xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 



subsequently to the following July, we are alone indebted 

 to the Crozier record, found on Point Victory in 1859. 1 



1 Whilst these pages were going through the press, the public journals 

 announced the return of the American explorer, Captain C. F. Hall, 

 after an absence of five years ; I am therefore enabled to notice that 

 portion of his report (published in the New York ' Tribune,' 30th 

 September) which relates to his search for our long lost countrymen. 



During the spring of this year, Captain Hall reached King William's 

 Island, and explored a portion of their line of retreat, along its southern 

 shore. His experience, and also the native information he has collected, 

 agrees in all important points with that previously obtained, but without 

 adding thereto. 



According to these latest accounts, the place called Oot-loo-lik, where 

 one of the ships was stranded {Narrative, p. 220), is on the shore of the 

 continent some thirty or forty miles south-westward of Cape Herschel. 



And it appears that, subsequently to the examination of King William's 

 Island by sledge parties from the ' Fox,' the Esquimaux visited its north- 

 western shores, thus leaving no part of it unsearched, and of course 

 removing or destroying every relic and trace of the lost crews — those 

 seen by us as well as others which the snow concealed from our view. 



Captain Hall's report fully confirms the opinion expressed in this 

 Narrative (p. 312), that their sufferings could not have been materially 

 prolonged beyond the short period for which the provisions, brought 

 from their ships, would support them. 



Deriving his information from the Esquimaux, he states that one of 

 the parties seen to pass Cape Herschel, reached the continent near Point 

 Richardson, about 12 or 15 miles westward of the Great Fish River. 

 Captain Hall also states that none of the lost crews reached Montreal 

 Island, in the mouth of that river, notwithstanding that Mr. Anderson's 

 evidence, repeatedly corroborated by Esquimaux testimony, seems con- 

 clusive that a boat-party did reach it, and that their boat was eventually 

 cut up there by the natives. 



He further tells us, that in the overwhelming thirst for plunder, even 

 their graves (so called, but merely superficial constructions of loose 

 stones as a protection against wild animals — See A T arrative, p. 254) were 

 not respected. 



His journey has resulted in additional relics and reports obtained 

 from the natives, but no documents or writings whatever. And it shows 

 us conclusively that, had the ' Fox ' expedition been delayed even for a 

 couple of years, we should have been deprived of the only reliable in- 

 formation respecting the voyage and abandonment of the ' Erebus ' and 

 ' Terror,' which has ever come to light ; for the ruthless Esquimaux would 

 have plundered the only remaining cairns, and have destroyed those 

 precious records, which for eleven years lay sheltered beneath them. 



