I 



DESCRirnON OF GKEKNLAND. 245 



common in all the northern seas. Those who died covdd not 

 be buried, because no one had strength enough to put them 

 under ground. The bread even fell short for those invalids 

 who remained. They were obliged to search among the snow, 

 where they found a kind of strawberry, which sustained and 

 nourished them after a manner. They ate them as they ga- 

 thered them, for they could not make any provision of them, 

 because they keep under the snow, but wither a short time 

 after they are taken up. 



The narrator marks the twelfth of April as a memorable 

 day, for it rained, which it had not done for seven months in 

 these quarters. The spring brought a thousand kind of birds, 

 which had not appeared during the winter, and these dying 

 men could not catch any of them on account of their debility. 

 About the middle of May they saw wild geese, swans, and 

 ducks, and an infinite number of little tufted birds ; swal- 

 lows, partridges, and woodpeckers, crows, falcons, and eagles. 

 Captain Munck himself fell ill, like the rest, on the fourth 

 of June ; and remained in his hut four whole days without 

 going out and without eating anything, overcome with mis- 

 fortunes. He prepared for death and made his will, by 

 which he prayed the passers-by to bury him, and to send the 

 journal that he had made to the king of Denmark his master. 

 At the end of the four days he felt a little stronger, and left 

 his tent to see his companions, dead or alive. He only found 

 two alive, out of the sixty-four he had brought with him. 

 These two poor sailors, delighted to see their captain about, 

 went to him and brought him to their fire, where he came a 

 little to himself. They encouraged one another and resolved 

 to strive to live, but they did not know how. They thought they 

 would scratch away the snow and eat the grass which they 

 found underneath. Happily they found some particular kind 

 of roots, which nourished and comforted them in such a man- 

 ner that they were well again in a few days. The ice began 

 to break about this time, which was the eighteenth of June, 



