If this is correct, they were, probably, the operators themselves.
We learn from the narrative that they were able to saw off the handles
of pickaxes and shovels. At all events the intercourse between the
natives and such of Franklin's crews as they met is surrounded by
circumstances of grave suspicion, as learned from themselves, and this
suspicion gathers strength from various circumstances related on
Schwatka's journey. Be this as it may, I take my stand on far higher
ground. Of course such things have happened. Strong, shipwrecked
mariners, suddenly cast adrift on the ocean, have endeavored to extend
life in this way when they were in hourly expectation of being rescued.
But how different the case in point! The crews of the 'Erebus' and
'Terror', when they abandoned their ship, were, doubtless, for the
most part, suffering from exhaustion and scurvy; death had been staring
them in the face for months. The greater part of them probably died
from exhaustion and disease long before they got a hundred miles from
their ships, and found their graves beneath the ice when it melted in
summer, or on the beach of King William Land. It is possible that no
more than half a dozen out of the whole crew ever reached the entrance
to the Great Fish River. We need not call in starvation to our aid. I
fully believe that by far the greater portion perished long before
their provisions were consumed.
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