An extensive bay, westward of Cape Herschel, I have named after Captain Washington, the hydrographer, a steadfast supporter of this final search.
All the intermediate coast-line along which the retreating crews performed their fearful march is sacred to their names alone.
Hobson's note informed me of his having found a second record, deposited also by Lieut. Gore in May, 1847, upon the south side of Back Bay, but it afforded no additional information.
ERRORS IN FRANKLIN'S RECORDS.
It is strange that both these papers state the ships to have wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island! So obvious a mistake would hardly have been made had any importance been attached to these documents. They were soldered up in thin tin cylinders, having been filled up on board prior to the departure of the travellers; consequently the day upon which they were deposited was not filled in; but already the papers were much damaged by rust,—a very few more years would have rendered them wholly illegible. When the record left at Point Victory was opened to add thereto the supplemental information which gives it its chief value, Captain Fitzjames, as may be concluded by the color of the ink, filled in the date—28th—in May, when the record was originally deposited. The cylinder containing this record had not been soldered up again; I suppose they had not the means of doing so; it was found on the ground amongst a few loose stones which had evidently fallen along with it from the top of the cairn. Hobson removed every stone of this cairn down to the ground and rebuilt it.
Brief as these records are, we must needs be contented with them; they are perfect models of official brevity. No log-book could be more provokingly laconic. Yet, that any record at all should be deposited after the abandonment of the ships, does not seem to have been intended; and we should feel the more thankful to Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, to whom we are indebted for the invaluable supplement; and our gratitude ought to be all the greater when we remember that the ink had to be thawed, and that writing in a tent during an April day in the Arctic regions is by no means an easy task.
Besides placing a copy of the record taken away by Hobson from the cairn, we both put records of our own in it; and I also buried one under a large stone ten feet true north from it, stating the explorations and discoveries we had made.
RELICS AT THE CAIRN.
A great quantity and variety of things lay strewed about the cairn, such as even in their three days' march from the ships the retreating crews found it impossible to carry further. Amongst these were four heavy sets of boat's cooking stoves, pickaxes, shovels, iron hoops, old canvas, a large single block, about four feet of a copper lightning conductor, long pieces of hollow brass curtain rods, a small case of selected medicines containing about twenty-four phials, the contents in a wonderful state of preservation; a deep circle by Robinson, with two needles, bar magnets, and light horizontal needle all complete, the whole weighing only nine pounds; and even a small sextant engraved with the name of "Frederick Hornby" lying beside the cairn without its case. The colored eye-shades of the sextant had been taken out, otherwise it was perfect; the movable screws and such parts as come in contact with the observer's hand were neatly covered with thin leather to prevent frost-bite in severe weather.
The clothing left by the retreating crews of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' formed a huge heap four feet high; every article was searched, but the pockets were empty, and not one of all these articles were marked,—indeed sailors' warm clothing seldom is. Two canteens, the property of marines, were found, one marked "88 Co. Wm. Hedges," and the other "89 Co. Wm. Hether." A small pannikin made out of a two-pound preserved-meat tin had scratched on it "W. Mark."