Chapter II

ON the 27th, the chances of this narrow and capricious navigation had gathered five of the searching vessels, under three different commands, within the same quarter of a mile--Sir John Ross', Penny's, and our own. Both Ross and Penny had made the effort to push through the sound to the west, but found a great belt of ice, reaching in an almost regular crescent from Leopold's Island across to the northern shore, about half a mile from the entrance of the channel. Captain Ommanney, with the _Intrepid_ and _Assistance_, had been less fortunate. He had attempted to break his way through the barrier, but it had closed on him, and he was now fast, within fifteen miles of us, to the west.

After breakfast, our commander and myself took a boat to visit the traces discovered yesterday by Captain Penny. Taking the _Lady Franklin_ in our way, we met Sir John Ross and Commander Phillips, and a conference naturally took place upon the best plans for concerted operations. I was very much struck with the gallant disinterestedness of spirit which was shown by all the officers in this discussion. Penny, an energetic, practical fellow, sketched out at once a plan of action for each vessel of the party. He himself would take the western search; Ross should run over to Prince Regent's Sound, communicate the news to the _Prince Albert_, and so relieve that little vessel from the now unnecessary perils of her intended expedition; and we were to press through the first openings in the ice by Wellington Channel, to the north and east.

It was wisely determined by brave old Sir John that he would leave the _Mary_, his tender of twelve tons, at a little inlet near the point, to serve as a fallback in case we should lose our vessels or become sealed up in permanent ice, and De Haven and Penny engaged their respective shares of her outfit, in the shape of some barrels of beef and flour. Sir John Ross, I think, had just left us to go on board his little craft, and I was still talking over our projects with Captain Penny, when a messenger was reported, making all speed to us over the ice.

The news he brought was thrilling. "Graves, Captain Penny! graves! Franklin's winter quarters!" We were instantly in motion. Captain De Haven, Captain Penny, Commander Phillips, and myself, joined by a party from the _Rescue_, hurried on over the ice, and, scrambling along the loose and rugged slope that extends from Beechy to the shore, came, after a weary walk, to the crest of the isthmus. Here, amid the sterile uniformity of snow and slate, were the head-boards of three graves, made after the old orthodox fashion of gravestones at home. The mounds which adjoined them were arranged with some pretensions to symmetry, coped and defended with limestone slabs. They occupied a line facing toward Cape Riley, which was distinctly visible across a little cove at the distance of some four hundred yards.

The first, or that most to the southward, is nearest to the front in the accompanying sketch. Its inscription, cut in by a chisel, ran thus;

"Sacred

to the

memory

of

W. Braine, R. M.,

H. M. S. _Erebus_.

Died April 3d, 1846,

aged 32 years.

'Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.'

Joshua, ch. xxiv., 15."

The second was:

"Sacred to the memory of

John Hartnell, A. B. of H. M. S.

_Erebus_,

aged 23 years.

'Thus saith the Lord, consider your ways.'

Haggai, i., 7."

The third and last of these memorials was not quite so well finished as the others. The mound was not of stone-work, but its general appearance was more grave-like, more like the sleeping-place of Christians in happier lands. It was inscribed:

"Sacred

to

the memory

of

John Torrington,

who departed this life

January 1st, A.D. 1846,

on board of

H. M. ship _Terror_,

aged 20 years."

"Departed this life _on board_ the _Terror_, 1st January, 1846!" Franklin's ships, then, had not been wrecked when he occupied the encampment at Beechy!

Two large stones were imbedded in the friable limestone a little to the left of these sad records, and near them was a piece of wood, more than a foot in diameter, and two feet eight inches high, which had evidently served for an anvil-block: the marks were unmistakable. Near it again, but still more to the east, and therefore nearer the beach, was a large blackened space, covered with coal cinders, iron nails, spikes, hinges, rings, clearly the remains of the armorer's forge. Still nearer the beach, but more to the south, was the carpenter's shop, its marks equally distinctive.

Leaving "the graves," and walking toward Wellington Straits, about four hundred yards, or perhaps less, we came to a mound, or rather a series of mounds, which, considering the Arctic character of the surface at this spot, must have been a work of labor. It inclosed one nearly elliptical area, and one other, which, though separated from the first by a lesser mound, appeared to be connected with it. The spaces thus inclosed abounded in fragmentary remains. Among them I saw a stocking without a foot, sewed up at its edge, and a mitten not so much the worse for use as to have been without value to its owner. Shavings of wood were strewed freely on the southern side of the mound, as if they had been collected there by the continued labor of artificers, and not far from these, a few hundred yards lower down, was the remnant of a garden. Weighing all the signs carefully, I had no doubt that this was some central shore establishment, connected with the squadron, and that the lesser area was used as an observatory, for it had large stones fixed as if to support instruments, and the scantling props still stuck in the frozen soil.

Travelling on about a quarter of a mile further, and in the same direction, we came upon a deposit of more than six hundred preserved-meat cans, arranged in regular order. They had been emptied, and were now filled with limestone pebbles, perhaps to serve as convenient ballast on boating expeditions.

These were among the more obvious vestiges of Sir John Franklin's party. The minor indications about the ground were innumerable: fragments of canvas, rope, cordage, sail-cloth, tarpaulins; of casks, iron-work, wood, rough and carved; of clothing, such as a blanket lined by long stitches with common cotton stuff, and made into a sort of rude coat; paper in scraps, white, waste, and journal; a small key; a few odds and ends of brass-work, such as might be part of the furniture of a locker; in a word, the numberless reliquiæ of a winter resting-place. One of the papers, which I have preserved, has on it the notation of an astronomical sight, worked out to Greenwich time.

