[4] Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature. A Discourse, by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood, Berks. Bosworth: London.
THE MISSING SHIP.
Alexis Himkof had just taken an affectionate leave of his wife, and stood looking after her, on the deck of the vessel to which he had been appointed mate, and which had been fitted up for the whale-fishery near Spitzbergen, by a merchant of the name of Jeremiah Oxladmkof, of Mesen, a town in the province of Jesovia, in the government of Archangel. She sailed in 1743 on her first voyage. We can conceive how lonely the home of Alexis must have been without him. We may be sure that his wife's last prayer at night was offered up for his safety. We constantly hear it said, in stormy weather: 'God help those who are at sea!' 'God help those who have friends at sea!' might be added to the petition; for there are hearts which quail at every gust of wind—there are thick-coming fancies, which can conjure up tempest-tossed vessels, sweeping gales, and raging billows; and yet the ship may at that very moment be in calm waters, or sailing with a prosperous breeze.
The time came that there might be some account of Himkof—then, that the vessel might be back; but no news or vessel came. Month after month passed on, and still it came not; and then years went by, and still there was no ship: whenever a sail was seen in the distance, the poor wife would hasten to the shore; but still the ship she looked for never came. With a sinking heart, she would retrace her steps homewards; but still she came again and again, so true it is that affection and hope are the last earthly companions that part company. The neighbours would look at her as she passed along, and shake their heads in pity.
The vessel, which had fourteen hands on board, had sailed on with a fair wind for eight days. On the ninth it veered, and instead of reaching the west of Spitzbergen, the place of rendezvous for the vessels employed annually in the whale-fishery, it was driven eastward of those islands. A few days brought her near one of them, known as East Spitzbergen. When within about two English miles, she was hemmed in by ice, and in extreme danger. In this dreadful emergency, the crew consulted on what was best to be done. Himkof mentioned that he had been told, some time before, that some men from Mesen, having decided on wintering on the island, had provided themselves with timber for building a hut, which they accordingly erected at some distance from the shore. Being quite aware, that if they remained in their present situation, they must inevitably perish, they determined to search for the hut, and to winter there, if so fortunate as to find it. Himkof, with three others, were selected to make the search. They were provided with a musket, twelve charges of powder, a dozen balls, an axe, a small kettle, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a wooden pipe for each, some tobacco, and a bag with twenty pounds of flour. This was as much as they could carry with safety, as they had to make their way for two miles over loose ridges of ice, which would be still more difficult and dangerous if they were overloaded, and it required the utmost caution to avoid falling between these ridges, which had been raised by the waves and driven together by the winds. The footing once lost, inevitable destruction must follow. They had not proceeded above an English mile, when, to their great delight, they descried the hut, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore. Its length was thirty-six feet, and its breadth and height eighteen. It consisted of two rooms. The antechamber was about twelve feet broad, and had two doors—one to exclude the outer air, the other by which it communicated with the inner room, in which there was an earthen stove, such as is commonly used in Russia. A very slight inspection sufficed to shew that the hut had sustained great injury from the weather; but to have found it in any condition was a subject of great joy, and they availed themselves of its shelter for the night.
