attacked him and his friends with lances, pikes, arrows, and other missiles. Park defended himself vigorously for a long time; but at last, after throwing everything in the canoe overboard, being overpowered by numbers, and seeing no chance of getting the canoe past, he took hold of one of the white men and jumped into the river; Martyn did the same; and the whole were drowned in their attempt to escape by swimming. One black remained in the canoe, the other two being killed; and he cried for mercy. The canoe fell into the hands of the natives. Amadi Fatouma (a | guide, who was not present at this final scene), on being freed from his irons, three months afterwards, ascertained these facts from the native who had survived the catastrophe."

Leichhardt-shall we ever know where and when he died? Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt was a Prussian, who went to Australia just about thirty years ago, and rambled about in search of natural history specimens. In 1844-45 he made a venturesome journey from the east coast to the north coast of that country, under the patronage of Governor Sir Thomas Mitchell. He went where no European had ever before been, and did his work well; but, during three thousand miles of travel, he suffered terrible privations. So far from being tired out, however, he started off again, in the very next year, on a much more daring expedition-to cross the whole breadth of Australia from east to west, striking as near to the actual centre as he could. The last that was heard of him was in April, 1848. How far he penetrated, when and how he died, perhaps we shall never know; for all his companions seem to have perished with him. Once now and then, the Australian newspapers give bits of rumour about relics of poor Leichhardt; but they fail of verification when tested. The belief is that he perished far in the interior of the vast continent, at some point which no other white man has ever visited.

Whether La Pérouse was entrapped and murdered by South Sea aborigines, or whether he and his men found a watery grave by shipwreck, is not certainly known. In 1787, with the good ships Bussole and Astrolabe, M. De la Pérouse (or Peyrouse) left France on a voyage of discovery to the South Seas. He refitted at Sydney, in 1788, at the very time when Governor Phillip was establishing our first colony in those regions. The two ships started, but not a single man of either crew was ever

again heard of. The intention announced was to visit the Friendly Islands, New Guinea, and Van Diemen's Land. No news of the expedition having reached France, Admiral D'Entrecasteaux was despatched on a voyage of search, 1792-93: fruitlessly. Years rolled on, and the mysterious fate of La Pérouse and his companions excited much interest, and became the theme of poets, stories, and laments. Long afterwards, Captain Dillon, in command of an East Indiaman, called at Tucopia, one of the New Hebrides Islands, in 1826. He found a silver swordhilt, and other articles of French make, and learned from the natives that two ships had been wrecked at Mallicolo, another island in the group, nearly forty years before, leaving numerous fragments on the beach. Taking up this as a clue, the French government sent out M. Dumont d'Urville in the following year, to make researches. At Mallicolo he found several articles of European manufacture, in the possession of the natives; who, after some reluctance, and under the temptation of a gift of a piece of red cloth, pointed out a spot where anchors, canvas, and shipsheathing lay near the dry land, at a depth of about twenty feet in the sea. The tradition among the natives was that, on a certain dark and stormy night, the ships struck; that one speedily sunk, and only thirty of the crew were saved; that the other went to pieces, but without entailing the loss of her crew; that the survivors used up the shattered timbers to build a schooner, which work occupied them seven moons or months; that they sailed away, and were never more seen. Therefore, whether the hapless commander lost his life at Mallicolo, or in some other part of the vast Pacific, we shall probably never know.

Nothing can more clearly show the difference between intense cold and intense heat, especially when the latter is accompanied by damp vapours, on the human frame, than the small sacrifice of life among the explorers of the icy regions, compared with that which has marked the course of African travel. During the fifty or sixty years of voyaging, boating, sledging, and foot-wandering that have been experienced by Parry, the two Rosses, Richardson, Back, Hood, Franklin, Lyon, Crozier, FitzJames, Kellett, Moore, Richardson, Rae, Collinson, M'Clure, Penny, Austin, M'Clintock, Sherard Osborn, Inglefield, Belcher, Kane, and others, the loss of life has really been very small, notwithstanding the

