FINAL TRAGEDY. 205 



ably perished, as the traveler in these awful soli- 

 tudes frequently comes across the ruins of a small 

 log hut, with two or three green mounds or cairns 

 of stones in front of it ; and it is also common 

 enough to see the skeletons of the hapless Russians 

 bleaching alongside of those of the bears and rein- 

 deer they had killed and subsisted on while living. 

 They seem to have killed an immense quantity of 

 animals of different sorts, and the consequent prof- 

 its must have been large, as, in spite of the number 

 of lives which were lost, the establishment was kept 

 up until about seven or eight years ago, when such 

 a dismal tragedy occurred at Hvalfiske Point that 

 the company was broken up, and I believe no one 

 has ever since wintered in Spitzbergen. 



During the summer of the year* in question a 

 prodigious quantity of heavy drift-ice surrounded 

 Hvalfiske Point and all the southern coast of East 

 Spitzbergen. The men belonging to the Russian 

 establishment had all come in from the various out- 

 posts, and were assembled at the head-quarters to 

 the number of eighteen, waiting to be relieved by 

 the annual vessel from Archangel. By a concur- 

 rence of bad fortune, this vessel was lost on her voy- 

 age 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 sup- 

 posed that the care of relieving them might safe- 



* I forget the precise date, but I think it was either 1850 

 or 1851. 



