AKRIVAL AT BEECHEY ISLAND. 541 



I 



municate overland every winter with the tribes at Igloo- 

 lik. They all knew of Parry's ships having wintered 

 there in 1822-3, and had heard of late years of Dr. Rae's 

 visit to Repulse Bay : but nothing whatever respecting 

 the Franklin expedition had come to their knowledge, 

 nor had any wrecks reached their shores within the last 

 thirty years. 



"Within Pond's Inlet the natives told us the ice 

 decays every year, but, so long as any remains, whales 

 abound. Several large whales were seen by us, and we 

 found among the natives a considerable quantity of 

 whalebone and many narwhal's horns, which they were 

 anxious to barter for knives, files, saws, rifles, and wool. 

 They drew us some rude charts of the inlet, showing 

 that it expands into an extensive channel looking west- 

 ward into Prince Regent's Inlet. 



*" We reached Beechey Island on the llth of Augustj 

 and landed a handsome marble tablet, sent by Lady 

 Franklin, bearing an appropriate inscription to the mem- 

 ory of our lost countrymen in the Erebus and Terror. 

 Having embarked some coals and stores, and touched 

 at Cape Ilotham, we sailed down Peel Strait for twenty- 

 five miles on the ITth, but finding the remainder of this 

 channel covered with unbroken ice, I determined to 

 make for Bellot Strait. 



" On the 19th August we examined into the supplies 

 remaining at Port Leopold, and left there a whaleboat 

 brought from Cape Hotham, to aid us in our retreat, 

 shcnld we be obliged eventually to abandon the Fox. 

 Prince Regent's Inlet was unusually free from ice. Very 

 little was seen during our run down to Brentford Bay, 

 which we reached on the 20th of August. 



" Bellot Strait, which communicates with the western 

 sea, averages one mile in width, by seventeen or eigh- 

 teen miles in. length. At this time it was filled with 



