SPITZBERGEN— BEAR ISLAND— JAN MEYEN. 



141 



liver of the animal has poisonous qualities, or is at least very unwholesome, for, 

 after eating it, they were all attacked with a kind of eruptive fever, and their 

 skin peeled off. Towards the middle of March their provisions were well-nigh 

 exhausted, but the Polar bears appearing more frequently, replenished their 

 stock. Soon also the migratory birds arrived from the south, the foxes crept 

 out of their burrows, and many were caught in traps. On June 5 the ice be- 

 gan to break up, and on the following morning one-half of the bay was open. 

 A gale forced them to seek the shelter of their hut. There, seated round the 

 fire, they spoke of their approaching delivery, when suddenly a loud halloo 

 was heard. They immediately rushed out into the open air, and hardly be- 

 lieved their eyesight, for they were greeted by their comrades of the previ- 

 ous summer, and saw their own well-known ship at anchor in the bay. Thus 

 were these brave-hearted men rescued after a ten months' exile in the lati- 

 tude of 



The possibility of wintering in Spitzbergen having thus been proved, some 

 volunteers belonging to the Dutch fleet were induced by certain emoluments 

 to attempt the same enterprise on Amsterdam Island ; but, less fortunate than 

 their predecessors, they all fell victims to the scurvy. A diary which they 

 left behind recorded the touching history of their sufferings. "Four of us," 

 these were its last words, " are still alive, stretched out flat upon the floor, and 

 might still be able to eat if one of us had but the strength to rise and fetch 

 some food and fuel, but we are all so weak, and every movement is so painful, 

 that we are incapable of stirring. We constantly pray to God soon to release 

 us from our sufferings, and truly w^e can not live much longer without food 

 and warmth. None of us is able to help the others, and each must bear his 

 burden as well as he can." 



Since that time both the English and the Dutch have given up the idea of 

 forming permanent settlements in Spitzbergen, but scarcely a year passes that 

 some Russians and Norwegians do not winter in that high northern land. As 

 far back as the seventeenth century, the former used to send out their clumsy 

 but strongly-built "lodjes " of from 60 to 160 tons from the ports of Archan- 

 gel, Mesen, Onega, Kola, and other places bordering the White Sea, to chase 

 the various animals of Spitzbergen, the reindeer, the seal, the beluga, but chief- 

 ly the walrus, the most valuable of all. These vessels leave home in July, or 

 , as soon as the navigation of the White Sea opens, and as the shortness of the 

 season hardly allows them to return in the same year, they pass the winter in 

 some sheltered bay. Their first care on landing is to erect a large cross on the 

 shore, a ceremony they repeat on leaving, and such is their religious faith that 

 under the protection of that holy symbol they mock all the terrors of the Arc- 

 tic winter. Near the place where their vessels are laid up, they build a large 

 hut from twenty to twenty-five feet square, which is used as a station and mag- 

 azine ; but the huts used by the men who go in quest of skins, and which are 

 erected at distances of from ten to fifty versts along the shore, are only seven or 

 eight feet square. The smaller huts are usually occupied by two or three men, 

 who take care to provide themselves from the store-house with the necessary 

 provisions for the winter. Scoresby visited several of these huts, some con- 



