SEARCHING FOR POSSIBLE SURVIVORS. 575 



Chapter XXVIII). Still, we make a few brief extracts 

 which we deem sufficiently interesting to be worth the space 

 they occupy: 



" This day I have returned from a sledge journey of 

 ninety days to and from King William's Land. It was 

 my purpose, and every preparation was made, to make 

 this journey last season, but my attention then having 

 been called to Melville Peninsula, in the vicinity of Fury 

 and Hecla Straits, where native report had it that white 

 men had been seen, I directed my expedition there, by 

 way of Am-i-toke, Oog-lik Isle, Ig-loo-lik, with the ardent 

 hope and expectation of rescuing alive some of Sir John 

 Franklin's lost companions. The result of the journey 

 was the fioding of the teuting-place of a few white men 

 and a stone pillar they had erected close by it at the bot- 

 tom of Parry Bay, which is some fifty miles south of the 

 western outlet of Fury and Hecla Straits, and the visiting 

 of several places where white men and their traces had 

 been seen by natives of Ig-loo-lik and vicinity in or about 

 the years 1866-'67. I also gained much information from 

 the natives of Ig-loo-lik, North Oog-lik Isle, and there- 

 abouts. . . . 



"The result of my sledge journey to King William's 

 Land may be summed up thus : None of Sir John Frank- 

 lin's companions ever reached or died on Montreal Island. 

 It was late in July, 1848, that Crozier and his party, of 

 about forty or forty-five, passed down the west coast of 

 King William's Land, in the vicinity of Cape Herschel. 

 The party was dragging two sledges on the sea ice, which 

 was nearly in its last stage of dissolution, one a large 

 sledge laden with an awning-covered boat, and the other a 

 small one laden with provisions and camp material. Just 

 before Crozier and party arrived at Cape Herschel they 

 were met by four families of natives, and both parties went 

 into camp near each other. Two Esquimaux men, who 

 were of the native party, gave me much sad but deeply 



