teering the UNICORN for
the opening, he found himself in a land-locked haven, protected from the
tidal bore by a ridge of sunken rock. The LAMPREY had fallen behind, but
fires of driftwood built on the shore guided her into the harbour, and
Munck constructed an ice-break round the keels of his ships. Piles of
rocks sunk as a coffer-dam protected the boats from the indrive of tidal
ice; and the Danes prepared to winter in the new harbour. To-day there
are no forests within miles of Churchill, but at that time pine woods
crowded to the water's edge, and the crews laid up a great store of
firewood. With rocks, they built fireplaces on the decks--a paltry
protection against the northern cold. Later explorers wintering at
Churchill boarded up their decks completely and against the boarding
banked snow, but this method of preparation against an Arctic winter was
evidently unknown to the Danes.

By November every glass vessel on the ships had been broken to splinters
by the frost. In the lurid mock suns and mock moons of the frost fog the
superstitious sailors fancied that they saw the ominous sign of the
Cross, portending disaster. One of the surgeons died of exposure, and
within a month all the crew were prostrate with scurvy. With the
exception, perhaps, of Bering's voyage a hundred years later, the record
of Munck's wintering is one of the most lamentable in all American
exploration. 'Died this day my Nephew, Eric Munck,' wrote the captain on
April 1 of 1620, 'and was buried in the same grave as my second mate.
Great difficulty to get coffins made. May 6--The bodies of the dead lie
uncovered because none of us has strength to bury them.'

By June the ships had become charnel-houses. Two men only, besides
Munck, had survived the winter. When the ice went out with a rush and a
grinding, and the ebb tide left the flats bare, wolves came nightly,
sniffing the air and prowling round the ships' exposed keels. 'As I have
no more hope of life in this world,' wrote Jens Munck, 'herewith
good-night to all the world and my soul to God.' His two companions had
managed to crawl down the ship's ladder and across the flats, where they
fell ravenously on the green sprouting sorrel grass and sea nettles. As
all northerners know, they could have eaten nothing better for scurvy.
Forthwith their malady was allayed. In a few days they came back for
their commander. By June 26 all three had recovered.

The putrid dead were thrown into the riv