“A sadder tale was never told in fewer words. There is something deeply touching in their extreme simplicity, and they show in the strongest manner that both the leaders in this retreating party were actuated by the loftiest sense of duty and met with calmness and decision the fearful alternative of a last bold struggle for life, rather than perish without effort on board their ships; for we well know that the Erebus and Terror were only provisioned up to July, 1848.”
M’Clintock’s party were now running short of provisions, but the finding of such important relics determined the leader to pursue the search to the uttermost limits of his powers.
On May 30 he writes: “We encamped alongside a large boat—another melancholy relic which Hobson had found and examined a few days before, as his note left here informed me; but he had failed to discover record, journal, pocket-book, or memorandum of any description. A vast quantity of tattered clothing was lying in her, and this we first examined. Not a single article bore the name of its former owner. The boat was cleared out and carefully swept that nothing might escape us. The snow was then removed from about her, but nothing whatever was found.”
SLEDGE JOURNEYS
After a detailed description of this boat, its weight, construction, and marks, etc., M’Clintock continues:—
“But all these were after observations; there was that in the boat which transfixed us with awe. It was portions of two human skeletons. One was that of a slight young person; the other of a large, strongly made, middle-aged man. The former was found in the bow of the boat, but in too much disturbed a state to enable Hobson to judge whether the sufferer had died there; large and powerful animals, probably wolves, had destroyed much of this skeleton, which may have been that of an officer. Near it we found the fragments of a pair of worked slippers, of which I give the pattern, as they may possibly be identified. The lines were white, with a black margin; the spaces white, red, and yellow. They had originally been 11 inches long, lined with calf-skin with the hair left on, and the edges bound with red silk ribbon. Besides these slippers there were a pair of small strong shooting half-boots.
“The other skeleton was in somewhat more perfect state, and was enveloped with clothes and furs; it lay across the boat, under the after-thwart. Close beside it were found five watches; and there were two double-barrelled guns—one barrel in each loaded and cocked—standing muzzle upwards against the boat’s side. It may be imagined with what deep interest these sad relics were scrutinized, and how anxiously every fragment of clothing was turned over in search of pockets and pocket-books, journals, or even names. Five or six small books were found, all of them scriptural or devotional works, except the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ One little book, ‘Christian Melodies,’ bore an inscription upon the title page from the donor to G. G. (Graham Gore?). A small Bible contained numerous marginal notes, and whole passages underlined. Besides these books, the covers of a New Testament and Prayerbook were found.
“Quantities of clothing and other articles were of one description and another truly astonishing in variety and such as, for the most part, modern sledge-travellers in these regions would consider a mere accumulation of dead weight.”
The only provisions that were discovered were a little tea and nearly forty pounds of chocolate; a small portion of tobacco was also found.
The position of the abandoned boat was about fifty miles as a sledge would travel from Point Victory, and therefore sixty-five miles from the position of the ships, also seventy miles from the skeleton of the steward, and one hundred and fifty miles from Montreal Island. “A little reflection,” writes M’Clintock, “led me to satisfy my own mind at least, that the boat was returning to the ships; and in no other way can I account for two men having been left in her, than by supposing the party were unable to drag the boat further, and that these two men, not being able to keep pace with their shipmates, were therefore left by them supplied with such provisions as could be spared to last until the return of the others from the ship with a fresh stock.