Probably Lieutenant Gore returned from that journey of exploration, as Captain Crozier speaks of him as the late Commander Gore, showing that on the death of their chief he had been raised a step in rank; but not long to enjoy it--he having among others passed away. The command of the expedition now devolved on Captain Crozier; but who can picture his anxiety and that of his officers and men, as the summer of 1847 drew on--the sea open to the north and south, but the ships immovably fixed in the vast mass of ice driven down upon them from Melville Sound? How bitter must have been their grief and disappointment when August and September passed away, and they found that they must pass another winter, that of 1847-48, in those regions! We know, too, that the ships were only provisioned up to 1848. Painfully that dreary winter must have passed away, and sad must have been the feelings of Captains Crozier and Fitzjames when they came to the resolution of abandoning the ships, by which a high sense of duty had induced them hitherto to remain. Up to 22nd April 1848, the total loss by deaths had been nine officers and fifteen men. On the 22nd April 1848, Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, with their officers and crews, consisting of 105 men, abandoned their ice-bound ships, and landed on the 25th on King William's Island, and started the following day for Back's Fish River, which runs through the Hudson's Bay territories from the south. Their hope was that they might, voyaging up that river, at length reach some of the Hudson's Bay Company's trading posts. That they reached the mouth of Fish River we have melancholy evidence. Here they probably encamped, and, when the season advanced, proceeded some way up, but, finding the difficulties of the navigation insurmountable, they returned to the mouth of the river, with the intention perhaps of proceeding along the coast to the westward through the North-West Passage, which they now knew for a certainty to exist. Before, however, they could do this, it was necessary to send to the ships for stores and any provisions which might have remained on board. For this purpose a strong party must have been despatched with a boat on a sledge, showing that they started rather early in the summer season, before the Straits were frozen over, or late in the spring, when they might expect to have to return by water. They greatly overrated their strength. When still eighty miles from the ships, they left the boat with two or more invalids in her, and a variety of valuables, hoping to reach the ships more speedily, and to return to her. One or more of those left with the boat attempted to follow, and dropped by the way. Some, perhaps, reached the ships, and attempted to regain the boat; but the greater number, overcome with hunger, disease, and cold, fell on their northward journey, never to rise again.