260 MEET ESQUIMAUX. Chap. XIV. 



CHAPTEK XIV. 



Meet Esquimaux —News of Franklin's people — Frighten a solitary 

 party — Reach the Great Fish River — On Montreal Island — 

 Total absence of all relics — Examine Ogle Peninsula — Dis- 

 cover a skeleton — Vagueness of Esquimaux information — Cape 

 Herschel — Cairn. 



1th May. — To avoid snow-blindness, we com- 

 menced night-marcliing. Crossing over from 

 Matty Island towards the King William Island 

 shore, we continued our march southward until 

 midnight, when we had the good fortune to 

 arrive at an inhabited snow village. We found 

 here ten or twelve huts and thirty or forty 

 natives of King William's Island; I do not 

 think any of them had ever seen white people 

 alive before, but they evidently knew us to 

 be friends. We halted at a little distance, and 

 pitched our tent, the better to secure small 

 articles from being stolen whilst we bartered 

 with them. 



I purchased from them six pieces of silver 

 plate, bearing the crests or initials of Franklin, 

 Crozier, Fairholme, and McDonald; they also 

 sold us bows and arrows of English woods, uni- 