With all this, not a written memorandum, or pointing cross, or even the vaguest intimation of the condition or intentions of the party. The traces found at Cape Riley and Beechy were still more baffling. The cairn was mounted on a high and conspicuous portion of the shore, and evidently intended to attract observation; but, though several parties examined it, digging round it in every direction, not a single particle of information could be gleaned. This is remarkable; and for so able and practiced an Artie commander as Sir John Franklin, an incomprehensible omission.

In a narrow interval between the hills which come down toward Beechy Island, the searching parties of the _Rescue_ and Mr. Murdaugh of our own vessel found the tracks of a sledge clearly defined, and unmistakable both as to character and direction. They pointed to the eastern shores of Wellington Sound, in the same general course with the traces discovered by Penny between Cape Spencer and Point Innes.

Similar traces were seen toward Caswell's Tower and Cape Riley, which gave additional proofs of systematic journeyings. They could be traced through the comminuted limestone shingle in the direction of Cape Spencer; and at intervals further on were scraps of paper, lucifer matches, and even the cinders of the temporary fire. The sledge parties must have been regularly organized, for their course had evidently been the subject of a previous reconnoissance. I observed their runner tracks not only in the limestone crust, but upon some snow slopes further to the north. It was startling to see the evidences of a travel nearly six years old, preserved in intaglio on a material so perishable.

The snows of the Arctic regions, by alternations of congelation and thaw, acquire sometimes an ice-like durability; but these traces had been covered by the after-snows of five winters. They pointed, like the Sastrugi, or snow-waves of the Siberians, to the marchers of the lost company.

Mr. Griffin, who performed a journey of research along this coast toward the north, found at intervals, almost to Cape Bowden, traces of a passing party. A corked bottle, quite empty, was among these. Reaching a point beyond Cape Bowden, he discovered the indentation or bay which now bears his name, and on whose opposite shores the coast was again seen.

It is clear to my own mind that a systematic reconnoissance was undertaken by Franklin of the upper waters of the Wellington, and that it had for its object an exploration in that direction as soon as the ice would permit.

There were some features about this deserted homestead inexpressibly touching. The frozen trough of an old water channel had served as the wash-house stream for the crews of the lost squadron. The tubs, such as Jack makes by sawing in half the beef barrels, although no longer fed by the melted snows, remained as the washers had left them five years ago. The little garden, too: I did not see it; but Lieutenant Osborn describes it as still showing the mosses and anemones that were transplanted by its farmers. A garden implies a purpose either to remain or to return: he who makes it is looking to the future. The same officer found a pair of cashmere gloves, carefully "laid out to dry, with two small stones upon the palms to keep them from blowing away." It would be wrong to measure the value of these gloves by the price they could be bought in Bond Street or Broadway. The Arctic traveler they belonged to intended to come back for them, and did not probably forget them in his hurry.

The facts I have mentioned, almost all of them, have been so ably analyzed already, that I might be excused from venturing any deductions of my own. But it was impossible to review the circumstances as we stood upon the ground without forming an opinion; and such as mine was, it is perhaps best that I should express it here.

In the first place, it is plain that Sir John Franklin's consort, the _Terror_, wintered in 1845-6 at or near the promontory of Beechy; that at least part of her crew remained on board of her; and that some of the crew of the flag-ship, the _Erebus_, if not the ship herself, were also there. It is also plain that a part of one or both these crews was occupied during a portion of the winter in the various pursuits of an organized squadron, at an encampment on the isthmus I have described, a position which commanded a full view of Lancaster Sound to the east of south, and of Wellington Channel extending north. It may be fairly inferred, also, that the general health of the crews had not suffered severely, three only having died out of a hundred and thirty odd; and that in addition to the ordinary details of duty, they were occupied in conducting and computing astronomical observations, making sledges, preparing their little anti-scorbutic garden patches, and exploring the eastern shore of the channel. Many facts that we ourselves observed made it seem probable that Franklin had not, in the first instance, been able to prosecute his instructions for the Western search; and the examinations made so fully since by Captain Austin's officers have proved that he never reached Cape Walker, Banks' Land, Melville Island, Prince Regent's Inlet, or any point of the sound considerably to the west or southwest. The whole story of our combined operations in and about the channel shows that it is along its eastern margin that the water-leads occur most frequently: natural causes of general application may be assigned for this, some of which will readily suggest themselves to the physicist; but I have only to do here with the recognized fact.

So far I think we proceed safely. The rest is conjectural. Let us suppose the season for renewed progress to be approaching; Franklin and his crews, with their vessels, one or both, looking out anxiously from their narrow isthmus for the first openings of the ice. They come: a gale of wind has severed the pack, and the drift begins. The first clear water that would meet his eye would be close to the shore on which he had his encampment. Would he wait till the continued drift had made the navigation practicable in Lancaster Sound, and then retrace his steps to try the upper regions of Baffin's Bay, which he could not reach without a long circuit; or would he press to the north through the open lead that lay before him? Those who know Franklin's character, his declared opinions, his determined purpose, so well portrayed in the lately published letters of one of his officers, will hardly think the question difficult to answer: his sledges had already pioneered the way. We, the searchers, were ourselves tempted, by the insidious openings to the north in Wellington Channel, to push on in the hope that some lucky chance might point us to an outlet beyond. Might not the same temptation have had its influence for Sir John Franklin? A careful and daring navigator, such as he was, would not wait for the lead to close. I can imagine the dispatch with which the observatory would be dismantled, the armorer's establishment broken up, and the camp vacated. I can understand how the preserved-meat cans, not very valuable, yet not worthless, might be left piled upon the shore; how one man might leave his mittens, another his blanket coat, and a third hurry over the search for his lost key. And if I were required to conjecture some explanation of the empty signal cairn, I do not know what I could refer it to but the excitement attendant on just such a sudden and unexpected release from a weary imprisonment, and the instant prospect of energetic and perilous adventure.