almost incredible hardships undergone. Ships and boats have been abandoned in great number; but the commanders and crews have, by some means or other, contrived to reach home in safety, with only a few exceptions. The great loss is that of Sir John Franklin, with the whole of his officers and men. He had already known what privation is, in an earlier journey. In 1820, and two following years, he and his party went from the Hudson's Bay Company's territories to the icy regions and back again, in boat and on foot, a distance of more than five thousand miles. During the last days of their return journey they fed upon the few wretched bits of scanty lichen which they could grub up from the ground; and on one particular day "they ate the remains of their old shoes, and whatever scraps of leather they had, to strengthen their stomachs for the fatigues of the journey." Still they did return. That which is known as the Franklin Expedition, so many features of which are involved in mystery, and the interest in which has by no means died out, was later in date by a quarter of a century. Twentyseven years ago, that is in 1845, Sir John Franklin, Captain Crozier, and Captain Fitz-James, with crews of a hundred and thirty men, set sail in the Erebus and Terror, each ship provided with a small steam-engine and propeller for occasional use, and with every necessary and comfort that forethought and liberality could suggest. In July of the same year the ships were seen moored to an iceberg in Baffin's Bay, the opening scene of most of the Arctic expeditions; but, so far as is known, no white man ever again saw the explorers alive. The ships were stored for five years; still it occasioned surprise that no news reached England from them throughout 1846 and 1847.

The Admiralty, rendered anxious by this ominous silence, resolved to send out searching-parties. Never has been known a more remarkable and determined series of voyages and journeys than those which are collectively known, and deservedly known, as the Search for Franklin. First, in 1848, was sent out the Plover, under Captain Maguire, to go as far as he could in the direction supposed to have been taken by Franklin. Second, in the winter of the same year, Captains Kellett and Moore were sent to Behring's Straits, to explore from that region north-eastward. Third, in 1849, Sir John Richardson and Doctor Rae started off to examine the shores of the Arctic Sea, near the mouth

of the Mackenzie River. Fourth, Sir James Ross went to search in the creeks and nooks near Lancaster Sound. No tidings of Franklin having been met with by any of these explorers, redoubled efforts were made in 1850. No less than eight expeditions were sent out. Captains Collinson and M'Clure, to Behring's Straits; Sir John Ross, to Wellington Channel; Captains Penny and Stewart, to Lancaster Sound; other vessels, under Captains Austin, Ommaney, M'Clintock, Osborn, and Forsyth, in various directions. The Americans lent a kindly aid, by sending out an expedition under Lieutenant de Haven. Another year came, and 1851 witnessed a new series of expeditions. Rae started on an overland journey, to reach the icy regions by way of the Esquimaux country; Kennedy went to Regent's Inlet, Inglefield to Baffin's Bay, Belcher to Wellington Channel, Pullen to Beechey Island, Osborn to Wellington Channel, Kellett and M'Clintock to Melville Island. All these brave men were encouraged to add to the previously acquired stock of knowledge concerning the geography and hydrography of those desolate regions, but were at the same time told that their chief duty was to search for Franklin. The year 1853 was marked by the starting of other expeditions, under Trollope and Kennedy, to Behring's Straits, Inglefield to Wellington Channel, and Kane to Smith's Sound. After these, at various intervals, other searching parties set forth; Mr. Anderson went from the Hudson's Bay territories to the Esquimaux regions; Captain M'Clintock explored in and around King William's Island; other navigators have pursued the search from time to time; while Mr. Hall, an American, has made repeated journeys to Esquimaux regions where he thought information might be picked up.

