246 ABOTIO SEAS. 



" Next morning, the entire village population arrive^ 

 Amounting to about forty-five souls, from aged people to 

 infants in arms, and bartering commenced very briskly. 

 First of all we purchased all the relics of the lost expedi- 

 tion, consisting of six silver spoons and forks, a silver 

 medal, the property of Mr. A. M'Donald, assistant-sur- 

 geon, part of a gold chain, several buttons, and knives 

 made of the iron and wood of the wreck, also bows and 

 arrows constructed of materials obtained from the same 

 source. 



" None of these people had seen the whites ; one man 

 said he had seen their bones upon the island where they 

 died, but some were buried. Petersen also understood 

 him to say that the boat was crushed by the ice. Almost 

 all of them had part of the plunder. 



" Next morning, 4th March, several natives came to us 

 again. I bought a spear six and a half feet long from a 

 man who told Petersen distinctly that a ship having three 

 masts had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the 

 west of King William's Island, but that all the people 

 landed safely ; he was not one of those who were eye- 

 witnesses of it ; the ship sunk, so nothing was obtained 

 by the natives from her ; all that they have got, he said, 



came from the island in the river." 



M'Clintock, on receiving this intelligence, harried back 

 to the Fox with all the speed in his power, and organised 

 plans for a careful and deliberate search of the district in 

 question. He had encountered great hardships on this 

 rapid journey, daring which he had travelled, in twenty 



