RUSSIAN ROBINSON CRUSOES. 221 



it seemed to afford, might be considered as a 

 point in its favour. To him the other : 

 &quot; Well, Bob, all I can say is, that I would a 

 deuced sight rather go to the West Indies and 

 be hanged there, than die a natural death in 



this here country ! &quot; 



Soon after the failure of the criminal plan, the 

 experiment of wintering in Spitzbergen was in 

 voluntarily tried by four Russian sailors, whose 

 vessel was lost or driven away by ice while they 

 were ashore, on a desolate part of the east divi 

 sion of the island. These poor fellows had 

 nothing but what they stood up in, with one gun 

 and a few charges of ammunition ; but they ap 

 pear to have been men of a very different stamp 

 from the London jail-birds, and they at once 

 set to work to make the best of things. They 

 built a hut, and killed some reindeer with their 

 gun, and then, their ammunition being ex 

 hausted, they manufactured bows and arrows, 

 spears and harpoons, of drift-wood. They 

 pointed their weapons with bones and pieces of 

 their now useless gun, and twisted their bow 

 strings out of reindeer s entrails. They made 

 traps and nets for birds and foxes. With these 

 rude and imperfect weapons they not only 

 provided themselves with food and raiment. 



