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LE ROY’S NARRATIVE OF FOUR RUSSIAN SAILORS. 605
well fharpened. Thus although they fhould not have been tailors nor fhoemakers, it
appears that thefe unfortunate men muft have become fuch in this incomprehenfible
{tate of embarraffment ; fince they manufactured hofe, fhirts, waiftcoats, cloaks, or pe-
‘liffes, boots, fhoes, in fhort, every defcription of cloathing of which they had occafion,
whether for winter or for fummer. ‘Then they had, which accounts for it, patterns of
all thefe things, the peliffes excepted, before them: with thefe, imduftrious and inge-
nious as they were (which will eafily be allowed of them from what has gone before),
they had little difficulty in fewing together the fkins and hides according to meafure; a
practice to which they were accuftomed. With refpeét to thread for fewing the {kins
together, they had to provide for this, and quickly accomplifhed the means ; the nerves
or finews of the rein-deer and bears were divided into thin or thicker threads, as they
found moft to their advantage ; and with this laft contrivance they completed all that
was neceflary for putting them in condition of withftanding the inclemency of the
weather.
In fummer they were clad in flight undreffed fkins: in winter they were dreft like
the Samoiedes and Laplanders, with long peliffes of the untanned {kins of rein-deer and
foxes. ‘Thefe peliffes had a hood fomewhat like that of the capuchins, but protecting
more the neck and head: it was all of one piece, with an opening before for the face
remaining uncovered; fo that the pelifles mentioned being entire, on laying them afide
they were obliged to draw them over the head like a fack. Separate from the dif-
content which this lonefome life engenders, and particularly when conftrained ; and
were it not for the reflection which each of them could not refrain from making, of the
poffibility of his furviving his companions, and confequently ftarving to death, they pof-
feft comforts fufficient to content them, the pilot or boatfwain however excepted, who
had a wife and three children: he thought (as he himfelf has confefled to me) every
day on his return to them, and bewailed continually the diftance which feparated him
from his family. It is fit, however, that I fhould now begin the defcription of the ifland
itfelf, and recount what this unfortunate inhabitant related to me refpecting it.
This ifland laid down by Gerard Van Keulin, and by John-Peter Stuurman in his
corrected chart of the northern part of Europe, by reference, will be feen to lye be-
tween latitude 77° 25’ and 78° 45’ N. under the name of Eaft Spitfbergen, called by
the Ruffians, Maloy Broun ; and confequently, partly in the thirteenth, and partly in
the fourteenth * Climate: whence it follows that the greateft length of day-light in the
year will be of four months continuance, that is to fay on the fide of the ifland oppo-
fite to that inhabited by our adventurers. In the before cited chart the ifland is laid
down as defcribing a pentagon. Its greateft length from Eaft to Welt, being twenty-
three German miles, and its breadth from North to South twenty-two. As I had for-
gotten to queftion our iflanders themfelves upon the fize of the ifland, I was obliged in
* The author alluded to in any fuch divifion of the globe, as fhould make the fpace lying between
latitude 77° 25’, and latitude 78° 45’ to fall in the ulterior part of the thirteenth, and beginning ef the four-
teenth climate, does not appear. ‘The table computed by Ricciolus, which is that in highett eltcem, divides
the globe into twenty climates N., and as many S., that is to fay, feven from the Equator to 48° 15’ each,
having the day in northern latitudes half an hour longer than the preceding; feven from latitude 48° 15’
to 65° 54’, each having the day one hour longer than the preceding, (in this latitude from the refractions
of its rays which are computed ia the table of Ricciolus, the fun is feen onthe twenty-firlt of June with-
out fetting, forming its circuit above the horizon, which circumftance, but for this refraction, would not be
vifible more South than latitude 66° 30’;) and fix climates in each the day of one months longer duration, °
than inthe preceding, beginning at latitude 65° 54’, and finifhing at the pole. By this table the cighteenth
climate begins in latitude 75° 6’, that of the center of the Ifland according to the above noticed latitudes,
and the longeft day, in that latitude, is compofed by him of one hundred and twenty-four days continuance.
the longelt night of one hundred and feventeen days length,—T?an/lator.
order
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