CURE SUGGESTED. 49 



relieve them of the charge of any of the men. 

 I remembered hearing long ago, in the case of 

 a friend who had shot his arm off, that 

 bandages wet with port wine were applied to 

 keep off mortification, and so, as the nearest 

 approach to that stimulant in our possession, 

 we gave them a couple of bottles of rum, and 

 advised them to apply that either externally 

 or internally, as they might deem most ad- 

 visable. 



We heard a few days afterwards, that by 

 great good luck they had fallen in with a small 

 schooner belonging to the same owners as the 

 wrecked sloop, and that this schooner, having 

 her cargo nearly completed, had taken the six 

 men over to Hammerfest ; and I afterwards 

 ascertained, upon our return to Norway, that 

 the poor ca]3tain's life had been saved, but by 

 the terrible alternative of amputating the 

 greater part of both his feet. 



It is a terribly hard and dangerous life these 

 Spitzbergen wabus-hunters live, and I observe 

 that they all have a restless, weary look about 

 the eyes — a look as if contracted by being 

 perpetually in the presence of danger. They 

 are a wild, rough, reckless lot of fellows ; bold, 

 hardy, and enduring of cold, hunger and 



E 



