FLAGSTAFF POINT. 
53 
We found other traces of Esquimaux, both on Lit¬ 
tleton Island and in Shoal-Water Cove, near it. They 
consisted of huts, graves, places of deposit for meat, 
and rocks arranged as foxtraps. These were evidently 
very ancient; but they were so well preserved, that it 
was impossible to say how long they had been aban¬ 
doned, whether for fifty or a hundred years before. 
Our stores deposited, it was our next office to erect 
a beacon and intrust to it our tidings. We chose for 
this purpose the Western Cape of Littleton Island, 
as more conspicuous than Cape Hatherton; built our 
cairn; wedged a staff into the crevices of the rocks; 
and, spreading the American flag, hailed its folds with ’ 
three cheers as they expanded in the cold midnight 
breeze. These important duties performed,—the more 
lightly, let me say, for this little flicker of enthusiasm, 
—we rejoined the brig early in the morning of the 
7th, and forced on again toward the north, beatina 
against wind and tide. 
