r good fortune to their comrades; likewise designing
to get such stores, ammunition and necessaries from the vessel, as to
enable them to winter on the island. But the reader may conceive their
sorrow and astonishment, when on reaching the place where they had
landed nothing was to be seen but an open sea, instead of the ice
which only the day preceding had covered it. Doubtless a violent
storm, which arose during the night, had operated the change. It was
not known, however, whether the vessel had been beat to pieces by the
ice, or whether she had been carried by the current to the ocean; not
an uncommon event in Greenland. Whatever accident befel her, certain
it is they saw her no more; whence it is probable that she sunk, and
that all on board perished.

This unfortunate occurrence deprived them of the hope of ever being
able to quit the island, and full of horror and despair, they returned
to the hut. But their first attention was directed to the means of
providing subsistence, and repairing their habitation. The twelve
charges of powder procured them as many rein-deer, for the island,
fortunately for them abounded with these animals.

Though there were many crevices in the building, the wood of the hut
was still sound and unimpaired, therefore the deficiency was supplied
and done the more easily, because the lower class of Russians are
expert carpenters. Here they had plenty of moss to assist them.

The intense cold of the climate prevents the growth of vegetables, and
no species of tree or shrub is found on the islands of Spitzbergen.
The Russians, however, collected a quantity of wood on the shore,
which at first consisted of the wrecks of vessels, and afterwards of
whole trees with their roots, the produce of some more hospitable
climate, though unknown. Fortunately they found several bits of old
iron, some nails, five or six inches long, and an iron hook, on a few
wooden boards washed in by the sea. They likewise found the root of a
fir tree, bent and nearly fashioned into the shape of a bow.

By the help of a knife, a bow was soon formed but wanting a string and
arrows. Unable at present to procure either, they resolved to make
two lances to defend themselves against the white bears. The iron hook
was therefore fashioned into a hammer, by widening a hole which it
happened to have about the middle, with one of the largest nails. A
large pebble served for an anvil, and a couple of rein-deer horns
served for