LAST VOYAGE OF FRANKLIN. 559 



some reason, toward the ships, and that two men, at 

 least, found a grave in this boat. The shroud of snow 

 which covered them for ten long years has been lifted, 

 but a mystery still enwraps them, which the fancy seeks 

 in vain to penetrate. 



"Their last dark record none may learn : 



Whether, in feebleness and pain, 



Heartsick they watched for the return 



Of those who never came again ; 



Or if, amid the stillness drear, 



They felt the drowsy death-chill creep, 



Then stretched them on their snowy bier, 

 And slumbered to their last long sleep." 



That a considerable number of the party continued 

 pushing on southward, we know from the testimony of 

 the Esquimaux. The skeleton found eastward of Cape 

 Herschell proves that they reached that point, and seems 

 also to confirm the Esquimaux story that many of them 

 dropped and died as they walked along ; for it lay ex- 

 actly as the famished seaman had fallen, with his head 

 toward the Great Fish River and his face to the ground. 

 We know, also, upon Esquimaux authority, which there 

 is no reason to doubt, that a remnant succeeded in reach- 

 ing the mouth of the Great Fish River. " After the 

 arrival of the wild fowl," says the Esquimaux report, 

 <( but before the ice broke up, the bodies of thirty per- 

 sons and some graves were discovered on the continent, 

 and five other corpses on an island. Some of the bodies 

 were in a tent, others under the boat, which had been 

 turned over to afford shelter." The native description 

 of the locality where this sad scene occurred agreed 

 exactly with Montreal Island and Point Ogle. The 

 time of its occurrence is left somewhat indefinite by 

 their statement ; but, knowing what we now do of the 

 abandonment of the ships, and taking all circumstances 



