Jules Verne

“ The crew, moved by the sight of these ill-omened lands, cried with one voice,—
“To the north! to the north!”
“Well, to the north! Safety and glory await us there at the north! Heaven is declaring for us! The wind is changing! The passage is free! Prepare to go about!”
The sailors hastened to their places; the ice-streams grew slowly free; the Forward went about rapidly, and ran under full steam towards MacClintock's Channel.
Hatteras was justified in counting on a freer sea; on his way he retraced the probable path of Franklin ”

“ You know, my friends, how Franklin began: like Cook and Nelson, he was first a cabin-boy; after spending his youth in long sea-voyages, he made up his mind, in 1845, to seek the Northwest Passage; he commanded the Erebus and the Terror, two stanch vessels, which had visited the antarctic seas in 1840, under the command of James Ross. The Erebus, in which Franklin sailed, carried a crew of seventy men, all told, with Fitz-James as captain; Gore and Le Vesconte, lieutenants; Des Vœux, Sargent, and Couch, boatswains; and Stanley, surgeon. The Terror carried sixty-eight men. ”

“ Every one turned round. It was Hatteras, who, leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, had just made that solemn remark.
“Without doubt,” resumed the doctor, “Franklin intended to make his way to the American shore; but tempests beset him, and September 12, 1846, the two ships were caught in the ice, a few miles from here, to the northwest of Cape Felix; they were carried to the north-northwest of Point Victory; there,” said the doctor, pointing out to the sea. “Now,” he added, “the ships were not abandoned till April 22, 1848. ”

“ During the early morning hours nothing noteworthy took place; the land grew different in the northeast; a few elevations, the beginning of a mountainous district, indicated a change. If this New America were not a continent, it was at any rate an important island; but then they did not have to trouble themselves about its geography.
Duke ran ahead, and soon came across some traces of a herd of musk-oxen; he then advanced rapidly, and soon disappeared from the eyes of the hunters. ”

“ They pushed on, and in an hour and a half they came up to two of these animals; they were large, and formidable in appearance. They appeared much surprised at Duke's attacks, but not alarmed; they were feeding off a sort of reddish moss which grew on the thin soil. ”

“ In all one hundred and thirty-eight men! We know that the last of Franklin's letters were written from Disco Island, and dated July 12, 1845. He said, `I hope to set sail to-night for Lancaster Sound'. What followed his departure from Disco Bay? The captains of the whalers, the Prince of Wales and the Enterprise, saw these two ships for the last time in Melville Bay, and nothing more was heard of them. Still we can follow Franklin in his course westward ”

“ All these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering, and starvation, after trying to prolong their lives by having recourse to cannibalism. That is what became of them along their way towards the south, which was lined with their mutilated bodies. ”

“ The doctor recognized them at once from their moderate height, their horns, which were broad at the base, the absence of muzzle, their sheep-like forehead, and short tail; their shape has earned for them from naturalists the name of “ovibos,” a compound, and which expresses the two sorts of animals whose characteristics they share. ”