What, then, is the sum total of our present knowledge of the gallant old Sir John's fate? We say old, for he was an elderly man when he started, with a constitution much weakened by maladies and fatigues in earlier life. Some of the searches made in 1850-51 brought to light scraps of paper, empty meat-tins, sheds in which smiths and carpenters had evidently worked, the graves of three sailors of the Erebus and Terror, and other relics, sufficient to show that Franklin had passed the winter of 1845-46 in Wellington Channel. The next information obtained was more important, and far more tragical. Doctor Rae, one of the most skilful and intrepid of the Hudson's Bay Company's officers,

went overland to the peninsula of Boothia, where he found that the Esquimaux had in their possession articles of plate once evidently belonging to some of Franklin's officers. They told a story of two ships having been wrecked among the ice, and of dead bodies presenting signs of having been partly eaten by famishing men. Rae was unable to learn anything further. When the direful news reached England an earnest desire was evinced to follow up the cluenot by the Government, who were unwilling to incur further expenditure, but by Lady Franklin and the public. The overcoming of numberless difficulties at length enabled Captain M'Clintock, in 1859, to discover, on King William's Island, buttons and medals once belonging to Franklin's men; then a skeleton, with scraps of clothing around it; then a heap of stones, in which was a copper cylinder containing a written paper; and around the spot a confused heap of clothing, stores, and instruments. The paper, unquestionably authentic, and of intense interest, recorded the fact that Franklin wintered in 1845-46 at Beechey Island, and in 1846-47 on or near King William's Land; that in June, 1847, Sir John died, worn out; that in April, 1848, Captain Crozier, and the remainder of the crews (of whom more than one hundred still lived) abandoned the ships, which had been hopelessly locked up in the ice for more than a year and a half. Here the narrative ended; but it appears pretty certain that Crozier and his men meant to try, by sledging, boating, and walking, to reach some of the trading ports of the Hudson's Bay Company. Armed with this sad news, M'Clintock resolved to make a little further search. He found a boat mounted on a sledge, portions of two skeletons in the boat, and near at hand, boots, slippers, watches, guns, books, and various trifling articles. This was obviously only the beginning of a series of tragic scenes; but M'Clintock, anxious to make known what he had discovered, returned to England in 1859. Thirteen years have since elapsed, and a few further discoveries have been made; but many amongst us, especially his noble-hearted widow, feel that there ought still to be other things achieved, in search of Franklin's papers and relics.

A comparison: Sir John Franklin, we know from these sad but scanty records, died in a little more than two years after leaving England for the last time. The indomitable Livingstone, we know from scattered data, was living five years after his departure to a very different region.

Livingstone is even now several years younger than Franklin was at the time of his death; he has an iron constitution; and so far as mens' speculations are worth anything, we shall see him again.

LELGARDE'S INHERITANCE.

IN TWELVE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

WE were sitting over the fire, my sister Lelgarde and I, in our London lodgings, she busy with the scraps of velvet and satin which grew, under her fingers, into all sorts of pretty saleable devices, I leaning back in an arm-chair, tired out, after a long day spent in trying to drive the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic into unwilling little heads. I remember that I was feeling very doleful that foggy November evening-I had heard that some of the families where I daily gave lessons were going away, and another, on whose payment I had reckoned, had disappointed me, so that I looked forward with unusual dread to Monday morning and its weekly bills; and as I watched my Lelgarde's slender fingers and graceful bending head, it seemed more than ever cruel that her young life should be passed in this long grind of poverty. Suddenly she looked up and spoke:

"Joan, do you recollect what happens next Tuesday ?"

"What happened on that day one-andtwenty years ago, you mean, do you not ?" I responded, with a recollection of the tiny red morsel which I, a ten years' old child, had then held so proudly and carefully in

my arms.

"What happens next Tuesday? Do you call my coming of age nothing?"

Bless her, poor darling! What was the use of coming of age with nothing to come to? But I was not going to sadden her, so I swallowed my sigh as I had swallowed plenty before it. She went on:

"Joan, I should like to do something on my birthday-something grand."

"If I can get an hour in the afternoon, we might go to the Kensington Museum," I suggested, that being hitherto our wildest dream of dissipation.

Lelgarde made a little rebellious face, and shook her head.

"Won't that do? What then? Only remember, it must be cheap."

"Might we not invite Harry Goldie to tea?" asked Lelgarde, glancing half timidly, half mischievously in my face. I tried to look wise.

