226 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
Russian traders who lived here from year to year ; 
some of their party returned home with their spoils, 
and brought back such simple requisites as the people 
needed. They killed and tracked Arctic animals, and 
became so wedded to their life here, that one of the 
party, a serf, spent thirty-five years in the islands : 
only once in eighteen years did he return home. He 
died at last, and was buried on the island. The others 
met the same sad fate that has befallen so many of 
their hardy companions who have braved the winter 
in these desolate regions. Once when they had as¬ 
sembled together, as was their custom every year, to 
receive looked-for reliefs and the years supplies, the ex¬ 
pected ship, as she neared the coast, was wrecked, and 
they were starved to death. Afterwards a Norwegian 
crew, having escaped from shipwreck, came to the 
Russian depot, expecting to find some assistance in 
their dire distress; then they also found a sad sight to 
crush out the little hope remaining in them : the newly 
made graves of the Russian colony, and the dead bodies 
of the two last men lying in their sleeping-places, told 
a tale of misery and want, hard to describe in words. 
Their journal gave the dry details of each day’s doings ; 
gradually its pages began to tell the hopes and fears 
that racked the brains of the expectant crew. The 
patient waiting for relief that never came; the daily 
