RUSSIAN ROBINSON CRTJSOES. 221 



it seemed to afford, miglit be considered as a 

 point in its favour. To him tlie other : — 

 " Well, Bob, all I can say is, that I would a 

 deuced sight rather go to the West Indies and 

 be hanged there, than die a natural death in 



this here country ! " 



Soon after the failure of the criminal plan, the 

 experiment of wintering in Spitzbergen was in- 

 voluntarily tried by four Eussian sailors, whose 

 vessel was lost or driven away by ice while they 

 were ashore, on a desolate part of the east divi- 

 sion of the island. These poor fellows had 

 nothing but what they stood up in, with one gun 

 and a few charges of ammunition ; but they ap- 

 pear to have been men of a very diiferent stamp 

 from the London jail-birds, and they at once 

 set to work to make the best of things. They 

 built a hut, and killed some reindeer with their 

 gun, and then, their ammunition being ex- 

 hausted, they manufactured bows and arrows, 

 spears and harpoons, of drift-wood. They 

 pointed their weapons with bones and pieces of 

 their now useless gun, and twisted their bow- 

 strings out of reindeer's entrails. They made 

 traps and nets for birds and foxes. With these 

 rude and imperfect weapons they not only 

 provided themselves with food and raiment, 



