Visiting the shore along which the retreating crews must have marched, he came, shortly after midnight of May 25, when slowly walking along a gravel ridge near the beach, which the winds kept partially bare of snow, upon a human skeleton, partly exposed, with here and there a few fragments of clothing appearing through the snow.
“A most careful examination of the spot,” says M’Clintock, “was of course made, the snow removed, and every scrap of clothing gathered up. A pocket-book, which being frozen hard could not be examined on the spot, afforded strong grounds for hope that some information might be subsequently obtained respecting the owner, and the march of the lost crews. The victim was a young man, slightly built, and perhaps above the common height; the dress appeared to be that of a steward. The poor man seems to have selected the bare ridge top, as affording the least tiresome walking, and to have fallen upon his face in the position in which we found him. It was a melancholy truth that the old woman spake when she said, ‘They fell down and died as they walked along.’”
Meanwhile Lieutenant Hobson, who was exploring with another sledge party the north-western coast of King William’s Land, had made the still more important discovery of a record giving a laconic account of the Franklin expedition up to the time when the ships were lost and abandoned. It was found on May 6 in a large cairn at Point Victory. It stated briefly that in 1845 the “Erebus” and “Terror” had ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island to Beechey Island, where they spent the first winter. In 1846 they proceeded to the south-west, through Peel Sound and Franklin Sound, and eventually reached within twelve miles of the north extremity of King William’s Land, when their progress was arrested by the ice. Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, having completed—two months before his death—the sixty-first year of an active, eventful, and honorable life. On April 22, 1848, the ships were deserted, having been beset since September 12, 1846. The officers and crew, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain Crozier, landed with the intention of starting for Back’s Fish River, which, as we have seen, they were never destined to reach.
Quantities of clothing and articles of all kinds were found lying about the cairn, as if these men, aware that they were retreating for their lives, had then abandoned every thing which they considered superfluous.
Thus all doubts about Sir John Franklin’s fate were at length removed. He at least had died on board his ship, and been spared the miserable end of his comrades as they fell one by one in the dreary wilderness.
The two wrecks have disappeared without leaving a trace behind. A single document, some coins and pieces of plate—this is all that remains of the gallant ships which so hopefully sailed forth under one of the noblest seamen that ever served in the navy of Great Britain.
It is a curious circumstance that Franklin’s ships perished within sight of the headlands named Cape Franklin and Cape Jane Franklin by their discoverer, Sir James Ross, eighteen years before.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
KANE AND HAYES.
Kane sails up Smith’s Sound in the “Advance” (1853).—Winters in Rensselaer Bay.—Sledge Journey along the Coast of Greenland.—The Three-brother Turrets.—Tennyson’s Monument.—The Great Humboldt Glacier.—Dr. Hayes crosses Kennedy Channel.—Morton’s Discovery of Washington Land.—Mount Parry.—Kane resolves upon a second Wintering in Rensselaer Bay.—Departure and Return of Part of the Crew.—Sufferings of the Winter.—The Ship abandoned.—Boat Journey to Upernavik.—Kane’s Death in the Havana (1857).—Dr. Hayes’s Voyage in 1860.—He winters at Port Foulke.—Crosses Kennedy Channel.—Reaches Cape Union, the most northern known Land upon the Globe.—Koldewey.—Plans for future Voyages to the North Pole.