We repeat, that since the poor, ignorant natives live in rude abundance, and lack nothing for mere animal enjoyment of life, it is impossible to doubt that Europeans, who in intelligence and resources are a superior race of beings, can fail to participate equally in all things which the Creator has provided for the support of man in this extremity of the habitable globe; also let it be borne in mind, that half-a-dozen Esquimaux devour almost as much food every day as will suffice for a ship’s crew.  Sir John Ross declares, that if they only ate moderately, any given district would support ’double their number, and with scarcely the hazard of want.’  He says that an Esquimaux eats twenty pounds of flesh and oil a day, and, in fact, never ceases from devouring until compelled to desist from sheer repletion.  Speaking of one meal taken in their company, we have this edifying observation:—­’While we found that one salmon and half of another were more than enough for all us English, these voracious animals (the Esquimaux) had devoured two each.  At this rate of feeding, it is not wonderful that their whole time is occupied in procuring food:  each man had eaten fourteen pounds of this raw salmon, and it was probably but a luncheon after all, of a superfluous meal for the sake of our society!....  The glutton bear—­scandalised as it may be by its name—­might even be deemed a creature of moderate appetite in comparison:  with their human reason in addition, these people, could they always command the means, would doubtless outrival a glutton and a boa-constrictor together.’

Finally, we expressly deny that the Esquimaux can or do bear extreme cold and privations better than Englishmen who have been a season or two in their country.  Arctic explorers testify that the natives always appeared to suffer from cold quite as much as Europeans; and what little we have ourselves seen of northern countries, induces us to give ample credence to this.

The conclusion, then, at which we arrive is this:  that under such experienced and energetic leaders as Sir John Franklin and his chief officers, the gallant crews of the missing expedition have not perished for lack of food, and will be enabled, if God so wills, to support life for years to come.  Great, indeed, their sufferings must be; for civilised men do not merely eat to sleep, and sleep to eat, like the Esquimaux; but they will be upheld under every suffering by a firm conviction that their countrymen are making almost superhuman exertions to rescue them from their fearful isolation.  What the final issue will be, is known only to Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and can, if He deems meet, provide a way of deliverance when hope itself has died in every breast.  Our individual opinion is, that it is not improbable the lost crews will, sooner or later, achieve their own deliverance by arriving at some coast whence they may be taken off, even as Ross was, after sojourning during four years of unparalleled severity.  But it is the bounden duty of our country never to relax its efforts to save Franklin, until there is an absolute certainty that all further human exertions are in vain.