FROZEN UP. 



313 



of Bear and Walrus Islands. They kept on, to the usual Arctic 

 accompaniment of icebergs, seals, aurorae boreales, whales, and 

 white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spitz- 

 jergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains. 



On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla, — dis- 

 covered in 1553 by Willoughby, — and here the two ships were 

 accidentally separated. In August, the vessel of Barentz was 

 embayed in drifting ice, and no efforts could release her from 

 her dangerous position. Winter was coming on, and the crew, 

 despairing of saving the ship, which was now groaning and 

 heaving under the pressure of the ice, resolved to build a house 

 upon the land, " with which to defend themselves from the colde 

 and wilde beasts." They were fortunate enough to find a large 

 quantity of drift-wood, which had evidently floated from a dis- 

 tance, as the icy soil around them yielded neither tree nor herb. 

 The work began and continued in the midst of constant fights 

 with bears and the arduous labor of dragging stores from the 

 ship upon hand-sleds. The cold was so extreme that their skin 

 peeled off upon touching any iron utensil. Snow storms in- 

 terrupted the progress of the house, for which they were soon 

 obliged to obtain materials by breaking up the ship. One of 

 the men, being pursued by a bear, was only saved by the latter's 

 Waiting to contemplate the body of one of his fellow-bears, 

 tvhich the sailors had killed and left to freeze stiff in an upright 

 position. 



On the 12th of October, half the crew slept in the house for 

 the first time : they suffered greatly from cold, as they had no 

 fire, and because, as the narrative quaintly remarks, " they were 

 somewhat deficient in blankets." The roof was thatched, by 

 the end of October, with sail-cloth and sea-weed. On the 2d 

 of November, the sun raised but half his disk above the horizon : 

 the bears disappeared with the sun, and foxes took their place. 

 The clock having stopped, and refusing to proceed, even with 

 increased weights, day could not be distinguished from night, 



