of some knolls. On one of these the winter house was
erected. It was built of clay, which was kneaded with the blood and
hair of the seal and walrus. This mixture hardened to a solid mass,
of which the walls were built with the help of boards from the
vessel. The house thus afforded good protection not only from cold
and bad weather, but also from bears. A furnace was also built
inside the house and fired with driftwood collected on the beach.
Train oil from the captured animals was used for lighting. There
wintered here fifteen men in all, of whom eleven died of scurvy.
Want of exercise perhaps mainly conduced to bring on this disease.
For most of them did not leave the house during the winter night,
five weeks long. Those were most healthy who had most exercise, as,
for instance, the mate, who was the youngest among the crew, and
therefore had to go round the island to collect wood. Another cause
of the great mortality was the total want of provisions brought from
home. For the first eight days their food consisted of seaweed
dredged up from the bottom of the sea, with which some meal was
mixed. Afterwards they ate the flesh of the seal and walrus, and of
the Polar bear and the fox. The flesh of the bear and the walrus,
however, was considered _unclean_[160] on which account it was eaten
only in case of necessity, and the flesh of the fox had an
unpleasant flavour. Sometimes the want of food was so great that
they were compelled to eat the leather of their boots and furs. The
number of the seals and walruses which they caught was so great,
"that the killed animals, laid together, would have formed a heap
ninety fathoms in length, of the same breadth, and six feet
high."[161] They found, besides, on the island a stranded whale.

In spring Samoyeds came from the mainland, and plundered the
Russians of part of their catch. Probably for fear of the Samoyeds,
the surviving hunters did not go over the ice to the mainland, but
remained on the desert island until by a fortunate accident they
were rescued by some of their countrymen engaged in a hunting
expedition. In connection with the account of this voyage Witsen
states that the previous year a Russian hunting vessel stranded
_east of the Ob_.

It is probable that towards the close of the sixteenth century the
Russian hunting voyages to Novaya Zemlya had already fallen off
considerably. The commercial voyages perhaps had long before
altogether ceased. It appears as if a