By the beginning of April everything was in readiness for the extended sledge journeys. M’Clintock arranged that the operations should be conducted by three different parties, led by himself, Hobson, and Young. Each party was to consist of four men drawing one sledge and six dogs drawing the second sledge, besides the officer in charge and the dog-driver. He was, of course, a past master of the art of arranging sledging expeditions, and so carefully had he disposed his depots of provisions, and so skilfully had he adjusted the travelling equipment of the parties, that he expected that each of them would be able to absent itself from the ship for seventy or eighty days without any difficulty whatever. M’Clintock and Hobson started off on their journeys on April 2. For a while their routes coincided, and, by hoisting their tents as sails, and so taking advantage of a favourable breeze, they made excellent progress. It was not until they were well on their way down the coast of Boothia that they fell in with natives, and from these they learnt that two ships had been seen some years before off King William Land. One of them had sunk in deep water, but the other had been forced ashore by the ice, where she was still supposed to remain, though much broken. It was from the latter ship, according to their story, that they had obtained most of their wood. On April 28 they reached Cape Victoria, on the south-west Coast of Boothia Felix. Here they were to separate, and all credit must be given to M’Clintock for his generosity to his junior officer. Though he knew that, if relics were to be found at all, it would be on the west coast of King William Land, he sent off Hobson to explore that district, reserving the far less promising east coast for himself. Hobson’s instructions were to cross to Cape Felix, the most northern point of King William Land, and then to search the whole of the west coast for the missing ship or any relics or records that might be deposited there. Should his search prove unsuccessful, he was to cross to Victoria Land, and to complete the exploration of that coast from Collinson’s farthest point. In the meanwhile, M’Clintock himself meant to push southward down the east coast of King William’s Land in the direction of the Great Fish River.