And yet, gentle reader, if you turn to the papers of the fall of 1849, you will find some asserting that Sir John Franklin had perished in Baffin's Bay, because Sir James Ross had found nothing of him in Lancaster Sound! Happily the majority of Englishmen have, however, decided otherwise; and behold, this noble equipment! this magnificent outlay of men and material! We will not dwell on the pleasures or annoyances of the cruise across the Atlantic, beyond stating the fact that our bluff-bowed worse-halfs, the sailing ships, nigh broke our hearts, as well as our hawsers, in dragging their breakwater frames along in the calms; and that we of the screws found our steam vessels all we could wish, somewhat o'er lively, mayhap,--a frisky tendency to break every breakable article on board. But there was a saucy swagger in them, as they bowled along the hollow of a western sea, which showed they had good blood in them; and we soon felt confident of disappointing those Polar seers, who had foretold shipwreck and disaster as their fate. [Headnote: _THE ATLANTIC.--GREENLAND._] The appearance of numerous sea-birds,--the Tern especially, which do not fly far from land,--warned us, on Sunday 26th May, of our fast approach to Greenland, and on the morrow we espied the picturesque shores about Cape Farewell. Which of all the numerous headlands we saw was the identical cape, I do not pretend to say; but we chose, as _our_ Cape Farewell, a remarkable-looking peak, with a mass of rock perched like a pillar upon its crest. The temperature began to fall as we advanced, and warmer coats quickly replaced our English clothing. Distant as we were from Greenland, our view of its southern extremity was fleeting, but sufficient to show that it fully realized in appearance the most striking accumulation of ice and land that the mind could picture,--a land of gaunt famine and misery; but which nevertheless, for some good purpose, it had pleased Providence in a measure to people. Had we not had an urgent duty to perform, I should have regretted thus hurrying past the land; for there is much to see there. True, Greenland has no deep historical interest, but the North has always had its charm for me. Scandinavia, and her deeds,--the skill and intrepidity of her bold Vikings,--their colonies in Snaeland, our Iceland,--their discovery of Greenland,--and the legend of the pirate Biarni, who forestalled even the great Columbus in his discovery,--were all associated with the region through which we were now sailing.