at them, who waked one of their dogs, and a droll time they had of it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their sacks.  But we remember no other instance where a sentinel was needed.  And occasionally in the journals the officer notes that he overslept in the morning, and did not “call the cook” early enough.  What a passion is sleep, to be sure, that one should oversleep with such comforts round him!

Some thirty or forty parties, thus equipped, set out from the “Resolute” while she was under Captain Kellett’s charge, on various expeditions.  As the journey of Lieutenant Pim to the “Investigator” at Banks Land was that on which turned the great victory of her voyage, we will let that stand as a specimen of all.  None of the others, however, were undertaken at so early a period of the year, and, on the other hand, several others were much longer,—­some of them, as has been said, occupying three months and more.

Lieutenant Pim had been appointed in the autumn to the “Banks Land search,” and had carried out his depots of provisions when the other officers took theirs.  Captain McClure’s chart and despatch made it no longer necessary to have that coast surveyed, but made it all the more necessary to have some one go and see if he was still there.  The chances were against this, as a whole summer had intervened since he was heard from.  Lieutenant Pim proposed, however, to travel all round Banks Land, which is an island about the size and shape of Ireland, in search of him, Collinson, Franklin, or anybody.  Captain Kellett, however, told him not to attempt this with his force, but to return to the ship by the route he went.  First he was to go to the Bay of Mercy; if the “Investigator” was gone, he was to follow any traces of her, and, if possible, communicate with her or her consort, the “Enterprise.”

Lieutenant Pim started with a sledge and seven men, and a dog-sledge with two under Dr. Domville, the surgeon, who was to bring back the earliest news from the Bay of Mercy to the captain.  There was a relief sledge to go part way and return.  For the intense cold of this early season they had even more careful arrangements than those we have described.  Their tent was doubled.  They had extra Mackintoshes, and whatever else could be devised.  They had bad luck at starting,—­broke down one sledge and had to send back for another; had bad weather, and must encamp, once for three days.  “Fortunately,” says the lieutenant of this encampment, “the temperature arose from fifty-one below zero to thirty-six below, and there remained,” while the drift accumulated to such a degree around the tents, that within them the thermometer was only twenty below, and, when they cooked, rose to zero.  A pleasant time of it they must have had there on the ice, for those three days, in their bags smoking and sleeping!  No wonder that on the fourth day they found they moved slowly, so cramped and benumbed were they.  This morning a new sledge came to them from the ship; they got out of their bags, packed, and got under way again.  They were still running along shore, but soon sent back the relief party which had brought the new sled, and in a few days more set out to cross the strait, some twenty-five to thirty miles wide, which, when it is open, as no man has ever seen it, is one of the Northwest Passages discovered by these expeditions.