BABENTSZ BBLICS. 
299 
doubtless much contributed to their preservation, was 
their sea provision being well cured, which is particu¬ 
larly noticed by the journalist, who remarks that it 
was as good at the time of its being used as when 
first put up. 
The house also in which they had passed that 
memorable winter remains to the present day, and its 
contents were found in a condition but little altered, 
when some Dutch sailors entered, in the season of 
1872, the long closed door. There they found such of 
the various articles saved from the wreck in 1596 as 
were too cumbrous to carry away in the boat the 
survivors had constructed, and by whose means they 
had made their escape. The shoes of the little ship’s 
boy who died in the winter lay there, along with his 
flute, along with the rapiers and halberts, gun-barrels, 
and earthenware utensils, as well as white metal 
vases and quaint metal articles, destined, perhaps, for 
gifts to Oriental potentates, when the Orient was 
gained. They found also the most recent printed 
books of that period on China and India, with 
nautical works, and a curious metal disk, made by 
Plaucius, the great instrument maker of that day ; it 
was found to be based on a wrong principle, however, 
and though described in old books of scientific pur¬ 
port, never again repeated, although this one is 
