We were now on the march from Cape Felix. Lieutenant Schwatka had kept about a mile east of Frank and Henry, who walked along the coast, and I about a mile and a half east of Lieutenant Schwatka. When about a mile and a half above our old camp at Wall Bay, he found a cairn very similar in construction to the one he found inland from Cape Felix. The top had been taken down, but in the first course of stones, covered and protected by those thrown from the top, he found a piece of paper with a carefully drawn hand upon it, the index finger pointing at the time in a southerly direction. The bottom part of the paper, on which rested the stone that held it in place, had completely rotted off, so that if there had ever been any writing upon it, that, too, had disappeared. He called Frank to his assistance, and they spent several hours in carefully examining the vicinity, without discovering anything else. It would seem, however, that whatever memorandum or guide it was intended for was only temporary, and was probably put there by some surveying or hunting party from the ships.
We encamped on a point below Cape Maria Louisa, after our next march, and after erecting the tent Owanork found a cache on the flats containing a wooden canteen, barrel-shaped, marked on one side
NO. 3,
and on the other,
G. B.,
under the Queen's broad arrow. There were also the staves of another canteen, a small keg, a tin powder can, several red cans marked
GOLDNER'S PATENT,
a narrow-bladed axe, several broken porter and wine bottles stamped
BRISTOL GLASS-WORKS.
and a few barrel staves. The cache was one evidently made by Netchillik Inuits, who had found the things along the coast. In fact, one of those we had interviewed mentioned having cached just such articles somewhere along the coast, and had afterward forgotten the place. This is worthy of consideration, as indicating that our search was sufficiently comprehensive to have discovered anything that had been cached away by the crews of the ships between Cape Felix and Collinson Inlet within five or six miles of the coast.