136 



THE SEA. 



The record of their monotonous winter life, almost entirely confined to the house, would 

 be as tedious in the recital as it was in reality. Their wretched habitation was nearly 

 buried in snow, and they felt as much out of the world as though they had really left it. 

 Outside, gale succeeded gale, and howling winds and drifting snow prevented the possibility 

 of hunting, exercise, or amusement. Inside, as the record tells us, they used all the means 

 in their power to preserve warmth : put hot stones and heated cannon-balls at their feet, 

 and smothered themselves in every article of clothing or bedding they had, but with little 

 avail ; their cots and the walls were covered with frost, and themselves as stiff and white 



ATTACKED BY BEARS. 



as corpses. The narrative says quaintly that as they sat before a great fire their shins 

 burned on the fore side, while their backs were frozen. Nevertheless they repined not, but 

 took everything in the spirit of calm philosophy. On December 26th De Veer, when an 

 unusually severe day had set in, writes that they comforted themselves that the sun had 

 gone as low as it could, and must now return. The quaintness and simplicity of 

 this narrative is well illustrated by the following entry for the last day of 1596: "The 

 31 of December it was still foule wether, with a storme out of the north-west, whereby 

 we were so fast shut vp into the house as if we had beene prisoners, and it was so extreame 

 cold that the fire almost cast no heate; for as we put our feete to the fire we burnt our 

 hose (stockings) before we could feele the heate, so that we had constantly work enough 

 to do to patch our hose. And, which is more, if we had not sooner smelt than felt them, 

 we should haue burnt them quite away ere we had knowne it." 



