What are the Golden Hind, the Erebus, and the Terror?

In Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness, the Golden Hind, Erebus, and Terror are all names of actual sailing vessels. The Golden Hind, a galleon which belonged to Sir Francis Drake, was the only ship that survived his voyage to circumnavigate the globe during the reign of Elizabeth I and returned bearing many treasures.
The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, both commandeered by the Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, were used in an expedition in the mid-nineteenth century to discover the Northwest Passage. While attempting to find a Canadian sailing route that would link the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, both of Franklin’s ships became ice-bound for an extended period of time. The vessels never returned to England and Franklin died on the expedition in 1847.

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