224 GREAT MORTALITY AMOKGST THEM. 



winter in Spitzbergen. In 1858 I was in- 

 formed there was still living at Kola, in Lap- 

 land, an aged E^ussian wlio had actually 

 wintered thirty-five alternate seasons at Spitz- 

 hergen. Many of these hardy fellows, how- 

 ever, succumbed to scurvy and the hardships 

 they endured, and many hundreds must have 

 thus miserably perished, as the traveller in 

 these awful solitudes frequently comes across 

 the ruins of a small log-hut with two or three 

 green mounds or cairns of stones in front of it ; 

 and it is also common enough to see the 

 skeletons of the hapless Russians bleaching 

 alongside of those of the bears and reindeer 

 they had killed and subsisted on while living. 

 They seem to have killed an immense quantity 

 of animals of different sorts, and the conse- 

 quent profits must have been large, as, in 

 spite of the number of lives which were lost, 

 the establishment was kept up until about 

 seven or eight years ago, when such a dismal 

 tragedy occurred at Hvalfiske Point, that the 

 company was broken up, and I believe no one 

 has ever since wintered in Spitzbergen. 



During the summer of the year in* question, 



* I forget the precise date ; but I think it was either 

 1850 or 1851. 



