19. A deserted ship with dead bodies inside.

Qaqortingniq provided testimony of finding a deserted ship with many bodies aboard (Rasmussen, 1931, p. 130; Klutschak, 1968, p.209):
‘Two brothers were out hunting seal to the northwest of Qequertaq (King William’s Land). It was in the spring, at the time when the snow melts about the breathing holes of the seal. They caught sight of something, far out on the ice; a great black mass of something, that could not be any animal they knew. They studied it and made out at last that it was a great ship. Running home at once, they told their fellows, and on the following day all went out to see it. They saw no men about, it was deserted; and they therefore decided to take from it all they could find for themselves. But none of them had ever before met with white men, and they had no knowledge as to the use of all the things they found.
One man, seeing a boat that hung out over the side of the ship, cried: ‘Here is a fine big trough that will do for meat! I will have this!’ And he cut the ropes that held it up, and the boat crashed down endways on to the ice and was smashed.
They found guns, also, on the ship, and not knowing what was the right use of these things, they broke away the barrels and used the metal for harpoon heads. So ignorant were they indeed, in the matter of guns and belonging to guns, that on finding some percussion caps, such as were used in those days, they took them for tiny thimbles, and really believed that there were dwarfs among the white folk, little people who could use percussion caps for thimbles.
At first they were afraid to go down into the lower part of the ship, but after a while they grew bolder, and ventured also into the houses underneath. Here they found many dead men, lying in the sleeping places there, all dead. And at last they went down also in a great dark space in the middle of the ship. It was quite dark down there and they could not see. But they soon found tools and set to work and cut a window in the side. But here those foolish ones, knowing nothing of the white men’s things, cut a hole in the side of the ship below the water-line, so that the water came pouring in, and the ship sank. It sank to the bottom with all the costly things; nearly all that they had found was lost again at once’.
In another version Rasmussen added that the ship was out in the ice between King William Island and Victoria Land and that the Inuit could see that the many dead men had died of a sickness (Rasmussen, 1925, p.138).
If the ship was lying on her starboard side and sealed up, then a hole cut into her ‘side’ might be through the bilges – the curved bottom of the ship. Today with the wreck of Terror sitting upright on the bottom this hole might no longer be visible from outside the ship.
There is another similar testimony collected by Amundson in 1905 from an Inut named Uchyuneiu, that describe the arrival of an unmanned ship with dead bodies in her bunks (Amundsen and Hansen, 1908, v. 2, p.61). This is believed to be HMS Terror, finally freed from the ice, upright again and drifting south with the ice stream.
Uchyuneiu’s testimony for the presence of a ship off Cape Crozier, the westernmost point of King William Island and directly opposite the Royal Geographical Society Islands was collected by Amundsen in 1905 and cited by Klutschak (1987, p.207) and Eber (2008, p.95). The ship was deserted when found and Inuit entered her. They found and ate some tinned meat and became ill and several died:
‘One of the ships had driven down towards Ogluli and was found by the Eskimo one winter’s day when they were seal fishing on the south coast of Cape Crozier, the most westerly point of King William Land. They had then removed all the iron and wood work they could remove, and when spring came and the ice broke up the ship sank. At this time the Eskimo had eaten something from some tins which were like ours, and it made them very ill: indeed some had actually died. They knew nothing of the other vessel’.
Now that HMS Terror is found, the underwater footage shows her bunks intact with a layer of sediment lying on them. It will be an easy matter to check if bodies were once placed in these bunks. Human remains are quickly removed at sea, but clothing and bindings are likely to remain. So this question should be answered in the near future.
COMMENT: A deserted ship with bodies aboard and tinned food that poisoned some Inuit, seen arriving in the west, fills in a chapter in the history of HMS Terror after she was thrown over by the ice.
QUESTION: Will traces of bodies be found in the silt-covered bunks aboard Terror?
QUESTION. Will a ‘window’ be found that was cut through the side of Terror’s hold?