Eager to communicate the good news to their companions, they set out early the next morning; and as they went on, they chatted cheerfully about the stores of ammunition and provisions, and various requisites which could be conveyed from the ship, to be stored in the hut for winter use. They pursued their way in the highest spirits, picturing to themselves the delight which they were about to give to their companions. When they arrived on the shore, not a vestige of the ship was to be seen; no track through the waters marked her path; all was still and silent, desolate and bleak: no familiar face was seen; not one of their comrades was left to tell the hapless tale! They stood aghast, looking in mute despair upon the sea. The ice by which the vessel had been hemmed in had totally disappeared. The violent storm of the night before, they concluded, might have been the cause of this fatal disaster; the ice might have been disturbed by the agitation of the waves, and beaten violently against the ship, till she was shattered to pieces; or she might, perhaps, have been carried on by the current into the ocean, and there lost. However it might have been, they were never to see her again. What a difference a few short moments had made in their feelings and in their fate! They thought to have re-entered the hut with glad companions; they returned to it the sole inhabitants of that desolate region, disconsolate, and utterly hopeless of ever leaving it. When they could collect their thoughts, they were anxiously turned to the preservation of their lives, for which it was necessary to provide some kind of sustenance. The island abounded with reindeer, and they brought down one with every charge of their powder. They set about devising means to repair the hut, which, from the cracks and crevices produced by the weather, let in the piercingly cold air in various directions. No wood, or even shrub, grew on that sterile ground. Nothing could be more dreary than the prospect—a bleak waste without vegetation; the high mountains with their rock and crags; the everlasting ice and the vast masses of snow. The very sublimity of the scene was awfully impressed with all the marks of stern desolation and solitude. As in that cold climate wood is not liable to decay, they joined the boards of which the hut was constructed, with the help of their axe, very tolerably, filling up the crevices with moss, which grows in abundance all over the island. The poor men, like all of their country, were expert carpenters, for it is customary with them to build their own houses. No want could have been more dreadful than that of wood, for without firing, they could never bear up against the intense cold.
As they strayed along the beach, they found, to their joy, a quantity of wood which had been carried in by the tide. What they first got in this way were parts of the wreck of vessels, and afterwards trees, which had been uprooted by the overflowing of rivers, and borne by the waves into the ocean; but what proved a treasure to the poor castaways, were some boards which they discovered on the beach, with a long iron hook, some nails of five or six inches long, and thick in proportion, and other pieces of iron fastened in them—the sad memorials of some shattered vessel. Kind Providence seemed to have directed their steps where help was to be found. Just at the time when their provisions had nearly failed, and when they were without the means of replenishing their store, they perceived, not far from the boards, the root of a fir-tree, which had almost taken the form of a bow. With the help of their knife, they soon brought it into more regular shape, but they were unprovided with a string and with arrows. They determined, in the first instance, to make two lances, to guard themselves against the formidable attacks of the ferocious white bear; but without a hammer, it was impossible to form their heads, or those of the arrows. However, by heating the iron hook, and widening a hole which it happened to have in the centre, with the help of one of the large nails, they inserted the handle, and a round button at one end of the hook, made the face of the hammer. A large pebble served for an anvil, and a pair of reindeer's horns were the tongs. Such were the tools with which they fashioned the heads for two spears, which they polished and sharpened on stones, and then tied them fast with strips of reindeer-skin to thick sticks, with which they were supplied from the branches of trees which had been wafted on shore. Thus armed, they attacked a white bear, and after a desperate struggle, they succeeded in killing him. They made use of the flesh for food, which they described as being like beef; by separating the tendons, they were supplied with filaments as fine as they pleased, which enabled them to string their bow. Their next work was to form pieces of iron into heads for their arrows, like the spears which they had already manufactured. They polished and sharpened them in the same way, and made them fast to pieces of the fir with the sinews of the white bear; feathers of sea-fowl being tied with the filaments. They were now equipped with a complete bow and arrows, which proved a most serviceable acquisition, and furnished them from time to time with reindeer to the amount of 250, besides vast numbers of the blue and white foxes; providing them not only with food, but with clothing, as their skins were a great defence from the coldness of the climate.
They destroyed no more than ten white bears; these animals defended themselves with prodigious strength and fury. The first was attacked by the sailors; the other nine were the assailants. Some of them were so daring as to walk into the hut in search of their prey. Those among them who were the least voracious were easily driven away, but the more ravenous were not to be deterred; and it was not without encountering the most imminent danger that the men escaped in the dreadful conflicts. But they were in continual fear of being devoured, as these ferocious animals repeated their visits to the hut, and renewed their attacks continually. When they succeeded in slaying one, they made use of its flesh as food, which, with that of the reindeer and the blue and white foxes, were the only kind they could have in that bleak region.