170 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



teeth, and his rugose, scarred, and almost hairless 

 hide, he had evidently attained to extreme old age ; 

 and I think it not improbable that he may have 

 been a lazy and peaceful denizen of the Spitsbergen 

 ice-floes at the time when the immortal Nelson vis- 

 ited these shores as a midshipman in Lord Mul- 

 grave's expedition in 1773. 



We saw nothing else all day but seals in the wa- 

 ter. We sent a boat ashore in the afternoon to col- 

 lect fire-wood, and one of our sailors picked up a 

 good pair of walrus tusks on the beach. 



We also gathered some pieces of limestone full 

 of fossils, and some pieces of water-worn native coal 

 or lignite. 



A small vessel becalmed near us had, early in the 

 summer, sailed as far to the north as the land mark- 

 ed in the charts as "Commander Gillies 1 Land," 

 which lies sixty or seventy miles to the northeast 

 of Spitzbergen. I was anxious to ascertain some 

 particulars about this distant country, but I could 

 elicit no information except that "it was a hilly 

 country, very like Spitzbergen, and that there were 

 no sea-horses, or seals, or even reindeer there." 



This vessel, however, had a large number of seals 

 and walruses on board, and, although they said they 

 had killed the most of them about Byk Yse Island, 

 still I think it not improbable that they actually 

 did so at Gillies 1 Land, but that they wish to keep 

 the fact of its being so good a place in the dark. 



There is no doubt that many of the seals and 



