It was a dismal, foggy day, but we derived great comfort from
occasional glimpses of our country's flag through the lifting fog, the
only inspiriting sight in this desolate wilderness--a region that fully
illustrates "the abomination of desolation" spoken of by Jeremiah the
prophet.
The next day Lieutenant Schwatka went further inland, Frank and Henry
down the coast, and I took Toolooah, with the sled, and went around the
point toward Cape Sidney, keeping well out on the ice, to see if any
cairn might have been erected to attract attention from that direction.
On the way we stopped and took down a cairn that I had seen on the day
of our arrival. We found nothing in it, though, the earth beneath it
being soft, we dug far down in the hope of finding something to account
for its existence, as Toolooah believed, though he was not certain,
that it was a white man's cairn. I did not go as far as Cape Sidney,
which had been my intention, as a thick fog, which came up as we left
the cairn, rendered the trip useless for the purpose intended, as we
could only get occasional glimpses of the shore, and could not see
inland at all.
Lieutenant Schwatka found a well-built cairn or pillar seven feet high,
on a high hill about two miles back from the coast, and took it down
very carefully without meeting with any record or mark whatever.
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