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BACSTROM’S VOYAGE TO SPITSBERGEN. 617
fize, white foxes, deer, and elks, and above twenty different forts of water and land
birds ; fuch as wild geefe, wild ducks, fea-parrots, roches, fea-gulls, mallemooks, as the
failors call them, whofe quills make the beft drawing-pens I ever met with, wild pigeons,
the white duck with a beautiful fcarlet head and yellow legs, and the {now-bird, whofe
note is as pleafing as that of the bullfinch or nightingale.
This feafon was the fineft ever remembered in thofe high latitudes, and we had almoft
con{tant fine weather. As we had room yet on board, and the feafon was noi too far
advanced, in hopes of killing a fith or two more, we left Magdalena Bay and ftcered
north. When we arrived in 80° we found a perfeétly clear ocean, free from ice, but
faw no whales. ,
We continued pufhing to the northward with fine foutherly breezes and moft beau-
tiful weather, and could, with a good telefcope, difcover no ice to the northward, from
the main-top-maft head, but a folid continent of ice eaft and weft ; fo that we were in a
kind of channel of perhaps three or four leagues wide. We kept pufhing on, the cap-
tain and I joking together about pafling through the pole.
Both Captain Souter and myfelf found ourfelves at length fome minutes north of 82°,
where perhaps no man before us had ever been, nor fince. ‘The high fnowy mountains
of North Bank, or North Foreland, appeared very luminous, and bore fouth on the
compafs,
We had a ftrong inclination to pufh ftill further north; but the danger of the eaft
and weit ice, now to the fouthward of us as well as to the northward, moving and lock-
ing us in, in which cafe we mutt have been befet and inevitably loft, created a prudent
fear, and induced the mafter to put about fhip for North Foreland. The wind fhifted
at the fame time to the northward, and in a couple of days we came to anchor on North
Bank, called Smeerenburg’s Harbour. We faw now plenty of fin fifh or finners, white
whales, and unicorns ; which is a fign that the feafon is over for killing the black whale,
which then retires to the northward. As all thefe animals are well known and de-
fcribed, I forbear faying any thing refpeéting them.
One of our men having been at the habitation of the Ruflians in North Bank the year
before, and affuring us that he could find the way to their hut, Captain Souter, a man
of an inquifitive mind, propofed to me to pay them a vifit. We took ten or twelve
men with us, a compafs, a few bottles of wine, bread, cheefe, &c. and fome good trade-
knives, with a fmall keg of gunpowder, to make a prefent of to the Ruflians.
We landed at the bottom of the harbour to the eaftward, where we found a large
valley, feveral miles in breadth, furrounded with immenfe high mountains, moltly co-
vered with {now ; but as the fun had melted a part, the brown and black rock appeared,
and rivulets of clear water ran down, forming little waterfalls.
‘The ground was turf and clay, and not bad to walk on: we had feveral {mall rivulets
to crofs, of two or three feet wide, but very fhallow ; near them we found {curvy-grafs,
water-crefles, endive, wild celery, and a few {mall flowers, and faw’a number of land
birds flying up at our approach. We croffed a piece of ground where the Dutch had for-
merly buried their dead : three or four of the coffins were open, with human fkeletons
lymgin them. Some in{criptions on boards, of which above twenty were erected over the
graves, had the years 1630, 1640, &c. affixed to them. We alfo faw the ruins of fome
brickwork, which had been a furnace, as the Dutch ufed to boil their oil here in the laft
century, and for that reafon called it Smeerenburg’s Haven, or the Harbour of the Fat
Borough. We had above fix miles to walk to the northward, and were very much
fatigued on account of the unevennefs of the ground and the heat, when we difcovered
Olver Arg the
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