1631. THOMAS JAMES. 247 



wished for a hovel on shore, which was accord- 

 ingly built and covered over with the mainsail. 

 A few deer was all that the island seemed at first 

 to produce, but on the winter setting in many 

 black foxes made their appearance; in looking for 

 which, the gunner's mate, in crossing a frozen 

 pond, fell in, and the ice closing upon him they 

 saw him no more. 



Before the end of November every thing was 

 covered with frost and snow, and the ship 

 appeared to be one great mass of ice. On the 22d 

 the o'unner died, — ". an honest and a stout-hearted 

 man." His leg had been amputated, and notwith- 

 standing the constant fire kept up i^ his cabin, 

 " his plaisters would freeze at his wound, and his 

 bottle of sack at his head." The constant danger 

 to which the ship was exposed from the drift-ice, 

 and foul ground, and perpetual storms, determined 

 them to remove all the provisions to the shore and 

 quit her altogether, which was accordingly done 

 on the 26th of November; and it is stated, that 

 when they joined their sick companions on shore 

 " they could not know us nor we them, by our 

 habits and voices, so frozen we were, faces, hair 

 and apparel." A dismal account is given of their 

 noses, cheeks and fingers being frozen as white as 

 paper, and of blisters being raised as large as wal- 

 nuts. The well which they had dug froze up, and 

 melted snow-water is pronounced to be very un- 



R 4 



