CHAPTER XIV.
Meet Esquimaux—News of Franklin's people—Frighten a solitary party—Reach the Great Fish River—On Montreal Island—Total absence of all relics—Examine Ogle Peninsula—Discover a skeleton—Vagueness of Esquimaux information—Cape Herschel—Cairn.
MEET ESQUIMAUX.
7th May.—To avoid snow-blindness, we commenced night-marching. Crossing over from Matty Island towards the King William Island shore, we continued our march southward until midnight, when we had the good fortune to arrive at an inhabited snow-village. We found here ten or twelve huts and thirty or forty natives of King William's Island; I do not think any of them had ever seen white people alive before, but they evidently knew us to be friends. We halted at a little distance, and pitched our tent, the better to secure small articles from being stolen whilst we bartered with them.
PURCHASE OF RELICS.
I purchased from them six pieces of silver plate, bearing the crests or initials of Franklin, Crozier, Fairholme, and McDonald; they also sold us bows and arrows of English woods, uniform and other buttons, and offered us a heavy sledge made of two short stout pieces of curved wood, which no mere boat could have furnished them with, but this of course we could not take away; the silver spoons and forks were readily sold for four needles each.
They were most obliging and peaceably disposed, but could not resist the temptation to steal, and were importunate to barter everything they possessed; there was not a trace of fear, every countenance was lighted up with joy; even the children were not shy, nor backward either, in crowding about us, and poking in everywhere. One man got hold of our saw, and tried to retain it, holding it behind his back, and presenting his knife in exchange; we might have had some trouble in getting it from him, had not one of my men mistaken his object in presenting the knife towards me, and run out of the tent with a gun in his hand; the saw was instantly returned, and these poor people seemed to think they never could do enough to convince us of their friendliness; they repeatedly tapped me gently on the breast, repeating the words "Kammik toomee" (We are friends).
Having obtained all the relics they possessed, I purchased some seal's flesh, blubber, frozen venison, dried and frozen salmon, and sold some of my puppies. They told us it was five days' journey to the wreck,—one day up the inlet still in sight, and four days overland; this would carry them to the western coast of King William Land; they added that but little now remained of the wreck which was accessible, their countrymen having carried almost everything away. In answer to an inquiry, they said she was without masts; the question gave rise to some laughter amongst them, and they spoke to each other about fire, from which Petersen thought they had burnt the masts through close to the deck in order to get them down.
There had been many books they said, but all have long ago been destroyed by the weather; the ship was forced on shore in the fall of the year by the ice. She had not been visited during this past winter, and an old woman and a boy were shown to us who were the last to visit the wreck; they said they had been at it during the winter of 1857-8.
NEWS OF FRANKLIN'S PEOPLE.