The travelling parties, with the two heavy boat sledges, started on their journey with a full knowledge of their condition, and that many must fall by the way. No more heroic band ever went forth to die. They had made great discoveries and had served their country right well. They reached Cape Victory of Ross, on King William Island, and encamped. Lieut. Irving found the cairn erected by Graham Gore in the previous year, and brought the printed form, with the lines written on it, mentioned on p. 243, to Captain Fitzjames. Fitzjames had some ink thawed, and wrote round the margin:-- In 1848, H.M. Ships _Terror_ and _Erebus_ were deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12 Sept. 1846, the officers and crews consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier landed here in Lat. 69° 37′ 42″ N. and Long. 98° 41′. This paper was found by Lieut. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831 4 miles to the northward where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 1847. Sir James Ross’s pillar has not however been found, and the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in which Sir J. Ross’s pillar was erected--Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June 1847, and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. JAMES FITZJAMES, _Captain_ H.M.S. _Erebus_. F. R. M. CROZIER, _Captain and Senior Officer_. And start on to-morrow 26th for Back’s Fish River. On the 26th, in the early morning, preparations were made for a start. The men had much less strength than they supposed. Much had to be left behind. The boat’s cooking apparatus, shovel, pickaxe, canvas, blankets, even Hornby’s sextant, a dip circle, the doctor’s medicine chest, and a pile of warm clothing were left, the latter making a heap four feet high. Even thus lightened the boats were still much too heavy. Many of the men dropped and died; Crozier probably succumbed early at the cape which now bears his name, where a grave was found. A few reached Todd Island with one boat. The other had been left, full of a great variety of things, near Cape Crozier. The survivors crossed the strait and reached the bay formed by the long promontory ending at Cape Richardson. A few wandered inland. All perished. When the ice loosened the _Erebus_ sank. The _Terror_ was drifted on to the American coast, and ransacked by the Eskimos. Then a gale drove her off the rocks into deep water, and she too sank. A veil should be drawn over the last struggles of brave men fighting cold, disease, and hunger. One likes to think that Captain Fitzjames, the chivalrous, the sympathetic, the dauntless leader, was perhaps the last,--that he tended them all and saw them all depart before him; and that then