FINAL TRAGEDY. 225 



a prodigious quantity of heavy drift-ice sur 

 rounded Hvalfiske Point and all the southern 

 coast of East Spitzbergen. The men belong 

 ing to the Russian establishment had all come 

 in from the various outposts, and were assem 

 bled at the head-quarters to the number of 

 eighteen, waiting to be relieved by the annual 

 vessel from Archangel. By a concurrence of 

 bad fortune this vessel was lost on her voyage 

 over, and was never heard of again. The 

 crews of the other vessels in Spitzbergen knew 

 nothing of these men; or if they did, they 

 naturally supposed that the care of relieving 

 them might safely be left to their own vessel, 

 as nothing was yet known of her loss either 

 there or at Archangel. The ice in the summer 

 months prevented any vessel from accidentally 

 approaching Hvalfiske Point, and no one went 

 near it until the end of August, when a party 

 of Norwegians, who had lost their own vessel, 

 travelled along the shore to seek for assistance 

 from the Russian establishment ; but on ap- 

 praching the huts they were horror-struck to 

 find its inmates all dead. Fourteen of the 

 unhappy men had recently been buried in 

 shallow graves in front of the huts, two lay 

 dead just outside the threshold, and the re- 



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