Here are the dogs, who will eat old coats, or any thing; and, near the dwellings, here is a snow-bunting,--robin redbreast of the Arctic lands. A party of our sailors once, on landing, took some sticks from a large heap, and uncovered the nest of a snow-bunting with young, the bird flew to a little distance, but seeing that the men sat down and harmed her not, continued to seek food and supply her little ones, with full faith in the good intentions of the party. Captain Lyon found a child's grave partly uncovered, and a snow-bunting had built its nest upon the infant's bosom. Sailing round Melville Peninsula, we come into the gulf of Akkolee, through Fury and Hecla Straits, discovered by Parry. So we get back to the bottom of Regent's Inlet, which we quitted a short time ago, and sailing in the neighborhood of the magnetic pole, we reach the estuary of Black's River, on the north-east coast of America. We pass then through a straight, discovered in 1839, by Dean and Simpson, still coasting along the northern shore of America, on the Great Stinking Lake, as Indians call this ocean. Boats, ice permitting, and our "Phantom Ship," of course, can coast all the way to Behring Strait. The whole coast has been explored by Sir John Franklin, Sir John Richardson, and Sir George Back, who have earned their knighthoods through great peril. As we pass Coronation Gulf--the scene of Franklin, Richardson, and Back's first exploration from the Coppermine River--we revert to the romantic story of their journey back, over a land of snow and frost, subsisting upon lichens, with companions starved to death; where they plucked wild leaves for tea, and ate their shoes for supper; the tragedy by the river; the murder of poor Hood, with a book of prayers in his hand; Franklin at Fort Enterprise, with two companions at the point of death, himself gaunt, hollow-eyed, feeding on pounded bones, raked from the dunghill; the arrival of Dr. Richardson and the brave sailor; their awful story of the cannibal Michel;--we revert to these things with a shudder. But we must continue on our route. The current still flows westward, bearing now large quantities of drift-wood, out of the Mackenzie River. At the name of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, also, we might pause, and talk over the bold achievements of another arctic hero; but we pass on, by a rugged and inhospitable coast, unfit for vessels of large draught,--pass the broad mouth of the Youcon, pass Point Barrow, Icy Cape, and are in Behring Strait. Had we passed on, we should have found the Russian Arctic coast line, traced out by a series of Russian explorers; of whom the most illustrious--Baron Von Wrangell--states, that beyond a certain distance to the northward, there is always found what he calls the _Polynja_ (open water.) This is the fact adduced by those who adhere to the old fancy that there is a sea about the pole itself quite free from ice.