THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.
They set traps all around their cabin, with which they caught on an average a fox a day. They eat the flesh, and with the skins made caps and mittens. They had the good fortune to kill a bear nine feet long, from which they obtained one hundred pounds of lard. This they found useful, not as pomatum, but as the means of burning their lamp constantly, day and night, as if it were an altar and they the vestal virgins. On the 19th of December, they congratulated themselves that the Arctic night was just one-half expired; "for," says the narrative, "it was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and deprived of the most excellent creature of God, which enliveneth the entire universe." On Christmas eve it snowed so violently that they could not open the door. The next day there was a white frost in the cabin. While seated at the fire and toasting their legs, their backs were frozen stiff. They did not know by the feeling that they were burning their shoes, and were only warned by the odor of the shrivelling leather. They put a strip of linen into the air, to see which way the wind was: in an instant the linen was frozen as hard as a board, and became, of course, perfectly useless as a weathercock. Then the men said to each other, "How excessively cold it must be out of doors!"
The 5th of January was Twelfth Night, and the hut was buried under the snow. In the midst of their misery, they asked the captain's leave to celebrate the hallowed anniversary. With flour and oil they made pancakes, washing them down with wine saved from the day before and borrowed in advance from the morrow. They elected a king by lot, the master gunner being indicated by chance as the Lord of Nova Zembla. On the 8th, the twilight was observed to be slightly lengthening, and, though the cold increased with the returning sun, they bore it with cheerfulness. They noticed a tinge of red in the atmosphere, which spoke of the revival of nature. They visited the ship, and found the ice a foot high in the hold: they hardly expected ever to see her float again. The difficulty of obtaining fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dreadful efforts to prolong life. To save wood during the daytime, they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up the circulation.
On the 24th of January, Gerard de Veer declared he had seen the edge of the sun: Barentz, who did not expect the return of the luminary for fourteen days, was incredulous, and the cloudy state of the weather during the succeeding three days prevented the bets which were made upon the subject from being settled. On the 27th, they buried one of their number in a snow grave seven feet deep, having dug it with some difficulty, the diggers being constantly obliged to return to the fire. One of the men remarking that, even were the house completely blocked up fifteen feet deep, they could yet get out by the chimney, the captain climbed up the chimney, and a sailor ran out to see if he succeeded. He rushed back, saying he had seen the sun. Everybody hastened forth and "saw him, in his entire roundness," just above the horizon. It was then decided that de Veer had seen the edge on the 24th, and they "all rejoiced together, praising God loudly for the mercy."
Another season of snow now set in, while, at the same time, the ice that bound the ship began to break up, so that the men feared she would escape and float away while they were blockaded in the house. They were obliged to make themselves shoes of worn-out fox-skin caps, as the leather was frozen as hard as horn. On the night of the 6th of April, a bear ascended to the roof of the house by means of the embankments of snow, and, attacking the chimney with great violence, was very near demolishing it. On the 1st of May, they eat their last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might entrap or kill.
It was now decided that even if the ship should be disengaged she would be unfit to continue the voyage. Their only hope lay in the shallop and the long-boat, which they endeavored to prepare for the sea, in the midst of interruptions from bears, who "were very obstinate to know how Dutchmen tasted." As late as the 5th of June, it snowed so violently that they could only work within-doors, where they got ready the sails, oars, rudder, &c. On the 12th, they set to work with axes and other tools to level a path from the ship to the water,—a distance of five hundred paces. On the 13th, Barentz wrote a brief account of their voyage and sojourn, placed it in a musket-barrel, and attached it to the fireplace in the house, for the information of future navigators. They then dragged, with infinite labor, the boats to the water, together with barrels and boxes of such stores as their now impoverished ship could yield. They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early morning, "with a west wind and under the protection of Heaven." Barentz, who had been a long time ill, died on the 20th, while opposite Icy Cape, the northernmost point of Nova Zembla. His loss was deeply regretted; but their "grief was assuaged by the reflection that none can resist the will of God."
The men were often obliged to drag the boats across intervening fields of ice; and sometimes, when the wind was contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service. The sentinels frequently challenged bears, and, on one occasion, three coming together and one being killed, the surviving two devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and difficulties then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hopefully on, descending the western coast of Nova Zembla towards the northern shores of Russia and Lapland. On the 16th of August, they met a Russian bark, which furnished them with such provisions as the captain could spare. On the 20th, they touched the coast of Lapland upon the White Sea, where they found thirteen Russians living in miserable huts upon the fish which they caught. On the 2d of September, they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, where they found three Dutch ships, one of which was their consort, which had been separated from them ten months before. Having no further use for their boats, they carried them with ceremony to the "Merchants' House," or Town-Hall, where they dedicated them to the memory of their long voyage of four hundred leagues over a tract never traversed before, and which they had accomplished in open boats. They started at once for home, and arrived on the 1st of November at Amsterdam, twelve in number. The city was greatly excited by the news of their return, for they had long since been given up for dead. The chancellor and the "ambassador of the very illustrious King of Denmark, Norway, the Goths and the Vandals" were at that moment at dinner. The voyagers were summoned to narrate their adventures before them,—which they did, "clad in white fox-skin caps."
No voyage had hitherto been so fruitful in incident, peril, and displays of persevering courage and fortitude. Though it resulted in no discovery except that of the western coast of Nova Zembla, it served the useful purpose of demonstrating the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of effecting a northeast passage.
FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.