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"'Yes, said I, 'I will. "'That's just what you said the first time I kissed you. Do get out, she replied, 'and you promise not to lisp a word of it to Rory M'Clure? or he'll claim it, as he did that orse, and, Tom, I caught that orse, and he was mine. It was a orrid, nasty, dirty, mean trick that.

"Why, Sir, I heard our colour-sergeant M'Clure say so when we was in Halifax. He was a great reader and a great arguer, Sir, as most Scotchmen are. I used to say to him, 'M'Clure, it's a wonder you can fight as well as you do, for in England fellows who dispute all the time commonly take it all out in words. It was the largest hanimal I ever saw here."

Neither of the two attempts by sea from the Atlantic or from the Pacific base, in 1848, having succeeded in gaining any news, the Enterprise and the Investigator, which had previously attempted to reach Franklin from the east, were despatched in 1850, under Captain R. Collinson and Captain M'Clure; to attempt the search from the west through Behring Strait.

Collinson, in the Enterprise, followed M'Clure closely, though never reaching him, and attempting to round Prince Albert Land by the south through Dolphin Strait, reached Cambridge Bay at the nearest point by ship of all the Franklin expeditions. He had to return westward, and only reached England in 1855, after an absence of five years and four months.

M'Clure, in the Investigator, did not wait for Collinson, as he had been directed, but pushed on and discovered Banks Land, and became beset in the ice in Prince of Wales Strait.

Caffree sprang boldly upon the nearest Indian, grasped his throat firmly, hurled him to the ground, and drawing a cord from his pocket attempted to tie him. At the same instant, Davis and M'Clure attempted to perform their respective parts. M'Clure killed his man, but Davis's gun missed fire.

In order to explain it more fully, the Indian got astride of the log, and locked his legs together underneath it. M'Clure, internally thanking the fellow for his excess of candor, determined to disappoint him, and while his enemy was busily engaged in riding the log, and mimicking the actions of a prisoner, he very quietly blew his brains out, and ran off into the woods.

In the winter of 1850-51 he endeavoured unsuccessfully to work his way from this strait into Parry Sound, but in August and September 1851 managed to coast round Banks Land to its most north-westerly point, and then succeeded in passing through the strait named after M'Clure, and reached Barrow Strait, thus performing for the first time the north-west passage, though it was not till 1853 that the Investigator was abandoned.

"That made M'Clure stop, for he was expectin' to be one every day, and the word sounded good, and Scotchmen, Sir, ain't like other people, pride is as natural as oatmeal to them. The man came up to us limpin'.

And now that Highlanders have given up the trade of barbarism, and become the noblest fellows in Europe, they should follow the devil's example, and throw away the bagpipes for ever. "I have never seen M'Clure," said Jackson, addressing me, "but once since he disputed with the countryman about the plural of moose in the country-market. I met him in the street one day, and says I,