VII.] THE COLONISTS OF JAN MA YEN. 95 



health, we killed for them the only two pullets we had left ; 

 and they fed pretty heartily upon them, in hopes it might 

 prove a means to recover part of their strength. We were 

 sorry we had not a dozen more for their sake." On Easter 

 Day, Adrian Carman, of Schiedam, their clerk, dies. "The 

 Lord have mercy upon his soul, and upon us all, we being 

 very sick." During the next few days they seem all to have 

 got rapidly worse ; one only is strong enough to move about. 

 He has learnt writing from his comrades since coming to 

 the island ; and it is he who concludes the melancholy story. 

 " The 23rd (April), the wind blew from the same corner, 

 with small rain. We were by this time reduced to a very 

 deplorable state, there being none of them all, except myself, 

 that were able to help themselves, much less one another, 

 so that the whole burden lay upon my shoulders, — and I 

 perform my duty as well as I am able, as long as God 

 pleases to give me strength. I am just now a-going to help 

 our commander out of his cabin, at his request, because he 

 imagined by this change to ease his pain, he then struggling 

 with death." For seven days this gallant fellow goes on 

 "striving to do his duty;" that is to sav, making entries in 

 the journal as to the state of the weather, that being the 

 principal object their employers had in view when they left 

 them on the island ; but on the 30th of April his strength 

 too gave way, and his failing hand could do no more than 

 trace an incompleted sentence on the page. 



Meanwhile succour and reward are on their way toward 

 the forlorn garrison. On the 4th of June, up again above 

 the horizon rise the sails of the Zealand fleet ; but no glad 

 faces come forth to greet the boats as they pull towards the 

 shore ; and when their comrades search for those they had 

 hoped to find alive and well, — lo ! each lies dead in his own 

 hut, — one with an open Prayer-book by his side ; another 

 with his hand stretched out towards the ointment he had 

 used for his stiffened joints ; and the last survivor, with the 

 unfinished journal still lying by his side. 



The most recent recorded landing on the island was 



