ly six
years, enduring the greatest sufferings. At length he became so weak
that he could not sit erect, nor even raise his hand to his mouth, so
that his humane companions were obliged to attend on, and feed him
like a new born infant, until the hour of his death.

In the course of their excursions through the island, the seamen had
met with a slimy loam, or kind of clay, of which they contrived to
make a lamp, and proposed to keep it constantly burning with the fat
of the animals they should kill.--Thus they filled it with rein-deer's
fat, and stuck a bit of twisted linen for a wick. But, to their
mortification, always as the fat melted, it not only was absorbed by
the clay, but fairly run through it on all sides. On this account they
formed another lamp, which they dried thoroughly in the air, and
heated red hot. It was next quenched in their kettle, wherein they had
boiled a quantity of flour down to the consistence of thin starch.
When filled with melted fat, they found to their great joy that it did
not leak. Encouraged by this attempt, they made another, that, at all
events, they might not be destitute of light, and saved the remainder
of their flour for similar purposes. Oakum thrown ashore, as also
cordage found among the wrecks of vessels, served for wicks; and when
these resources failed, they converted their shirts and drawers to the
same purpose. By such means they kept a lamp burning from soon after
their arrival on the island, until the day of their embarkation for
their native country.

Clothes, in so rigorous a climate, next became an object of necessity.
The uses to which they had applied what they had brought with them
exposed them still more to its severity. The skins of rein-deer and
foxes had hitherto served for bedding. It was essential to devise some
method of tanning them, the better to withstand the weather. This was
accomplished, in a certain degree, by soaking the skins in water until
the hair could be rubbed off, and then putting rein-deer fat upon
them. The leather, by such a process, became soft and pliant. The want
of awls and needles was supplied by bits of iron occasionally
collected; of them they made a kind of wire, which, being heated red
hot, was pierced with a knife, ground to a sharp point, which formed
the eye of a needle.--The sinews of bears and rein-deer, split into
threads, served for sewing the pieces of leather together, which
enabled the Russians to procure jackets and t