The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators

by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

"On the eleventh of December Jeroen Caroen also took a remedy against scurvy, and we all began to eat separately from each other because some suffered more from scurvy and others less. We looked every day, trying to find fresh vegetables, but we found nothing. So we recommended our souls into the hands of God.

"On the twelfth of December Cornelis Thysz took a remedy for scurvy. On the twenty-third of December we saw our first bear. Just as the cook was pouring out hot water from his kitchen the bear stood outside the window, but when he heard a noise he hastily fled. On the twenty-fourth we again heard a bear, and we at once ran for him with three men, whereupon he stood upright on his hind legs and looked quite horrible; but we shot a musket-ball through his belly, and he began to groan and bleed quite badly, and with his teeth he bit one of our halberds to pieces and then fled. We followed him with two lanterns, but we could not get him, although we needed him sorely on account of the sick people as well as of those who were still well, for nobody was quite without pain. If things do not improve before long we shall all be dead before the ships come back; but God knows what is best for us. On the twenty-fifth of December Cornelis Thysz took a remedy for scurvy for the second time, for things were going badly with him. On the fourteenth of January Adriaen Janszoon died, being the first of the seven of us to go; but we are now all very ill and have much pain.

"On the fifteenth Fetje Otjes died.

"On the seventeenth Cornelis Thysz died. Next to God we had put our hope upon him. We who were still alive made coffins for the three dead ones, and we laid them into their coffins, although we were hardly strong enough to do this, and every day we are getting worse.

"On the twenty-eighth we saw the first fox, but we could not get him. On the twenty-ninth we killed our red dog, and we ate him in the evening. On the seventh of February we caught our first fox, and we were all very happy; but it did not do us much good, for we are all too far gone by now. We saw many bears, yes, sometimes we saw as many as three, four, five, six, ten, twelve at the same time; but we did not have strength enough to fire a gun, and even if we had hit a bear, we could not have walked out to get him, for we are all so weak that we can not put one foot before the other. We can not even eat our bread; we have terrible pains all over our bodies; and the worse the weather is the more pain we have. Many of us are losing blood. Jeroan Caroen is the strongest, and he went out and got some coals to make a fire.

"On the twenty-third we laid flat on our backs almost all the time. The end has come, and we commend our souls into the hands of God.

"On the twenty-fourth we saw the sun again, for which we praised God, for we had not seen the sun since the twentieth or twenty-first of October of last year.

"On the sixth of February the four of us who are still alive are lying in our bunks. We would eat something if only one of us were strong enough to get up and make a fire; we can not move from the pain we suffer. With folded hands we pray to God to deliver us from this sorrowful world. If it pleases Him we are ready; for we would prefer not to stand this suffering much longer without food and without a fire, and yet we cannot help each other, and each one must bear his own fate as well as he can."

When the ships came to Spitzbergen in the spring of 1635 they found the cabin locked. A sailor climbed into the house through the attic window. The first things he found were pieces of the red dog hanging from the rafters, where they had been put to dry. In front of the stairs he stumbled over the frozen body of the other dog. Inside the cabin the seven sailors rested together. Three were lying in open coffins, two in one bunk, two others on a piece of sail on the floor, all of them frozen, with their knees pulled up to their chins.