The next day we stayed at Cape Jane Franklin to make a preliminary search of the vicinity. Lieutenant Schwatka and I went up Collinson Inlet, but saw no traces of white men. Henry and Frank, who had been sent up the coast, were more fortunate. About a mile and a half above camp they came upon the camp made by Captain Crozier, with his entire command from the two ships, after abandoning the vessels. There were several cooking stoves, with their accompanying copper kettles, besides clothing, blankets, canvas, iron and brass implements, and an open grave, wherein was found a quantity of blue cloth, part of which seemed to have been a heavy overcoat, and a part probably wrapped around the body. There was also a large quantity of canvas in and around the grave, with coarse stitching through it and the cloth, as though the body had been incased as if for burial at sea. Several gilt buttons were found among the rotting cloth and mould in the bottom of the grave, and a lens, apparently the object-glass of a marine telescope. Upon one of the stones at the foot of the grave Henry found a medal, which was thickly covered with grime, and was so much the color of the clay stone on which it rested as to nearly escape detection. It proved to be a silver medal, two and a half inches in diameter, with a bass-relief portrait of George IV., surrounded by the words,
GEORGIUS IIII., D. G. BRITTANNIARUM REX, 1820.
on the obverse, and on the reverse a laurel wreath surrounded by
SECOND MATHEMATICAL PRIZE, ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE,
and inclosing
AWARDED TO JOHN IRVING. MID- SUMMER, 1830.
This at once identified the grave as that of Lieutenant John Irving, third officer of the 'Terror'. Under the head was found a figured silk pocket-handkerchief, neatly folded, the colors and pattern in a remarkable state of preservation. The skull and a few other bones only were found in and near by the grave. They were carefully gathered together, with a few pieces of the cloth and the other articles, to be brought away for interment where they may hereafter rest undisturbed. A re-burial on King William Land would be only until the grave was again found by the natives, when it would certainly be again torn open and despoiled.
The day after this discovery was made by the men we moved camp to the vicinity of the grave, and spent two days in searching for other matters of interest; but there was still some snow on the ground, and little ponds in the vicinity of the articles were partly frozen, so that an exhaustive search was impossible. Upon our return from Cape Felix, on the 11th of July, we found the snow entirely gone, and the ponds near the shore nearly all dry; we therefore had little difficulty in completing the search at that time. Among the various articles found was a brush with the name "H. Wilks" cut in the side, a two-gallon stone jug stamped "R. Wheatley, wine and spirit merchant, Greenhithe, Kent," several tin cans, a pickle bottle, and a canvas pulling strap, a sledge harness marked with a stencil plate "T 11," showing it to have belonged to the 'Terror'. We also found a stocking, rudely made of a piece of blanket, showing that they were in need of good stockings, which are so essential to the comfort of the Arctic traveller. For this purpose nothing is so good as the fur of the reindeer, but next to that well-made woollen stockings are the best. It was heart-rending to see this mute testimony to their destitution.
At our second visit Toolooah's wife found in a pile of stones, where had formerly stood the cairn seen by Lieutenant Hobson, a piece of paper which had weathered the storms of more than twenty Arctic winters. It was with much difficulty that I could open it without tearing it, while all stood around in anxious expectancy, confident that it was an additional record from Captain Crozier, as it was in a tattered and weather-beaten condition.
It, however, proved to be a copy of the Crozier record found by Lieutenant Hobson, of McClintock's expedition, and was in the handwriting of Sir Leopold McClintock. The document was written with a lead pencil on note-paper, and was partially illegible from exposure. It was literally as follows:—