SPITZBERGEN.—^RUSSIAN HUNTERS. 145 



and from around their huts, which, in stormy 

 weather, are often buried. In such cases, they are 

 obHged to make their way through the chimney to 

 get out. As an antiscorbutic, they make use of an 

 herb produced in the country, a stock of which they 

 generally provide themselves with on the approach 

 of winter ; but sometimes they are under the neces^ 

 sity of digging through the snow to obtain it. They 

 either eat it without any preparation, or diink the 

 liquor prepared from it by infusion in water. For 

 the same purpose, they make use of a kind of rasp-- 

 berry, which is preserved by baking v/ith rye-flour : 

 this they eat, or drink the expressed juice of the 

 fruit. A decoction of fir-tops, in water, is another 

 beverage intended as an antidote against the scur- 

 vy *. 



These men, however, hardy as they are, do not 

 always escape the bane of these regions, the scurvy. 

 Perhaps their hardihood in stopping so long as 

 three years in Spitzbergen, which some of them 

 have been known to do, might give a predisposition 

 for this disease, and render it more fatal. In the 

 year 1771, ^Ir Steward of Whitby, formerly a 

 Greenland captain, landed on a projection of low 

 table land, forming the south-westerly point of 

 King's Bay, for the purpose of procuring drift wood 



* Beaufoy's Queries^ Nos. 8^ & 9- 

 VOL. E K 



