The descent of the river actually began on June 27, and was one of the most exciting trips on record. The stream was constantly interrupted by rapids, falls, and rocks, and had not Back been provided with a bowman and a steersman of exceptional nerve and dexterity in Sinclair, a half-breed, and M’Kay, a Highlander, calamity would have overtaken his party before it was very far on its way. A characteristic story is told of M’Kay which well deserves quotation. At a peculiarly crucial moment, when the boat was being swirled down one of the most dangerous rapids that the expedition had had to negotiate, an oar broke, and the boat and its occupants were within an ace of being hurled incontinently down an appalling fall. The situation proved altogether too much for one member of the crew, who began to cry aloud for Divine assistance. He was interrupted, however, by M’Kay, who yelled at him in a voice which carried even above the roar of the water, “Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard oar!” After a most perilous voyage, during which they covered 530 miles and negotiated no fewer than eighty-three falls, rapids, and cascades, Back and his party reached the mouth of the Great Fish River at the end of July. His hopes of being able to penetrate westward as far as Cape Turnagain were, however, doomed to disappointment, for the shore was so encumbered with ice that navigation was out of the question. After waiting for a few days in the hope that the sea would clear he determined to return home, so, after giving the name of King William Land to the big island which lay opposite the mouth of the river, he started on the homeward journey on August 21, reaching his destination on September 17, and in the following year he returned to England. It should be added that, in honour of this voyage, the name of the river was changed to that of Back River. Back was not destined to remain idle for long, for in 1836 he was despatched by the Government to find a passage from Prince Regent’s Inlet into the Polar Sea, if such a passage existed. According to his instructions he was to make for Wager Inlet or Repulse Bay in the _Terror_, which had been specially fitted out for the voyage, and was manned by a splendid company, including Robert M’Clure, the future discoverer of the North-West Passage, and Graham Gore, one of Franklin’s companions on his last and fatal expedition. There he was to spend the winter, and in the following year he was to cross the isthmus joining Melville Peninsula to the mainland and pursue his way towards Cape Turnagain.