The Company was at that time carrying on a black whale fishery, and Marble Island was made the rendezvous, not merely on account of the commodious harbour, but because of the greater abundance of whales there. Under these circumstances the boats, when on the lookout for fish, had frequent occasion to row close to the island, which led to the discovery, at the easternmost extremity, of a new harbour.[69] Upon landing at this place, the crews made a startling discovery. They found English guns, anchors, cables, bricks, a smith's anvil, and many other articles lying on the ground, which, though they were very old, had not been defaced by the hand of time, and which having been apparently without use to the native Esquimaux, and too heavy to be removed by them, had not been removed from the spot where they had originally been laid a little farther inland. The whalers beheld the remains of a frame house,[70] which, though half destroyed by the Esquimaux for the wood and iron, yet could plainly be seen at a distance. Lastly, when the tide ebbed in the harbour there became visible the hulls of two craft, lying sunk in five fathoms of water. The figurehead of one of these vessels, together with the guns and other implements, was shortly afterwards carried to England. The hypothesis of Governor Norton was instantly and only too correctly espoused by the Company. On this inhospitable island, where neither stick nor stump was, nor is to be seen, and which lies sixteen miles from a mainland, no less inhospitable, perished Knight, Barlow, and the other members of the exploring expedition of 1719. Thus was a fate nearly half a century in the balance ascertained at last. Two years later some members of a whaling party landed at this same harbour, and one of their number, perceiving some aged Esquimaux, determined to question them on the matter. "This," says the narrator, "we were the better enabled to do by the assistance of an Esquimau, who was then in the Company's service as a linguist, and annually sailed in one of their vessels in that character. The account received from these aged natives was 'full, clear and unreserved,' and its purport was in this wise: