-
Articles/Ads
Article OUR FLAG WAS THERE. ← Page 2 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Our Flag Was There.
expedition which they cannot but feel to be so fraught with hope in search of your long-lost brother , Sir John Franklin . " While they regret that the time of your stay is so short that personal friendship cannot draw
closer the existing tie between them and you , yet the universal sympathy that enlists itself in the noble cause that you are engaged in would rather urge that departure , which they deeply feel to be promjDted by the most generous and disinterested of motives .
" And they trust that when in the icy regions of the north , when the sun at this season of the year unceasingly pours down its genial rays upon that portion of the globe , it may please the All-Seeing Eye continually to watch over you , and that
Providence may pour his choicest blessings upon your undertaking . May He be a lamp unto your feet , and a light nnto your path ; Jaud when the orb of day shall sink below the horizon , and the starry heavens shall be a canopy over your heads , may
He be to you , as to the magi of old , a guiding star to lead you to your missing brother . " But much as they now hail your arrival and regret your early departure , all these feelings are absorbed in the prospects of that time when the
dangers and difficulties shall have been conquered —when rugged paths shall have been passed , and a hopeful 'Advance' crowned by a successful return . Brother , adieu ! "
'' Though you to other lands must hie , Through ice-bound oceans now to stray ; With melting heart and brimful eye , We'll mind you still when far away . " Receiving the flag , which bore on it the All-Seeing Eye , square , compasses , & c , Dr . Kane
made a very appropriate reply , the close of which we will quote for itsjoeautiful diction and touching pathos : — " Returning , now , to the subject of your address , no language that I can command could give
utterance to the feelings it has awakened in my heart ; to be thus received by brethren and Englishmen , and thus parted with ou leaving this portion of the British territory , perhaps the last we may touch at on our way , is , indeed , most cheering to my
spirit and encouraging to my hopes ; for the cause in which I am embarked is one which involves the feeling of universal brotherhood , bound by no limits and contracted by no sectarian views or national prejudices , for it springs from a sympathy that embraces the wide family of man , and
extends its efforts to relieve wherever suffering , distress , or want mark out a path for it to follow . " Such a feeling and such a sympathy is that which has sent forth one hundred and thirty-eight of your brave countrymen , who are now locked up
in those distant regions whither the course of our expedition is directed ; and should it be ourlot to pass a period of our time in the long night which , in those regions , succeeds the day amid a frozen wilderness , in the deep solitude of darkness
so palpably dense as to be almost tangible—where , over the wide waste of desolation , unbroken silence reigns — still even there , despondency will find no resting-place in our bosoms , but thecheering hope will animate them , that when the
day shall again dawn upon us , a bright and gloriousmorrow will again break forth , to be rendered brighter and more glorious still by the crowning of our hopes and the reward of all our anxietiesand toils , in the recovery and restitution to society
of England ' s nobly enterprising sou , yourcountryman , and mutually our brother—Sir John Franklin . "
With these remarks and bearing the Masonic .: the Masonic flag , the gift of friendship from strange but sympathising " brethren of the mystic tie , " Dr . Kane and his companions regained the brig . Early next morning she spread her wings
to the breeze , and with her bow pointing to the North Pole , sped her way on her fraternal mission . The mystic flag , with its speaking emblems , was carefully laid away ; but we shall hear of it again amid the perils of winter , of midnight , and of
storm , before our story ends . We shall not stop to follow the intrepid Kane on his voyage northward . He had made up his ; mind to find Sir John Franklin , or hold his
Christmas festival within sight of the North Pole , aud to this object all his energies were devoted .. Taking on board a large number of Newfoundland and Esquimaux dogs , for sledge-travelling during the winter , Dr . Kane , with the Advance ,.
pushed his way up along the Labrador coast , and through Davis' Straits , stopping occasionally at the Danish settlements on the coast of Greenland .. Still northward through dense fogs , icebergs , icefloes , and ice in every other imaginable shape and '
form , the little brig entered Baffin ' s Bay and at last , tracking the coast of Greenland , passed into and up Davis' Straits . We shall not attempt to . describe the dangers of the navigation , the hairbreadth escapes from instant destruction by storm
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Our Flag Was There.
expedition which they cannot but feel to be so fraught with hope in search of your long-lost brother , Sir John Franklin . " While they regret that the time of your stay is so short that personal friendship cannot draw
closer the existing tie between them and you , yet the universal sympathy that enlists itself in the noble cause that you are engaged in would rather urge that departure , which they deeply feel to be promjDted by the most generous and disinterested of motives .
