Luke Fox being ice-bound and in peril, writes,
"God thinks upon our imprisonment with a
supersedeas; " but he was a good and honourable
man as well as euphuist. His " Sir
Thomas Rowe's Welcome," leads into Fox
Channel; our " Phantom Ship " is pushing
through the welcome passes on the left-hand
Repulse Bay. This portion of the Arctic
regions, with Fox Channel, is extremely
perilous. Here Captain Lyon, in the " Griper,"
was thrown anchorless upon the mercy of a
stormy sea, ice crashing around him. One
island in Fox Channel is called Mill Island,
from the incessant grinding of great masses of
ice collected there. In the northern part of
Fox Channel, on the western shore, is Melville
Peninsula, where Parry wintered on his
second voyage. Here let us go ashore and
see a little colony of Esquimaux.

Their huts are built of blocks of snow, and
arched, having an ice pane for a window.
They construct their arched entrance and
their hemispherical roof, on the true
principles of architecture. Those wise men, the
Egyptians, made their arch by hewing the
stones out of shape, the Esquimaux have the
true secret. Here they are, with little food
in winter and great appetites; devouring a
whole walrus when they get it, and taking
the chance of hunger for the next eight days
—hungry or full, for ever happy in their lot
—here are the Esquimaux. They are warmly
clothed, each in a double suit of skins sewn
neatly together. Some are singing, with
good voices, too. Please them, and they
straightway dance; activity is good in a
cold climate. Play to them on the flute, or
if you can sing well, sing, or turn a barrel-
organ, they are mute, eager with wonder and
delight; their love of music is intense. Give
them a pencil, and, like children, they will
draw. Teach them and they will learn,
oblige them and they will be grateful. " Gentle
and loving savages," one of our old worthies
called them, and the Portuguese were so much
impressed with their teachable and gentle
conduct, that a Venetian ambassador writes,
"His serene majesty contemplates deriving
great advantage from the country, not only on
account of the timber of which he has occasion,
but of the inhabitants, who are
admirably calculated for labour, and are the best
I have ever seen." The Esquimaux, of course,
will learn vice, and in the region visited by
whale ships, vice enough has certainly been
taught him. Here are the dogs, who will eat
old coats, or anything; and, near the dwellings,
here is a snow-bunting,—robin redbreast of
the Arctic lands. A party of our sailors once,
on landing, took some sticks from a large heap,
and uncovered the nest of a snow-bunting
with young, the bird flew to a little distance,
but seeing that the men sat down and harmed
her not, continued to seek food and supply
her little ones, with full faith in the good
intentions of the party. Captain Lyon found
a child's grave partly uncovered, and a snow-
bunting had built its nest upon the infant's
bosom.

Sailing round Melville Peninsula, we come
into the Gulf of Akkolee, through Fury and
Hecla Straits, discovered by Parry. So we
get back to the bottom of Regent's Inlet,
which we quitted a short time ago, and sailing
in the neighbourhood of the magnetic
pole, we reach the estuary of Back's River, on
the north-east coast of America. We pass
then through a strait, discovered in 1839, by
Dean and Simpson, still coasting along the
northern shore of America, on the Great
Stinking Lake, as Indians call this ocean.
Boats, ice permitting, and our " Phantom
Ship," of course, can coast all the way to
Behring Strait. The whole coast has been
explored by Sir John Franklin, Sir John
Richardson, and Sir George Back, who have
earned their knighthoods through great peril.
As we pass Coronation Gulf—the scene of
Franklin, Richardson, and Back's first
exploration from the Coppermine River—we revert
to the romantic story of their journey back,
over a land of snow and frost, subsisting upon
lichens, with companions starved to death
where they plucked wild leaves for tea, and
ate their shoes for supper; the tragedy by
the river; the murder of poor Hood, with a
book of prayers in his hand; Franklin at
Fort Enterprise, with two companions at the
point of death, himself gaunt, hollow-eyed,
feeding on pounded bones, raked from the
dunghill; the arrival of Dr. Richardson and
the brave sailor; their awful story of the
cannibal Michel;—we revert to these things
with a shudder. But we must continue on
our route. The current still flows westward,
bearing now large quantities of drift-wood,
out of the Mackenzie River. At the name of
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, also, we might
pause, and talk over the bold achievements
of another Arctic hero; but we pass on, by a
rugged and inhospitable coast, unfit for vessels
of large draught,—pass the broad mouth of the
Youcon, pass Point Barrow, Icy Cape, and
are in Behring Strait. Had we passed on,
we should have found the Russian Arctic
coast line, traced out by a series of Russian
explorers; of whom the most illustrious—
Baron Von Wrangell—states, that beyond a
certain distance to the northward, there is
always found what he calls the Polynja (open
water). This is the fact adduced by those
who adhere to the old fancy that there is a
sea about the pole itself quite free from ice.

We pass through Behring Straits. Behring,
a Dane by birth, but in the Russian service,
died here in 1741, upon the scene of his
discovery. He and his crew, victims of scurvy,
were unable to manage their vessel in a
storm; and it was at length wrecked on a
barren island, there, where " want, nakedness,
cold, sickness, impatience, and despair, were
their daily guests," Behring, his lieutenant,
and the master died.

Now we must put a girdle round the world,