Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/191

 reading "The Daily Chronicle's" treatment of Thomas Sidney Cooper. The boys throwing stones at the poor frog was as nothing to it. It may be fun to you readers, but it was death to the hopes of Sidney Cooper's friends.

After a decent interval had elapsed (to make the public forget your cruelty) we happily received from the King a note, I shall show you if you will lunch with me on Saturday at 1 p.m. here.

An interesting letter from Dr John Rae, giving an account of his search for Sir John Franklin, was written to H. H. in 1882:

I would not venture to trouble you about the now old story of poor Franklin's fate, had you not referred to it in your note to my wife, accompanied by the beautiful and interesting book you have sent her. Before I returned from the Arctic in 1854 I had the most clear assurance from the Eskimos that a large number of white men, at least about 45, had perished about four winters before, at a place on the Mainland of America, which was a long day's journey with dogs and sledge from the mouth of a large river where there were plenty of salmon, and that the position was the side of river towards the setting sun or the West. That the party when seen alive were looking very thin, and made very short days journeys, hauling one or two boats. That they were first seen travelling southward, near the west shore of a large island (Keicktak). The river and island were evidently the Great Fish River of Back, and King William Land, formerly thought to be a part of Boothia, but which I proved to be insular in 1854.