British flag on the Northern Magnetic Pole.
The ice broke up, so did the " Victory;" after
a hairbreadth escape, the party found a
searching vessel, and arrived home after an
absence of four years and five months, Sir John
Ross having lost his ship, and won his
reputation. The friend in need was made a
baronet for his munificence; Sir John was
reimbursed for all his losses, and the crew
liberally taken care of. Sir James Ross had
a rod and flag signifying "Magnetic Pole,"
given to him for a new crest, by the Heralds'
College, for which he was no doubt greatly
the better.

We have sailed northward to get into
Hudson Strait, the high road into Hudson
Bay. Along the shore are Exquimaux in
boats, extremely active, but these filthy
creatures we pass by; the Exquimaux in Hudson
Strait are like the negroes of the coast,
demoralised by intercourse with European
traders. These are not true pictures of the
loving children of the north. Our "Phantom"
floats on the wide waters of Hudson Bay
—the grave of its discoverer. Familiar as
the story is of Henry Hudson's fate, for John
King's sake how gladly we repeat it. While
sailing on the waters he discovered, in 1611,
his men mutinied; the mutiny was aided by
Henry Green, a prodigal, whom Hudson had
generously shielded from ruin. Hudson, the
master, and his son, with six sick or disabled
members of the crew, were driven from their
cabins, forced into a little shallop, and
committed helpless to the water and the ice. But
there was one stout man, John King, the
carpenter, who stepped into the boat, abjuring his
companions, and chose rather to die than even
passively be partaker in so foul a crime. John
King, we who live after, will remember you.

Here on an island, Charlton Island, near
our entrance to the bay, in 1631, wintered
poor Captain James with his wrecked crew.
This is a point outside the Arctic circle, but
quite cold enough. Of nights, with a good
fire in the house they built, hoar frost covered
their beds, and the cook's water in a metal
pan before the fire, was warm on one side and
froze on the other. Here "it snowed and
froze extremely, at which time we, looking
from the shore towards the ship, she appeared
a piece of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a
ship resembling a piece of ice." Here the
gunner, who had lost his leg, besought that,
"for the little time he had to live, he might
drink sack altogether." He died and was
buried in the ice far from the vessel, but when
afterwards two more were dead of scurvy,
and the others, in a miserable state, were
working with faint hope about their shattered
vessel, the gunner was found to have returned
home to the old vessel; his leg had penetrated
through a port-hole. They "digged him clear
out, and he was as free from noisomness," the
record says, " as when we first committed him
to the sea. This alteration had the ice, and
water, and time, only wrought on him, that
his flesh would slip up and down upon his
bones, like a glove on a man's hand. In the
evening we buried him by the others." These
worthy souls, laid up with the agonies of
scurvy, knew that in action was their only
hope; they forced their limbs to labour,
among ice and water, every day. They set
about the building of a boat, but the hard
frozen wood had broken all their axes, so they
made shift with the pieces. To fell a tree, it
was first requisite to light a fire around it,
and the carpenter could only labour with his
wood over a fire, or else it was like stone
under his tools. Before the boat was made
they buried the carpenter. The captain
exhorted them to put their trust in God; " His
will be done. If it be our fortune to end our
days here, we are as near Heaven as in
England. They all protested to work to the
utmost of their strength, and that they would
refuse nothing that I should order them to do
to the utmost hazard of their lives. I
thanked them all." Truly the North Pole has
its triumphs. If we took no account of the
fields of trade opened by our Arctic explorers,
if we thought nothing of the wants of science
in comparison with the lives lost in supplying
them, is not the loss of life a gain, which
proves and tests the fortitude of noble hearts,
and teaches us respect for human nature?
All the lives that have been lost among these
Polar regions, are less in number than the
dead upon a battle-field. The battle-field
inflicted shame upon our race—is it with
shame that our hearts throb in following these
Arctic heroes ? March 31st, says Captain
James, " was very cold, with snow and hail,
which pinched our sick men more than any
time this year. This evening, being May eve,
we returned late from our work to our house,
and made a good fire, and chose ladies, and
ceremoniously wore their names in our caps,
endeavouring to revive ourselves by any
means. On the 15th, I manured a little patch
of ground that was bare of snow, and sowed
it with pease, hoping to have some shortly to
eat, for as yet we could see no green thing to
comfort us." Those pease saved the party;
as they came up the young shoots were boiled
and eaten, so their health began to mend, and
they recovered from their scurvy. Eventually,
after other perils, they succeeded in making
their escape.

A strait, called Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome,
leads due north out of Hudson Bay, being
parted by Southampton Island from the strait
through which we entered. Its name is
quaint, for so was its discoverer, Luke Fox, a
worthy man, addicted much to euphuism.
Fox sailed from London in the same year in
which James sailed from Bristol. They were
rivals. Meeting in Davis Straits, Fox dined
on board his friendly rival's vessel, which was
very unfit for the service upon which it went.
The sea washed over them and came into the
cabin, so says Fox, "sauce would not have
been wanted if there had been roast mutton."