"Harry Goldie, my dear, is a young

"Why, it follows, my dear, that you being a young woman, and I not a very old one, I think Harry Goldie will be just as well taking his tea by himself; and that reminds me that you promised not to call him Harry."

"Did I? It slips out somehow; but come, Joany, ask him to tea, and he shall be Mr. Goldie, and nothing but Mr. Goldie, all the evening. Well, what now ?"

She was quick to read the objections I did not utter, and her impatient little movement of head and hand drew out more than I had intended to say.

"You see, dear, many an acquaintance that would be suitable enough for me, plain Joan Smith, would not do for you, Lelgarde Atheling: I often feel that."

"Then I wish you would cease to feel it, Joan. What have the hateful Athelings ever done for me? Have they not cast me off altogether, and my father before And what for? Because he chose to marry the woman he loved, and such a woman as our mother!"

me?

"They did not know what she was," I said, soothingly. "They only knew who she was-a Mrs. Smith, the widow of an army doctor."

"Absurd pride!" said Lelgarde. "I call it a sin-a sin I should scorn to be guilty of." And up went her little haughty head, and she looked as proud as any Atheling among them, and twice as beautiful, though they were a beautiful race. All the same, I thought she need not have fired up so fiercely at the idea of any disparity between her and our artist fellowlodger.

66

At this moment a hurried knock at the door was followed, before I could say, Come in," by the apparition of a wild curly head, a young face clad in an untidy beard, and a paint-bedaubed blouse hanging loose on a broad pair of shoulders; in fact, Harry Goldie himself, all dirty and unkempt, and what Lelgarde called picturesque, from his afternoon's painting.

"I beg pardon again and again," he said, humbly; but my picture is quite finished now, and I thought perhaps just this once -you would not mind coming down to look at it, would you?"

He spoke to me and looked at Lelgarde; and there was small use in my demurring, for she was on her feet directly, and “Oh, of course we will come!" was her ready

answer. So down we went in the cold to the studio belonging to the great artist, Mr. Lascelles, to whom Harry had been colour-mixer, pupil, assistant, almost son, for some time before we had come to lodge in the house, now six years ago. To make no acquaintances had been my fixed rule from the moment when my mother's death left me in charge of my young sister; yet, before we had been a month in the house, we were not only friendly, but intimate with Harry Goldie. His frank face and pleasant greeting were a positive refreshment; and, by dint of being always in the way when he was wanted, and out of it when he was not wanted, always on the look out to do us any neighbourly kindness, and cheerily grateful to receive any in return, Harry Goldie had become quite our friend. My anxiety was to prevent his becoming anything else.

The studio was brilliantly lighted, and the picture stood on its easel in the middle: a wonderful picture it was! Its history was this:-Some worthy people, whose money burnt in their pockets I should think, had offered two hundred guineas to the painter of the best picture on a given subject; the competitors being all young and poor artists, and the money to be spent on a tour in Italy. The subject was from Tennyson's song, "Too late-too late," as well I knew, seeing that Harry below stairs and Lelgarde above had been wailing its dreary burden everlastingly, till I was fit to hang myself. The canvas was dark, representing a moonless, starless night; all the light fell from the lamps of the retreating virgins upon the central figurethe desolate purposeless figure, quite an embodiment of the words "too late." "Where have I seen that before?" was my first thought; and then I saw at a glance that it was the image of Lelgarde. I looked reproachfully at Harry, but he met my eyes so innocently, that to this day I believe he was unconscious of the likeness. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;" and a painter's brush is his mouth-piece, I suppose. He closed the door, and looked, not at the picture, but into Lelgarde's eyes.

"Well ?" he said, eagerly.
She gave a little gasp of surprise.

"Oh! Harry, it is not a picture, it is an inspiration. One can only think how one hopes she got to heaven after all."

Please think, besides, that you hope I may get to Italy," he cried.

"Oh! you must get the prize; you can't fail. Nobody could do better than this."