SMEERENBERG, OR BLUBBER TOWN. 199 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Smeerenberg, or Blubber Town. — Agremens of ditto. — Dis- 

 covery of Spitzbergen. — Barentz. — Whale-fishery. — At- 

 tempts to colonize the Country, and to make it a penal Set- 

 tlement. — They fail. — The West Indies versus Spitzbergen. 

 — Russian Robinson Crusoes. — Wintering Establishment. 

 — How conducted. — Awful Mortality. — Final Tragedy. — 

 Death of eighteen Men from Scurvy and Hunger. — Ingen- 

 ious Counter-irritant. — Russian Bath. — Cricket. — Boats 

 sewed together. — Post-office. — Signs of Deer. — Kill three 

 Geese with Ball. — Find the "Ginevra," and change into 

 her. — Nautical Nimrods. — Amusing Walrus-hunt. — Gun 

 bursts. 



I have often been asked "what the inhabitants 

 of Spitzbergen are like," but I need scarcely men- 

 tion to the intelligent reader that Spitzbergen never 

 has been inhabited, unless we include under that 

 term the nourishing summer settlement of Smeer- 

 enberg, or New Amsterdam, near Hakluyt's Head- 

 land, which was the rendezvous and boiling estab- 

 lishment of the Dutch whaling-fleet during the 

 palmy days of the Spitzbergen whale-fishery in the 

 seventeenth century. 



Smeerenberg (Anglict Blubber Town), indeed, 

 arrived at such a degree of civilization and refine- 

 ment that "hot rolls" were to be had every morn- 

 ing for breakfast ; and, if report speaks true, even 



