38 VOYAGE INTO 



blown or driven the ice away, or else they are lost ; but if 

 there be other ships that escape, the men are saved. 



On this ice I did not see many sea-hounds, but a great 

 many sea-horses, and many birds and fowls. 



We sailed still on till we saw the Seven Islands, hxxt could 

 ao no farther. 



CHAPTER IV. 



0/ the Air. 



The frost is unconstant in our country, but it is not so in 

 Spitzbergen. In the month of April at seventy-one degrees, 

 it was so cold that w^e could hardly keep warmth within us. 

 They say that in this month as also in May, the hardest 

 frosts happen every year. 



All the rigging, by reason of its being wet, is covered over 

 with ice, and stiff. 



They do not send their ships so soon as they did a few 

 years ago, and yet they come time enough there, for if they 

 ra'rive too early, there is nothing for them to do, because the 

 ice is not yet dissijiated, and therefore but few ivhales to be 

 seen. 



In the two first summer months of Spitzbergen, their teeth 

 chatter in their heads commonly, and the appetite is greater 

 than in any other countreys. 



The sun sets no more after the third day of May, and we 

 were about seventy-one degrees, when we could see as well 

 by night as by day. I cannot say much of constancy of the 

 weather in these two first months, for it changed daily; they 

 say also, if the moon appears cloudy and misty, with a streaky 



