The next day we stayed at Cape Jane Franklin to make a preliminary
search of the vicinity. Lieutenant Schwatka and I went up Collinson
Inlet, but saw no traces of white men. Henry and Frank, who had been
sent up the coast, were more fortunate. About a mile and a half above
camp they came upon the camp made by Captain Crozier, with his entire
command from the two ships, after abandoning the vessels. There were
several cooking stoves, with their accompanying copper kettles, besides
clothing, blankets, canvas, iron and brass implements, and an open
grave, wherein was found a quantity of blue cloth, part of which seemed
to have been a heavy overcoat, and a part probably wrapped around the
body. There was also a large quantity of canvas in and around the
grave, with coarse stitching through it and the cloth, as though the
body had been incased as if for burial at sea. Several gilt buttons
were found among the rotting cloth and mould in the bottom of the
grave, and a lens, apparently the object-glass of a marine telescope.
Upon one of the stones at the foot of the grave Henry found a medal,
which was thickly covered with grime, and was so much the color of
the clay stone on which it rested as to nearly escape detection. It
proved to be a silver medal, two and a half inches in diameter, with
a bass-relief portrait of George IV., surrounded by the words,
GEORGIUS IIII., D. G. BRITTANNIARUM
REX, 1820.
on the obverse, and on the reverse a laurel wreath surrounded by
SECOND MATHEMATICAL PRIZE, ROYAL
NAVAL COLLEGE,
and inclosing
AWARDED TO JOHN IRVING. MID-
SUMMER, 1830.
This at once identified the grave as that of Lieutenant John Irving,
third officer of the 'Terror'. Under the head was found a figured
silk pocket-handkerchief, neatly folded, the colors and pattern in a
remarkable state of preservation. The skull and a few other bones only
were found in and near by the grave. They were carefully gathered
together, with a few pieces of the cloth and the other articles, to be
brought away for interment where they may hereafter rest undisturbed. A
re-burial on King William Land would be only until the grave was again
found by the natives, when it would certainly be again torn open and
despoiled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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