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BACSTROM’S VOYAGE TO SPITSBERGEN. 619
walk on the top of the houfe: the roof was caulked and tarred, and perfedtly tight,
This is the manner of building houfes in the country in Ruffia, particularly about
Archangel. :
The furgeon gave me the following account of this Ruffian colony in Smeerenburg’s
Harbour:
Some affociated merchants at Archangel fit out a crabbla, or veflel, every year, of
about one hundred tons, with a commander, mate, furgeon, boat{wain, carpenter, cook,
and about fifteen hands, well provided with mufkets, powder and fhot, good large knives,
and all kinds of utenfils for killing whales, unicorns, rein-deer, bears, and foxes.
With a fufficient ftock of rye-flour, brandy, cloathing, fnow-fhoes, deal-boards, car-
penters’ tools, &c. this veffel fails every year in the month of May from Archangel,
-goes round the North Cape of Norway, and arrives in June or July at Smeerenburg’s
Harbour, where the new colony is left on fhore. The veffel ftays two or three weeks
in the harbour to refit, and carries the old colony with their cargo (confifting of whales’
blubber, blades or fo called whalebone, white bear fkins, white fox fkins, eiderdown
and feathers, unicorns’ trunks, which is an ivory that never turns vellow, and {moked
rein-deers’ tongues,) home to Archangel. The colonifts have no wages, but receive
thoufandth fhares for what they bring home: the captain has fifty fhares, the mate and
furgeon thirty each; the carpenter, boat{wain, and cook, ten each; and each common
man or boy has one fhare. The furgeon told me that the captain had above one thoufand
rubles due to him, and he himfelf about fix hundred, and each common man perhaps
fifty or fixty: that when they returned fafe home, the common men would be able to
live a whole year upon their money, and the officers much longer, as the neceffaries of
life were very cheap at Archangel ; and for the company it had hitherto anfwered ex-
tremely well. :
He told me this was his fecond trip, fo well had it anfwered his expectations. “ During
the fo called long nights,” faid he, ‘¢ it feldom or never is fo dark that you cannot fee
before you, nor is it fo dreadfully cold as it is at Peterfburg every winter. When a
fnow ftorm happens, we cannot go out of the houfe; but when it is ferene, and no
wind, it is not too cold to go out and walk many miles. With the moonlight, the un-
common brilliancy of the ftars in thefe high latitudes, and the reflection of the northern
lights, or aurora borealis, we have fo much light that we can fee to read a book or to
write.
<< In winter-time the black whales come into the harbour and play clofe within fhore,
where we kill now and then one with harpoons fired out of a iwivel. We kill white
bears, foxes, rein-deer, and birds, as many as we can before the night-feafon, which
commences in September, when all the land animals leave us and walk over the ice
into Nova Zembla and Siberia: the land birds leave usin the fame manner. Unicorns
we alfo kill in the harbour, for the fake of their ivory trunks, which are afterwards fent
to Germany and France.”
The furgeon and I had a race on fnow fhoes, which are a kind of fkates, of about
two feet in length, for fkating over the fnow andice. As I was in former years a good
fkater, I could ufe them as well as he did. We ran fix or feven miles with them in an
hour without fatiguing ourfelves: they have no irons.
Before we left our Ruffian hoft, he informed us that a few weeks before they had, com-
ing home from a fhooting party, found an Englifh captain and nine or ten men overhaul-
ing their property in the hut. The captain, finding that his cheft had been broke open,
and that his rubles were diminifhed confiderably, reproached the Englifh commander
with the robbery, and a battle enfued. ‘* The Englifh fired upon us,” faid the fur-
41k 2 geon,
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