112 EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES 
ed free admission to the air. This inconvenience was, howe- 
ver, easily remedied; as they had an ax, and the beams were 
still sound, it was an easy matter to make the boards join 
again very tolerably; beside, as moss grew in great abun- 
dance all over the island, there was more than sufficient to fill 
up the crevices, to which wooden houses must always be lia- 
ble. Repairs of this kind cost the unhappy men the less 
trouble, as they were Russians, for all Russian peasants are 
good carpenters, building their own houses, and being, in ge- 
neral, very expert in handling the ax. 
The intense cold which makes those climates habitable to 
so few species of animals, renders them equally unfit for the 
production of vegetables. No species of tree or even shrub 
is found on any of the islands of Spitzbergen, a circumstance 
of the most alarming nature to our sailors. Without fire it 
was impossible to resist the severity of the climate ; and with- 
out wood how was that fire to be produced or supported? 
Providence has, however, so ordered it, that in this particular 
the sea supplies the defects of the land. In wandering along 
the beach they collected plenty of wood, which had been dri- 
ven ashore by the waves. It consisted at first of the wrecks 
of ships, and afterward of whole trees with their roots, the pro- 
duce of some more hospitable, but to them unknown country. 
During the first year of their exile, nothing proved of more 
essential service to these unfortunate men than some boards 
they found on the beach, having a long iron hook, some nails 
about five or six inches in length and proportionably thick, to- 
gether with other pieces of old iron fixed in them, the melan- 
choly relics of some vessel cast away in those remote parts. 
These were thrown on shore by the waves, at a time when the 
want of powder gave our men reason to apprehend that they 
must fell a prey to hunger, as they had nearly consumed the 
rein-deer they had killed. This circumstance v^^as succeeded 
by another equally fortunate ; they found on the shore the 
root of a fir tree, which nearly approached to the figure of 
a bow. 
As necessity has ever been the mother of invention, so with 
the help of a knife they soon converted this root into a good 
bow; but they still wanted a string and arrows. Not know- 
ing how to procure these at present, they resolved upon ma- 
king a couple of lances to defend themselves against the 
white bears, the attacks of which animals, by far the most fe- 
rocious of their kind, they had great reason to dread. Find- 
ing they could neither make the heads of their lances, nor 
