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536 JOURNAL OF SEVEN SEAMEN LEFT AT SPITZBERGEN.
into them. The 28th they faw the firft fox, but could not take him. The 7th of
February they had the good fortune to take a fox, to their no {mall fatisfaGtion, though
in effe& thy were too far gone to receive any benelit thereby.
They faw many bears, three or four, nay fometimes fix or ten together, but had net
ftrength enough to manage their guns; or if they had had, they could not have pur-
fued them, being not in a condition to fet one foot before another, nay not even to
bite their bifcuits, for they were feized with moft cruel pains, efpecially in their loins
and belly, which generally increafed with the cold; one did fpit blood, and another
was afflicted with the bloody flux. Jerome Carcoen as ftill fomething beaks than the
relt, being {till able to fetch them fome fuel for firmg. The 23d, they began to be fo
weak, that they kept clofe in their cabins, recommending themfelves to God’s mercy.
‘The 24th they faw the fun again, which they had not feen fince OGtober 2oth or 2 tit,
in the preceding year. ‘The 26th, being the laft day (as we guefs) they were able to
write, and lived not long after; they left this following memorial behind them: ‘ Four
of us that are flill alive, lie flat upon the ground in our huts; we believe we could
itill feed were there but one among us that could ftir out of his hut to get us fome
fuel, but nobody is able to ftir for pain; we fpend our time in conftant prayers, to im-
plore God’s mercy to deliver us out of this mifery, being ready whenever he pleafes to
call us; we are certainly not in a condition to live thus long without food or fire, and
cannot affift one another in our mutual afHictions, but every.one mult bear our own
burthen.”’
When the fhips from Holland arrived there in 1635, they found them all dead, fhut
up clofe in their tent, to fecure their dead bodies again{ft the bears and other ravenous
creatures. ‘This being the tent of Middleburgh, a baker who got afhore firft, happened
to come to the back- door yhich he broke open, and, running up ttairs, jonas there
upon the floor part of adead dog that was laid there to dry ; bat making the beft of his
way down again, he trod upon the carcafe of another dead dog (for they had two) at
the ftair foot in the buttery. From hence, pafling through another door towards the
fore-door, in order to open it, he {tumbled in the dark over the dead bodies of the men,
whom they faw (after the door was opened,) altogether in the fame place, viz. three in
coffins, Nicholas Florifon, and another, each ina cabin, the other two upon fome fails
{pread upon the floor, with their knees drawn up to their chins. Coffins being ordered
to be made for the four that had none, they were buried with the other three under the
fnow, till the ground becoming more penetrable, they were buried one by another, and
certain ftones laid upon their graves, to hinder the ravenous beafts from digging up
their carcafes: thefe were the la{t that pretended to pafs the winter at Spitzbergen.
A SHORT
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