Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/182

Rh mittens, hat, and everything that would hold them securely, I labelled each article, and rejoined the boat, immediately afterward departing on our way for "home." That the reader may know the feelings with which I left this portion of my work, I here make a brief extract from my diary, hastily written on the spot:— "As I had my hand upon the iron relic after having unearthed it and seen what it was, like a flash the whole of the circumstances flew across my mind—my determination before starting to induce my native crew to stop with me at Kodlunarn; the proposal while making the transit from Niountelik to Kodlunarn; their willing acceptance; the search, and finding of interesting relics; my calling to Koojesse; his response; his descending to look at what I thought to be wood; its proving to be a stone; Koojesse's mounting by an unexpected and venturesome way, thus finding the iron relic where it had lain undisturbed for three centuries; God blessing me in making me the instrument in determining the exact facts of what has remained a mystery to the civilized world for so long. Now it will be known throughout all the enlightened nations of the earth where Frobisher did attempt to establish the colony which Queen Elizabeth sent here in 1578." That night we reached the termination of the high land below Sharko, and encamped till the next morning. Our passage on September 26th was made with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea that prevailed. A moderate gale, or even a fresh breeze from certain directions, causes a dangerous sea for boats running between Countess of Warwick's Sound and Bear Sound, a fact we proved by personal experience. On arriving at the old whaling dépôt, Cape True, I landed and went to Flagstaff Hill. There was still enough remaining to show where the ship's company had lived so long: the tattered remnants of a flag, some boards, a dismantled table, an old cooking-stove, with broken-down walls around it, oil-casks covered with sods, some rope and