“Night at length brought quiet and serious thoughts, and I trust there was not a man among us who did not then express, where it was due, his gratitude for that interposition which had raised us all from a despair which none could now forget, and had brought us from the very borders of a most distant grave, to life and friends and civilization. Long accustomed, however, to a cold bed on the hard snow or the bare rocks, few could sleep amid the comfort of our new accommodations. I was myself compelled to leave the bed which had been kindly assigned me, and take my abode in a chair for the night, nor did it fare much better with the rest. It was for time to reconcile us to this sudden and violent change, to break through what had become habit, and inure us once more to the usages of our former days.” After five years in the Arctic, Captain Ross and his crew were homeward bound, carrying with them a record unprecedented in Arctic history. Boothia Felix had been discovered; the connecting isthmus had been crossed to the mainland of America and explorations made in the direction of Franklin Passage, Victoria Strait, and King William Sound; the Magnetic Pole had been located; and a series of most valuable observations kept during the entire period. Previous to his arrival in England, the prolonged absence of Captain Ross had caused great anxiety to his countrymen, and, although his expedition had been a private affair in no way connected with the Admiralty, the government nevertheless felt it to be a national concern that his fate and that of the crew should be ascertained if possible. [Sidenote: _LAND JOURNEY OF CAPTAIN BACK_] Subscriptions were raised to promote a relief expedition, liberally added to from the public treasury, and an expedition fitted out in charge of Captain Back, who had volunteered his services, accompanied by the surgeon and naturalist, Dr. Richard King. With three men, they left Liverpool, February 17, 1833, on a packet-ship bound for New York, where they landed after a rough voyage of thirty-five days. From New York they went to Montreal, where they secured four more volunteers from the Royal Artillery Corps and some other assistants, and embarked on the St. Lawrence in two canoes. Making a brief stop at Sault Ste. Marie, for the purpose of purchasing a third canoe, they directed their course to the northern shores of Lake Superior. On May 20, they arrived at Fort William. By the first week in June, the canoes reached Fort Alexander at the southern extremity of Lake Winnipeg. Coasting this lake, Captain Back made for Norway House, where he secured his full complement of men, eighteen in all, and they started in high spirits for Fort Resolution, the eastern shore of the Great Slave Lake. The chief annoyance experienced on this long canoe trip was the torment from myriads of sand-flies and mosquitoes, of which Captain Back writes:—