June, 1S69.] The Unhuried Dead. 41 7 



make a summer search over that island, wliicli, from information I had {>ained 

 from tlie natives, I had reason to suppose would be rewarded by tlie discov(.'ry of 

 the whole of the manuscript records that had been accumulated in that great 

 expedition, and had been deposited in a vault a little way inland or eastward of 

 Cape Victory. Knowing' as I now do the character of the Eskimos in that part of 

 the country in which King William's Land is situated, I cannot wonder at nor 

 blame the Kepulse Bay natives for their refusal to remain there, as 1 desired. It 

 is quite i)robable that, had we remained there as I wished, no one of us would 

 ever have got out of the country alive. How could we expect, if we got into 

 straitened circumstances, that we would receive better trealment from the 

 Eskimos of that country than the 305 souls who were under the command of the 

 heroic Crozier some time after landing on King William's Land"? Could I and 

 my party with reasonable safety have remained to make a summer search on King 

 William's Land, it is not only probable that we should have recovered the logs 

 and journals of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, but have gathered up and en- 

 tombed the remains of nearly 100 of his companions ; for they lie about the places 

 where the three boats have even found and at the large camping-place at the 

 head of Terror Bay and the three other jilaces that I have already mentioned. 

 In the cove, west side of Point Eichardson, however, nature herself has opened 

 her bosom and given sej)ulture to the bones of the immortal heroes who died 

 there. Wherever the Eskimos have found the graves of Franklin's comj)anious, 

 they have dug them open and robbed the dead, leaving them exj^osed to the rav- 

 ages of wild beasts. On Todd's Island, the remains of five men were not buried; 

 but, after the savages had robbed them of every article that could be turned to 

 account for their use, their dogs were allowed to finish the disgusting work. 

 The native who conducted my native party in its search over King William's 

 Land is the same individual who gave Dr. Eae the first information about white 

 men having died to the westward of where he (Dr. Eae) then was (Pelly Bay) in 

 the spring of 1854. His name is In-nooTi-poo-zhe-jooli., and he is a native of ISTeit- 

 chille, a very great traveler and very intelligent. He is, in fact, a walking his- 

 tory of the fate of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, Tliis native I met when 

 within one day's sledge journey of King William's Land — off Point Dryden ; and, 

 after stopping a few days among his people, he accompanied me to the places 

 I visited on and about King William's Land. 



T could have readily gathered great quantities — a very gTcat variety — of 

 Eelics of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, for they are now possessed by natives 

 all over the Ar(;tic Eegious that I visited or heard of— from Pond's Bay to Mackeu- 



S. Ex. 27 27 



