And start to-morrow for Back's Fish River.
At this cairn, which we reached * * noon yesterday; the last cairn appear to have made a selection of gear for travelling— leaving all that was superfluous strewn about its vicinity. I re- mained at this spot until nearly noon of to-day, searching for relics, etc. No other papers * * been found.
It is my intention to follow the land to the S. W., in quest of
the wreck of a ship said by the Esquimaux to be on the beach.
Three other cairns have been found between this and Cape Felix
* * * they contain no infor * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * about it.
WILLIAM R. HOBSON,
Lieut. in charge of party.
This paper is a copy of a record left here by Captain Crozier
when retreating with the crews of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' to the
Great Fish River—the information of its discovery by Lieut. W.
R. Hobson is intended for me. As the natives appear to have
pulled down a cairn erected here in 1831, I purpose burying a
record at ten feet true north from the centre of this cairn, and at
one foot below the surface.
F. L. McCLINTOCK, Capt. R. N.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The asterisks in the foregoing copy indicate illegible words, the paper being much torn and soiled by exposure.
We at once set about digging for the record that Captain McClintock proposed to bury ten feet true north from the centre of the cairn, and a foot below the surface; but though we dug a deep trench four feet wide from the centre of the cairn, due north, for a distance of twenty feet, nothing was found, and the inference is that Captain McClintock either failed to deposit the record, or that changes in the surface of the ground have brought it to light, and it has either been stolen by natives or washed into the sea. Some of the articles found were strewn along the beach for a long distance on either side of the pile of clothing and heavy implements, and were covered up with snow when we first visited the spot. There was a large quantity of cask hoops near by, but no wood. Even the handles of the shovels and pickaxes had been sawed off, probably by the natives who first found the place.
This was evidently the spot where the crews landed when they abandoned the ships, and, as Lieutenant Hobson says, it appears as if they had selected only what was necessary for their sledge journey. It would further appear that when the party reached the southern coast of King William Land after a tedious and wasting journey, and found themselves fast fading away without being able to reach the main-land, a small party was sent back to the ships for provisions. The testimony of the Ookjoolik, who saw the ship that sank off Grant Point, showed that there were some stores on board even then, though only a small quantity. It is probable that Lieutenant Irving was the officer in charge of this return party, and that he died after reaching the camp. It is also probable that these people, who, according to the Ookjoolik testimony, drifted with the ship to the island of Grant Point, were also of this party, and, with the sailors' instinct, preferred to stick to the ship to returning to the already famishing party which they left with scarcely any better prospects on the south coast. The appearance of the boat place on Erebus Bay seems to indicate that it floated ashore after the ice broke up, and had previously been abandoned by those who were able to walk. That skeletons were found in the boat by those who saw it before it was destroyed, and near by by our party, would seem to indicate that the whole party were in a desperate condition at the time, otherwise the helpless ones would not have been abandoned.
Such a state of affairs could scarcely have occurred on their southern trip, and is a strong indication of a return party. Lieutenant Irving's death had not occurred when they first left the vicinity of Cape Jane Franklin, or it would have been mentioned in Captain Crozier's record, which was written the day before they started for Back's River. That the boat on Erebus Bay drifted in, is evident from its being found just at high-water mark, where the debris are still visible. At the time the party returned under Lieutenant Irving the sleds could not have been dragged along that line, as the snow would have been off the ground just then, and probably was gone when the large party got so far on their way south, as the testimony of the natives who met them in Washington Bay shows that they moved exceedingly slow by. That there were men on the ship that drifted down Victoria Strait is additional reason for believing that they returned, for Captain Crozier in his record accounts for all the survivors being with him. It is possible that those who went out to the ship were caught there by the ice breaking up, and could not rejoin their companions on the shore, if indeed there were any there, which is doubtful, for we saw no skeletons at the camping place except Lieutenant Irving's. The ice broke up in Erebus Bay and Victoria Strait the year we were there on the 24th of July, and it is probable that it was as late in the season when the return party reached the camp near Lieutenant Irving's grave.
We left Irving Bay on the 30th of June, caching all our heavy stuff in order to lighten the sled as much as possible, and reached Cape Felix on the 3d of July, having lain over one day on the north side of Wall Bay. We saw no traces of the Franklin expedition until we arrived at our place of encampment, near Cape Felix. The walking, however, was developing new tortures for us every day. We were either wading through the hill-side torrents or lakes, which, frozen on the bottom, made the footing exceedingly treacherous, or else with seal skin boots, rendered soft by constant wetting, painfully plodding over sharp clay stones, set firmly in the ground, with the edges pointing up, or lying flat and slipping as we stepped upon them and sliding the unwary foot into a crevice that would seemingly wrench it from the body. These are some of the features of a walk on King William Land, and yet we moved about ten miles a day, and made as thorough a search as was possible. All rocky places that looked anything like opened graves or torn-down cairns—in fact, all places where stones of any kind seemed to have been gathered together by human hands—were examined, and by spreading out at such intervals as the nature of the ground indicated, covered the greatest amount of territory. Lieutenant Schwatka carried his double-barrelled shotgun and killed a great many ducks and geese, and I, with my Sharp's rifle, got an occasional reindeer. We were now on a meat diet exclusively, and, as most of it was eaten almost as soon as killed, we all suffered more or less from diarrhoea. Nor did we have any other food until nine months later, when we reached the ship 'George and Mary', at Marble Island, except a few pounds of corn starch, which we had left at Cape Herschel when we started for Cape Felix on the 17th of June. In due course of time, however, we got used to the diet, and experienced no greater inconvenience from it than did our native companions.
Where we encamped, which was about three miles south of Cape Felix, was what appeared to be a torn-down cairn, and a quantity of canvas and coarse red woollen stuff, pieces of blue cloth, broken bottles, and other similar stuff, showing that there had been a permanent camping place here from the vessels, while a piece of an ornamented china tea-cup, and cans of preserved potatoes showed that it was in charge of an officer.