osborn is evi- dently desirous that another sea-expedition should be sent out to discover the Erebus and Terror, whose whereabouts is pretty well ascertained, so as to gather up the last records and remains of that self-devoted band. But, though wishing it, Captain Osborn ap- pears to doubt the probability of the enterprise bebig and arguments against it are obvious both on the score of expense and of danger. To rest much upon the cost of such an expedi- tion, when the extent of our national expenditure is considered, as well as how we do waste some of it, is, in Ancient Pistol's phrase, a "most mechanical and dirty" argument. To avoid an enterprise not improper in itself, on the plea of danger, is an un- worthy reason, which if it were once adopted as a principle of action would speedily degrade the navy of England and the na- tional character. Notwithstanding all that has been written from the utilitarian point of view on these Arctic expeditions, they have not been fruitless. Scientific knowledge has been greatly extended ; the national glory has been somewhat raised ; and though they could not create they have developed the true heroic metal of the British sailor, that quietly takes perils, privations, and exertions to which some of the labours of Hercules were but child's play, as " all in his day's work."