to the queen-mother. The first lady will receive instructions to provide her equipment, and it is my royal wish to see the ladies at Versailles at the beginning of next month. Will you come, mademoiselle ?” Louis XIV. asked, turning to Marie Angeliqué.

"I will ask grandpapa-he is ill-if he permit"

The king smiled. "As a true Sorcillac de Roussille, he will accompany you to my court," he said.

Then a bow here and there—a flash from the eyes of the Montespan— a whisper-a deep reverence from the ladies and gentlemen in waiting to the new star-a renewed confusion of music and voices-a blaze of light —and the brilliant procession flew past like a dream.

III.

It was long, very long after, when Angélique crept up the stairs to look after her grandfather. In spite of the overpowering impressions which she had received, she was yet the first to remember him. But her young heart was so full, her head so confused, there was so much joy and yet so much fear in her, that she trembled from excitement, and it was long ere she had ascended the stairs. Gently she opened the door, gently she approached the chair.

The old marquis still sat in the same position in which she had left him. His head alone had fallen back. Perhaps he was asleep? he did not stir. The girl drew nearer and called him tenderly. No answer. All

A ray of moonlight fell on his face, and she leant down over him. saints in heaven! they were glazed eyes that stared at her; the Marquis François Sorcillac de Roussille was dead, and with a heart-rending shriek the new maid of honour threw herself at his feet.

Scarce a year later, Marie Angélique appeared at the court of Versailles under the name of the Duchesse de Fontanges. When she appeared for the first time in her new dignity at a court ball, she wore her beautiful hair hanging down, and only lightly dusted with powder. Over her forehead a wreath of leaves was fastened, exactly resembling the red ones she had plucked once at the portal of the château in Brittany. But they were now expensive, as each leaf was formed of rubies, with diamonds sprinkled over it for dewdrops.

This head-dress was accepted by the fashionable world under the name of coiffure à la Fontanges, and all the ladies who wished to please the king, appeared for a long time à la Fontanges.

The duchess herself had many fine dresses-everything that could tempt her heart and her senses was laid at her feet, as the beautiful and beloved friend of the king; but not one became her so well as that white gown with the blue sash, which her grandfather liked so much. And never again did she look so happy as in those days when she ran to meet him and take him for a walk. The marquise survived her grand-niece, who died in her twenty-first year; but the old lady never forgave the coiffure destroyed on the day of the king's memorable visit. She, too, was the only lady who never appeared at the court of Versailles à la Fontanges.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

A PROJECTED SETTLEMENT IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.*

THERE is no doubt that there is something peculiarly attractive in the Arctic Regions. To the stay-at-home, the intense cold, the boundless ices, the scant population, the dreary wastes, the dangers and the difficulties, the mysterious and the unknown, all combine to invest realms certainly not of a naturally alluring aspect, with that mixed wonder, awe, and admiration, which impart to them more than beauty-a positive sublimity. To the Arctic explorer, these very mysteries, dangers, and difficulties, are what constitute the charm of travel. They create those very incentives to exertion which meet with their reward in the consciousness of the manliness, hardihood, and skill, to overcome and to triumph over them. The unending summer days, and the unending winter nights, have each, in their turn, their claims; in the one, man is battling against nature in motion; in the other, he has to confront the same stern elements in anxious quietude. All the phenomena by which he is surrounded, in the sky or on the land, on the ice or below it, have their peculiarities, which it is his province to watch, for his safety is often involved in the slightest changes.

There are many, no doubt, who are totally insensible to the charms of peril and adventure. It is needless to address ourselves to such. They are not of the stuff which constitutes that which true Englishmen most glory in the men who quaintly inquired of Sherard Osborn if he was going up there again? They can have no sympathy with the American Hall when he says: "Everything relating to the Arctic zones is deeply interesting to me. I love the snows, the ices, icebergs, the fauna, and the flora of the north! I love the circling sun, the long day, the Arctic night, when the soul can commune with God in silent and reverential awe! I am on a mission of love. I feel to be in the performance of a duty I owe to mankind-myself-God! Thus feeling, I am strong at heart, full of faith, ready to do or die in the cause I have espoused."

Mr. Hall had imbibed the idea that there are, or were, survivors of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition. White men, he believed, can live where Esquimaux can, and frequently where and when they cannot; he believed that some of the one hundred and five members of that expedition, whose fate is as yet unaccounted for, might yet be found habitants among the Esquimaux of Boothia, of Victoria, or Prince Albert Lands;

*Life with the Esquimaux. The Narrative of Captain Charles Francis Hall, of the whaling barque George Henry. Two Vols. Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.

