46 WHALING 



condition that they should stay in Greenland from the end of 

 one whaling season to the beginning of the next. The com- 

 pany provided, for the criminals, all supplies that would be 

 needed during the period of their stay, and *' these poor 

 wretches,'^ the old chronicler says, ''hearing of this large 

 proffer, and fearing present execution at home, resolved to make 

 trial of the adventure. The time of year being come and the 

 ships being ready to depart, these condemned creatures are 

 imbarked who after a certain space there arriving, and taking a 

 view of the desolateness of the place, they conceived such a 

 horror and inward fear in their hearts, as they resolved rather 

 to return for England, to make satisfaction with their lives for 

 their former faults committed, than there to remain, though 

 with assured hope of gaining their pardon." 



That by intercession of the worshipful company of Muscovy 

 merchants, the poor devils did in the end obtain pardon, not- 

 withstanding they chose rather to return to the gallows than to 

 brave the Arctic, in no way lessens the force of the vivid object 

 lesson. It was sober truth that a band of condemned criminals 

 had preferred to go home and be executed, when by facing the 

 unknown terrors of a Greenland winter they could have got 

 such chance for life as the winter offered. 



With this very story in mind, the eight men from the Saluta- 

 tion, worn out by three weeks of desperate effort to overtake 

 their ship before she left the country, counselled together con- 

 cerning their plans for the future and decided, as with one mind, 

 to return to Green Harbour and kill as many deer as possible, 

 which should supply them with meat for the winter. So back 

 to Green Harbour they went, nearly fifty miles away, and helped 

 by a favourable wind, they reached the place in twelve hours. 

 With nineteen deer and four bears to show for their hunting, 

 with a store of the boiled-out greaves, or fritters, of whale, which 

 they gathered beside the deserted try-works, and with an extra 

 shallop which they found hauled up at the Green Harbour 

 whaling station, they were on their way back to Bell Sound 

 when a gale of wind sank both their shallops. How they sal- 

 vaged their shallops and meat is a long story in itself. By in- 



