NOVA ZEMBLA AND LANDS BEYOND. 77 



' On the 1st of July he again made Bear Island, and here 

 he and Rijp agreed to separate. Of the latter we know 

 only that he was unsuccessful in an attempt to find an 

 opening in the ice on the east of Greenland, and that he 

 returned to Holland in the same year. Of the former the 

 narrative is painfully full and interesting. 



' Quitting Bear Island, he reached Novaia Zemlaia on 

 the 17th of July, sighting the coast in lat. 74 40' N. 

 Keeping along it with characteristic perseverance until the 

 7th of August, he passed Cape Comfort ; but only to find 

 himself once more face to face with the dreary spectacle of 

 the far-reaching Polar ice. It so hemmed and fenced him 

 in on every side that he was unable to extricate his vessel 

 from it ; and being driven into a bay, which he named 

 Ice Haven, " there they were forced, in great cold, poverty, 

 misery, and griefe, to stay all the winter," For the heavy 

 pack-ice drifting into the bay closed it up, and closed 

 around the ship until she was held fast as in iron bonds. 



'Barents and his sixteen followers now prepared to 

 encounter with a good heart the trials of the long Arctic 

 winter night. They displayed, in truth, a courage, a 

 patience, and a good fellowship which were heroic. Find- 

 ing a large supply of drift-wood, they constructed, with the 

 help of planks from the poop and forecastle of the vessel, 

 a sufficiently commodious house, into which they removed 

 all their stores and provisions They fixed a chimney in 

 the centre of the roof; a Dutch clock was set up, and duly 

 struck the weary hours ; the sleeping-berths were ranged 

 along the walls ; a wine-cask was converted into a bath. 

 All these ingenious devices, however, availed but little 

 against the terrible feeling of depression which is induced 

 by the continuance for so many weeks of a blank and 

 cheerless darkness. 



' The sun disappeared on the 4th of November, and the 

 cold thereafter increased until it was almost intolerable. 

 Their wine and beer were frozen, and lost all their strength. 

 By means of great fires, by applying heated stones to their 

 feet, and by wrapping themselves up in double fox-skin 



