DESCRIPTION OF GREENLAND. 235 



and fed tlicm at Copenhagen. When he -wished to amuse 

 his friends, he went on the water, and made these bears 

 jump in some sandy pLace, pretty deep, but sufficiently elear 

 for them to be seen through the water. He told me it 

 afforded him particular delight to see these animals playing 

 at the bottom of the sea for two or three hours, and they 

 would have lived there for whole days without difficulty, 

 if they had not been brought up by cords and chains to 

 M-hich they were fastened. 



The sea of Spitsbergen produces a great number of Avhales; 

 they take them two hundred feet in length, and of a thick- 

 ness proportionate to the length. The generality are about 

 one hundred and thirty or one hundred and sixty feet. They 

 have no teeth. When these large bodies are opened, they 

 find nothing but ten or twelve handsful of little black spiders, 

 which are engendered by the bad air of the sea ; and also a 

 little green grass, which springs up from the bottom of the 

 water. It is probable that these whales live neither on this 

 grass, nor on these spiders, but on the water of the sea, which 

 produces the grass and the spiders. This sea is sometimes 

 so covered with these kind of insects that it is quite black 

 with them ; and it is an infallible sign for the fishermen that 

 the fishing will be good, for the whales follow the water that 

 engenders this pestilence. They then take such large whales, 

 and in such great numbers, that the sailors will not know 

 how to carry away all the fat they have melted, and are 

 obliged to leave some on the ground, with which they come 

 to load themselves the year after. You will remark, sir, 

 that nothing rots or becomes corrupt in this land ; corpses,, 

 which have been buried for thirty years, are as fine and 

 sound as they were when alive. A long time ago some huts 

 were built in which to cook the fat of the whales, but they 

 are always exactly as they were when first built, and the 

 wood of which they are made is as sound as it was the day it 

 was cut off the tree. To say the truth of these northern 



