The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 



as they were afraid that the pressure of the ice 

 that hemmed her in would crack her sides, and 

 excavating a hole about five feet deep in the 

 soil, covered it over by way of a roof with drift- 

 wood and the mainsail of their boat. This party 

 originally consisted of three men. The captain, 

 who was also a Norwegian, died of that fearful 

 scourge, scurvy. This sad event happened in 

 midwinter, when they could no longer dig a 

 hole in the ground owing to the fact that the 

 frosts, which in these months touch 80 below 

 zero, made such an operation impossible. They 

 therefore had recourse to putting the corpse 

 into two barrels, the legs into one and the trunk 

 into another, nailing canvas over the place 

 where the barrels joined, then piling drift-wood 

 over all, to keep off polar bears and foxes. It 

 was a melancholy task we had to perform in 

 burying this man, his body was still frozen 

 solid, and the ravages of the disease made him 

 look dreadfully emaciated, but otherwise he 

 looked as though he had died but the previous 

 day. 



In the photograph here reproduced the scene 

 is depicted exactly as we found them. The 

 surviving Norwegian was still suffering from 

 scurvy, looking desperately ill. He was, how- 

 ever, able to walk about, although very weak. 

 In a few days, after being well fed and cared 

 for on board our steamer, one would not have 



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