138 THE SEA. 



could not be loosed," which gladdened the hearts of the men. Next they began to repair their 

 clothes; and on May 29th the boat and yawl were cleared of the snow which buried them. 

 The narrative shows ho\v enfeebled they had become. Ten of th(.>m went to the boat, to repair it 

 and make it ready. When they had got it out of the snow, and thought themselves able to drag 

 it up to the house, their united efforts were not sufficient. De Veer says, " We could not doe it 

 because we were too weake." They became, we cannot wonder, wholly out of heart, for unless 

 the boats could be got ready they would, as the master told them, have to remain as burghers or 

 citizens of Nova Zembla, and make their graves there. But, as the narrative continues, there 

 was no want of goodwill in them, but only strength. After a rest they did, by slow degrees 

 manage to repair and heighten the gunwales of the boat. Their work was impeded by the 

 bears, one of which they killed, and the liver of which having eaten, they were " exceeding 

 sicke," so much so that of three of the men it is stated that " all their skins came off from 

 the foote to the head." Although bear's meat is perfectly wholesome and far from uneatable, 

 the same fact has very frequently been noticed in regard to the poisonous qualities of the liver, 

 at least at certain seasons. In this case, the captain took what was left and threw it away, 

 for as De Veer candidly admits, they " had enough of the sawce thereof." 



It now became obvious that the ship, which was completely bilged, must be aban- 

 doned, and their time, after repairing and strengthening the boats, was fully employed in 

 moving and packing their goods, including the more valuable of the merchandise they 

 had brought for trading purposes from the house, and in stripping the ship of everything 

 of value. On June 12th they went with hatchets, pick-axes, shovels, and all kinds of 

 implements, to make a clear wide shoot or way from the house, passing the ship, to the 

 water. The ice was full of hummocks, knobs, and hills, and this was not the lightest 

 of their labours. Then Barents and the skipper wrote letters, detailing the circumstances 

 of their ten months' stay, and that they were forced to abandon the ship and put to 

 sea in two open boats, to which all of the men subscribed except four, who from 

 sickness or inability could not write. Barents' letter was put in a place of safety in 

 their deserted house, and each of the boats was furnished with a copy of the captain's 

 letter, in case they should be separated or one or other lost. The yawl and boat 

 having been launched and loaded, Barents and a man named Adrianson, both of whom 

 had been long invalids, were carried on a sledge to the water's edge. There were now 

 fifteen men in all, and their provisions were reduced to limited rations of bread, one 

 barrel of Dutch cheese, one flitch of bacon, and some small runlets of wine, oil, and 

 vinegar. 



To the narrative which follows the compiler can hardly do justice, whilst an exact 

 reprint of the quietly and unsensationally told story of Gerrit de Veer would have to be 

 closely studied before the reader would understand and feel the adventurous and desperate 

 nature of the exploit performed. These fifteen poor Dutchmen, gaunt and exhausted as 

 we know they were, weakened by semi-starvation and disease, badly provisioned at this 

 most critical time, two of their number dying, bravely encountered a voyage of some 

 seventeen hundred miles, eleven at least of which were amongst the worst dangers of the 

 Arctic seas. The larger of their two craft was a fishing yawl of the smallest size. For 

 eighty days they struggled through an unknown and frozen ocean, in the ice, over the 



