got away upon the 7th. The Fox was left in charge of Dr. Walker (surgeon), and three or four invalids, who were unfit for the fatigues of travelling.
Although we all felt much excited at the real commencement of our active work, and interested in these departures, this was perhaps the most painful period of our voyage. We had hitherto acted in concert, and all the dangers of our voyage had been shared together. We were now to be separated, and for three months to travel in detached parties over the ice, without an opportunity of hearing of each other until our return. It was like the breaking up of a happy family, and our only consolation lay in the hope that when we again met it would be to rejoice over the discovery of the lost ships. Nothing of interest occurred on board during our absence; but one of the invalids, poor Blackwell, had been getting gradually worse, and died of scurvy on June 14, the very day on which Hobson returned.
The Captain and Hobson travelled together as far as Cape Victoria. There they learnt the additional news that another ship had drifted on shore on the west coast of King William Land in the autumn of the same year in which the first ship was crushed. Captain M'Clintock, now knowing that both ships had been seen off that coast, and that on it the traces must be found, most generously resigned to Hobson the first opportunity of searching there, instead of crossing to Victoria Land, as originally intended. Captain M'Clintock then went down the east side towards the Fish River. Near Cape Norton, he found a tribe of some thirty or forty natives, who appeared much pleased to meet the strange white people. They answered readily any inquiries, and concealed nothing. They produced silver spoons and forks, and other relics from the lost ships, and readily bartered them for knives or needles. They were acquainted with the wreck, which they said was over the land (on the south-west coast), and for years they had collected wood and valuables from it, but they had not visited it for a long time. They had seen Franklin's people on their march southward, but had not molested them. They said that they had seen one human skeleton in the ship. Proceeding on his route, Captain M'Clintock next found a native family at Point Booth, near the south-east extreme of King William Land; these natives gave him the additional information that the remains of some of the lost people would be found on Montreal Island. Having searched Montreal Island and main land in the neighbourhood without finding other traces than a few pieces of copper and iron, and now having connected the search from the north with Anderson's from the south, Captain M'Clintock proceeded to examine the shores of Dease and Simpson Straits, and the southern shore of King William Land.
Near Cape Herschel, the Captain's party found a human skeleton upon the beach as the man had fallen down and died, with his face to the ground; and a pocket-book, containing letters in German which have not yet been deciphered, was found close by.
The large cairn, originally built by Simpson, at Cape Herschel, had been pulled down, probably by the natives, and if any record or document had ever been placed therein by Franklin's people, they were now lost, for