" And they trust that when in the icy regions of the north , when the sun at this season of the year unceasingly pours down its genial rays upon that portion of the globe , it may please the All-Seeing Eye continually to watch over you , and that
Providence may pour his choicest blessings upon your undertaking . May He be a lamp unto your feet , and a light nnto your path ; Jaud when the orb of day shall sink below the horizon , and the starry heavens shall be a canopy over your heads , may
He be to you , as to the magi of old , a guiding star to lead you to your missing brother . " But much as they now hail your arrival and regret your early departure , all these feelings are absorbed in the prospects of that time when the
dangers and difficulties shall have been conquered —when rugged paths shall have been passed , and a hopeful 'Advance' crowned by a successful return . Brother , adieu ! "
'' Though you to other lands must hie , Through ice-bound oceans now to stray ; With melting heart and brimful eye , We'll mind you still when far away . " Receiving the flag , which bore on it the All-Seeing Eye , square , compasses , & c , Dr . Kane
made a very appropriate reply , the close of which we will quote for itsjoeautiful diction and touching pathos : — " Returning , now , to the subject of your address , no language that I can command could give
utterance to the feelings it has awakened in my heart ; to be thus received by brethren and Englishmen , and thus parted with ou leaving this portion of the British territory , perhaps the last we may touch at on our way , is , indeed , most cheering to my
spirit and encouraging to my hopes ; for the cause in which I am embarked is one which involves the feeling of universal brotherhood , bound by no limits and contracted by no sectarian views or national prejudices , for it springs from a sympathy that embraces the wide family of man , and
extends its efforts to relieve wherever suffering , distress , or want mark out a path for it to follow . " Such a feeling and such a sympathy is that which has sent forth one hundred and thirty-eight of your brave countrymen , who are now locked up
in those distant regions whither the course of our expedition is directed ; and should it be ourlot to pass a period of our time in the long night which , in those regions , succeeds the day amid a frozen wilderness , in the deep solitude of darkness
so palpably dense as to be almost tangible—where , over the wide waste of desolation , unbroken silence reigns — still even there , despondency will find no resting-place in our bosoms , but thecheering hope will animate them , that when the
day shall again dawn upon us , a bright and gloriousmorrow will again break forth , to be rendered brighter and more glorious still by the crowning of our hopes and the reward of all our anxietiesand toils , in the recovery and restitution to society
of England ' s nobly enterprising sou , yourcountryman , and mutually our brother—Sir John Franklin . "
With these remarks and bearing the Masonic .: the Masonic flag , the gift of friendship from strange but sympathising " brethren of the mystic tie , " Dr . Kane and his companions regained the brig . Early next morning she spread her wings
to the breeze , and with her bow pointing to the North Pole , sped her way on her fraternal mission . The mystic flag , with its speaking emblems , was carefully laid away ; but we shall hear of it again amid the perils of winter , of midnight , and of
storm , before our story ends . We shall not stop to follow the intrepid Kane on his voyage northward . He had made up his ; mind to find Sir John Franklin , or hold his
Christmas festival within sight of the North Pole , aud to this object all his energies were devoted .. Taking on board a large number of Newfoundland and Esquimaux dogs , for sledge-travelling during the winter , Dr . Kane , with the Advance ,.
pushed his way up along the Labrador coast , and through Davis' Straits , stopping occasionally at the Danish settlements on the coast of Greenland .. Still northward through dense fogs , icebergs , icefloes , and ice in every other imaginable shape and '
form , the little brig entered Baffin ' s Bay and at last , tracking the coast of Greenland , passed into and up Davis' Straits . We shall not attempt to . describe the dangers of the navigation , the hairbreadth escapes from instant destruction by storm