April-VOL. CXXXIII. NO. DXXXII.

20

he believed that further records of the expedition, and many important relics, might be found in King William's Land, if search be made there in the months of July, August, and September, and he went forth on his brave and humane expedition with the spirit which is most likely to ensure

success.

The Arctic Regions are as obstinate, however, as those of Central Africa and Australia in yielding up their secrets. With the small and totally inadequate means at his disposal, Mr. Hall's expedition was, in as far as its primary object was concerned, an utter failure, but he had the unexpected good fortune to discover relics of old Martin Frobisher; he has considerably enlarged our knowledge of the character, dispositions, and modes of life of the Esquimaux; and if he failed to extend our acquaintance with the geography of these wild regions, all the various and interesting information which he obtained may be considered as in every way tending to enhance the hopes and possibilities of further successful exploration.

Mr. Hall was, it is to be observed, not himself a mariner-he was literally an amateur explorer-and he suffered so severely from sea-sickness at the outset, that had there been a back door to the whaler in which he took his passage out, we should probably have heard nothing of Frobisher Bay, of Grinnell Glacier, and of the simple-minded, hospitable, and amiable Innuits. The journey, indeed, never extended beyond the outer barrier of those fearful regions in which Parry, Beecher, M'Clintock, M'Clure, Collinson, and a host of others of our gallant countrymen, have been involved, and in which Franklin and his comrades, Crozier and Fitzjames, were lost; but still it contains much valuable and important information, more especially regarding those dwellers in icy regions, of whom there is supposed to be one family-Arctic Highlanders, as they have been picturesquely termed-dwelling high up in Smith's Sound.

The expedition was composed of the barque George Henry and the tender Amaret schooner, formerly the far-famed Rescue of Arctic celebrity. The officers and crews of these two vessels numbered in all twenty-nine persons. My expedition," says Mr. Hall, “consisted of Kudlago and myself;" and as poor Kudlago died before reaching the Arctic Regions, it was soon reduced to "myself." Mr. Hall had, it is to be observed, a boat and sledge, and his own outfit, of which "Cincinnati cracklings"-i.e. pork scraps-constituted no unimportant item.

The onward voyage was cheered by the blowing of whales and the rolling of porpoises. Sterry, one of the most spirited of the sailors, took up his position by the martingale to harpoon one of the latter, and as they would not come near enough, he whistled to them.

66

But," said I, "please to tell me, Mr. Sterry, what do you you see a whale ?"

"Oh, then we always holler," was his quaint reply.

do when

Mr. Hall was a genuine enthusiast; when he first got among the icebergs he must fain mount one, but in getting down he unfortunately trod on his boat-hook, and inflicted a bad wound upon himself, which confined him to his couch for some days. The poor Esquimaux, Kudlago, having perished of a cold contracted when crossing the banks of Newfoundland, his remains were committed to the deep with every mark of respect. "The Sabbath morning, a cloudless sky, the sun shining in all its glory;

the cold, dark-blue ocean, its heaving bosom whitened over, here and there, with high pinnacled bergs; the lofty peaks of Greenland's icy mountains' peering down from a distance in the east-these were some of the impressive features in the scene attending the burial of Kudlago at sea. An hour after the George Henry had been given to the leading wind, I turned my eyes back to the ocean grave of Kudlagoa snow-white monument of mountain size, and of God's own fashioning, was over it!"

This was an iceberg, and it constitutes, with its beautiful pinnacled elevation, one of the many pretty little illustrations which help us on with the text in a work which at times indulges too much in the literary aurora borealis style to suit English tastes.

The expedition had left New London on the 29th of May, 1860, and it reached the coast of Greenland in the first days of July. They had such good fishing here that in one hour a ton weight of codfish and halibut was taken by the use of only three lines. On the 7th of July they came to anchor in the Danish harbour of Holsteinborg. The expedition was kindly entertained here; a first acquaintance was made with the Esquimaux, who are here carefully tended and educated by the Danes, and dogs were purchased for the sledges. A curious feat is mentioned of the Greenlanders, that they can turn summersets in the water seated in their kyacks. They will go over and over, and that with only wetting their hands and face. It is, however, a feat only performed by few. The affinity of this word kyack to the kaik, or, as it is generally written after the French fashion, caïque, of the Bosphorus, leads us to point out here a remarkable affinity in the names of persons, which, strange to say, rarely extends to the names of places, or to the ordinary language of the Innuits, to the languages of Central Asia-Kok-kong, Oo-soo-kong, Kou-nung, Kun-ni-u, Pun-nie, Nik-u-jar, Menun, Melak, Kood-lootoon, are cases in point.

