232 DISCOVERIES OF l620. 



the night this luminary was environed by a trans- 

 parent circle, within which was a cross, cutting 

 throuo-h the centre of the moon, and quartering 

 it— this phenomenon was regarded as the harbin- 

 ger of those misfortunes which soon befel them. 

 The frost had set in with such severity that the 

 wine, brandy, and beer, were entirely frozen, and 

 the casks burst with the intense cold. The 

 scurvy began to make its appearance among the 

 crews of the two vessels, consisting of forty-eight 

 persons in the one, and sixteen in the other.^ The 

 spring of the year brought with it no relief to their 

 misery. Their bread and provisions were ex- 

 hausted, and none of them had strength enough 

 to take any of the ducks, geese, partridges and 

 other fowl which came around them in infinite 

 multitudes. They were reduced to a most helpless 

 and deplorable state, and the mortality became 

 almost general. Towards the beginning of the 

 month of May 1620, those who had survived had 

 the misery of knowing that the whole of their 

 provisions were consumed, and that famine was 

 now added to disease. They had no strength left 

 to pursue the animals which surrounded them. 

 Munk himself, reduced to the last extremity, 

 remained alone in a little hut in so hopeless and 



* In a Danish M.S. it is said that the disease was mostly 

 occasioned by the almost unrestrained use of spirituous liquors, 

 which are known to be particularly destri^ctive in a cold climate. 



