the native who had died in the preceding winter, was an aged paralytic
called "Monkey," whose tongue was so affected that even his own people
could scarcely understand him. The second was Natchilli Joe, known to
his own people as Ekeeseek, who was a child in his mother's hood at the
time when he lived on King William Land, and only knew the story of the
Franklin expedition from hearsay. The third, Nu-tar-ge-ark, a man of
about forty-five or fifty years of age, gave us valuable information.
His father, many years ago, opened a cairn on the northern shore of
Washington Bay, in King William Land, and took from it a tin box
containing a piece of paper with some writing on it. Not far from this
same spot were the ruins of a cairn which had been built by white men
and torn down by Inuits. The cairn had been built upon a large flat
stone, which had the appearance of having been dragged to its present
location from a stony point near by. The cairn itself was found to be
empty, but it was generally believed by the Inuits that there was
something buried beneath this stone. It was very heavy, and as they had
only been there in parties of two or three at a time, they had never
been able to overturn the stone, though they had repeatedly tried.
Nutargeark also said he had brought a spoon with him from King William
Land, which corresponded in description with the one Barry took to the
United States. He said it was given to him by some of his tribe, and
that it had come from one of the boat places, or where skeletons had
been found on King William Land or Adelaide Peninsula, he could not
remember exactly where. He had not given the spoon to Captain Barry,
but to the wife of Sinuksook, an Iwillik Esquimau, who afterward gave
it to a Captain Potter. We saw Sinuksook's wife a little later, and she
distinctly remembered having given the spoon to Captain Potter. It was
necessary, therefore, to find this officer.

[Illustration: CAIRN MARKING DEPOSIT OF PROVISIONS.]