Nearer to the beach, a heap of cinders and scraps of iron showed the armourer's working-place; and along an old water-course, now chained up by frost, several tubs, constructed of the ends of salt-meat casks, left no doubt as to the washing-places of the men of Franklin's squadron: happening to cross a level piece of ground, which as yet no one had lighted upon, I was pleased to see a pair of Cashmere gloves laid out to dry, with two small stones on the palms to prevent their blowing away; they had been there since 1846. I took them up carefully, as melancholy mementoes of my missing friends. In another spot a flannel was discovered: and this, together with some things lying about, would, in my ignorance of wintering in the Arctic Regions, have led me to suppose that there was considerable haste displayed in the departure of the "Erebus" and "Terror" from this spot, had not Captain Austin assured me that there was nothing to ground such a belief upon; and that, from experience, he could vouch for these being nothing more than the ordinary traces of a winter station, and this opinion was fully borne out by those officers who had in the previous year wintered at Port Leopold, one of them asserting that people left winter quarters too well pleased to escape to care much for a handful of shavings, an old coal-bag, or a washing-tub. This I from experience now know to be true.
Looking at the spot on which Penny had discovered a boarding-pike, and comparing it with a projecting point on the opposite side, where a similar article had been found with a finger nailed on it as a direction-post, I concluded that, in a line between these two boarding-pikes, one or both of the ships had been at anchor, and this conjecture was much borne out by the relative positions of the other traces found; and besides this, a small cairn on the crest of Beechey Island appears to have been intended as a meridian mark, and, if so, Franklin's squadron undoubtedly lay where I would place it, far and effectually removed from all risk of being swept out of the bay, which, by the bye, from the fact of the enclosed area being many times broader than the entrance of "Erebus and Terror Bay," was about as probable as any stout gentleman being blown out of a house through the keyhole. In the one case the stout individual would have to be cut up small, in the other case the ice would have to be well broken up; and if so, it was not likely Franklin would allow himself to be taken out of harbour, nolens volens, whilst he had anchors to hook the ground with, and ice-saws, with which his crews could have cut through a mile of ice three feet thick in twenty-four hours.
GRAVES OF SEAMEN.
The graves next attracted our attention; they, like all that English seamen construct, were scrupulously neat. Go where you will over the globe's surface, afar in the East, or afar in the West, down amongst the coral-girded isles of the South Sea, or here where the grim North frowns on the sailor's grave, you will always find it alike; it is the monument raised by rough hands, but affectionate hearts, over the last home of their messmate; it breathes of the quiet church-yard in some of England's many nooks, where each had formed his idea of what was due to departed worth; and the ornaments that Nature decks herself with, even in the desolation of the Frozen Zone, were carefully culled to mark the dead seamen's home. The good taste of the officers had prevented the general simplicity of an oaken head and foot-board to each of the three graves being marred by any long and childish epitaphs, or the doggerel of a lower-deck poet, and the three inscriptions were as follows:—
"Sacred to the memory of J. Torrington, who departed this life, January 1st, 1846, on board of H.M.S. 'Terror,' aged 20 years."
"Sacred to the memory of Wm. Braine, r.m., of H.M.S. 'Erebus;' died April 3d, 1846, aged 32 years.
"'Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.'—Josh. xxiv. 15."
"Sacred to the memory of J. Hartwell, a.b., of H.M.S. 'Erebus;' died January 4th, 1846, aged 25 years.
"'Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.'—Haggai i. 7."
I thought I traced in the epitaphs over the graves of the men from the "Erebus," the manly and Christian spirit of Franklin. In the true spirit of chivalry, he, their captain and leader, led them amidst dangers and unknown difficulties with iron will stamped upon his brow, but the words of meekness, gentleness, and truth, were his device. We have seen his career and we know his deeds!