HIMKOFF IN NORTH EAST LAND 27 



of the ship, which had apparently been carried away 

 and crushed in the ice. They had brought with them 

 a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges of 

 powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag 

 with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder- 

 box and tinder, a bladder of tobacco, and every man 

 had his pipe. That was their outfit. 



The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen 

 in height and breadth. It contained a small ante- 

 chamber about twelve feet broad, which had two doors, 

 one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting 

 to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind 

 of oven without a chimney, serving at will for heating, 

 for baking, or for sleeping on. Realising that they had 

 a long stay before them, they began by shooting 

 twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then re- 

 paired the house, stopping up all the crevices with 

 moss ; and they then laid in a store of fuel from the 

 driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the 

 beach they found some boards with nails in them, and 

 a long iron hook and a few other pieces of old iron. 

 And also there was a root of a fir tree in shape not 

 unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to 

 make the best of. 



A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns 

 did duty for tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron 

 hook was made into a hammer ; and then two of the 

 nails were shaped into spear-heads, which were tied to 

 sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin. 

 With these weapons they began by killing a bear, 

 whose flesh they ate, whose skin they kept, and whose 

 tendons they made into thread and a string for the 