On the 24th of July the expedition left the coast of Greenland for the opposite side of Davis's Straits. On the 7th of August they were still trying to make for a harbour, when they discerned a whale-boat. On coming up, it proved to contain nine runaways from American whalers. The immediate wants of these desperate characters were humanely relieved, after which they continued their perilous voyage. It appears. from the testimony of one of the survivors, that, after leaving the George Henry, they crossed Hudson's Straits, waiting four days on Resolution Island for a fair wind, and thence making the coast of Labrador. Here two of the party ran away, after robbing the others. All alike were perishing with cold and hunger. Still they held on for dear life. One of the party died of starvation. His body was cut up and eaten. They then began to murder one another. According to Sullivan's narrative, they first attempted to kill him, but he having stabbed one of his opponents, it fell to the lot of the latter to be eaten instead of Sullivan. They also ate their boots, belts, and sheaths, and a number of bear-skin and seal-skin articles they had with them. At length they were picked up by a boat's crew of Esquimaux and taken to Okoke, and thence to Nain-a missionary settlement on the coast of Labrador. One of the two who had run away was likewise picked up, but he could not give any satisfactory information regarding his companion! Instead of feel

ing grateful for the hospitality the survivors received at the missionary establishment, they are said to have conducted themselves shamefully, and ultimately to have shipped under assumed names, feeling ashamed to return to their native country.

On the 8th of August, 1860, the expedition reached its anchorage secure in the harbour they had been long seeking. This was on the west side of Davis's Straits, and in what appears to be part of Cumberland Strait, down which we afterwards find Captain Parker and his son sailing, but which Mr. Hall calls "Cornelius Grinnell Bay." The land to which this bay and Field Bay belong, constitutes part of the "Meta Incognita" of Frobisher, the portion which lies between these bays and Frobisher Bay being the seat of the old navigator's settlement in Countess of Warwick Sound, and the more barren portion which lies between Frobisher Bay and Hudson's Straits is called Kingaite by the natives. The whole of the territory, however, essentially constitutes "Frobisher's Land."

The strip of land that lies between Grinnell and Field Bays and Frobisher's Bay is so narrow, that the journey from Field Bay to Frobisher's Countess of Warwick Sound was merely a few miles in extent. Between Lok's Land, or rather island, and the extremities of the same strip, called "Blunt's" and "Bache" Peninsula, was Lupton's Channel.

It is necessary to understand these few preliminary points, for the whole interest of the narrative depends upon them. The portion called Kingaite by the natives was only explored at a few points, and it appears to be composed of an iron-bound coast crowned by a prodigious glacier, which yearly contributes its icebergs to the ocean; but the strip between Grinnell Bay and Frobisher Bay is very broken and rocky, and deeply indented with bays, full of rocks and islands. There were more than enough to enable Mr. Hall to pay a compliment by naming one or another of them after every one of his individual friends, as also after Arctic celebrities and public personages. The three bays in Frobisher's Countess of Warwick Sound were, for example, called Lincoln Bay, Victoria Bay, and Napoleon Bay, in the order of precedence as given by our Arctic King of Arms or Bays.

Mr. Hall laboured hard to establish friendly relations with the Esquimaux in Grinnell Bay, and he succeeded perfectly. This was of all the more importance, as the same parties were always turning up in different portions of the peninsula, on both sides, and it was by their aid, especially that of the females, that he was enabled to explore Frobisher's Bay. His first impressions were that they were a kind-hearted, hospitable, and well-disposed race of beings, and these impressions, with the exception of occasional bad treatment of their wives, he appears to have had no reason to alter. We are introduced individually to these Innuits, and the history of themselves and their families is succinctly narrated. There was one old lady supposed to be upwards of a hundred years old. Consumption, said to have been brought into the country by Europeans, now, however, makes sad havoc among them. There was one blind man, "Blind George" as he was called, who, with his pretty daughter, often figures in the narrative. There was one Ugarng, who had been to the States.

His reminiscences of New York were: 66 Too much horse-too