172 HAPPY DELIVERANCE. 



the next day the Sound was more than half 

 cleared. It now blew a gale, and the party 

 had retreated to their house, and were sitting 

 over the fire, when they heard themselves hailed 

 in English by a strange voice. It immediately 

 occurred to them that some vessel had arrived 

 in the Sound; and, filled with delight and sur- 

 prise, they rushed out and found their expecta- 

 tions realized. 



Thus after ten months' residence on this deso- 

 late island, and after enduring all the severities 

 of a winter, under the 77° of latitude, did these 

 hardy seamen return on board their vessel, in 

 good health, and without the loss of a single 

 individual of their number. 



The extraordinary manner in which they es- 

 caped sickness throughout the winter must be 

 attributed to the warmth and comfort of their 

 dwelling, and to the natural strength and cheer- 

 fulness of their minds, which has a most pow- 

 erful effect upon the scurvy, a disease from which 

 they had the worst to apprehend, as they had 

 no vegetables or antiscorbutics of any kind ; 

 and the gross and loathsome food upon which 

 they subsisted for a great part of the time would 

 materially encourage that complaint. 



The possibility of wintering in Spitzbergen 

 being now no longer a matter of doubt, the 



