easonable, and
showed much kindness to the four shipwrecked men, whom they provided
with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in
abundance, according to their circumstances, so that they did not
suffer any want.

Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen had, when they were separated in
the snowstorm from the sledge party, half a pound of flesh and their
guns, and nothing more. They did not succeed in finding any game,
and though they were not very far from the house, they required
three days and a half to get back to it. In the meantime, also,
these two comrades in misfortune had been separated. Henrik Nilsen
found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces
of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in
desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was
so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not
crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow
and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw
hides of reindeer he had previously shot. After having lain a while
in the boat he crept up to the house, where he found Henrik sleeping
by the fire, which was not yet quite extinguished. The following day
they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the
house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household
furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting
any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by
boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the
seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the
Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before
Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their lucifers were
now done, but they lighted a fire by loading their guns with a
mixture of which gunpowder formed a part, and firing into old ropes,
left behind by the Russians, which they picked asunder and dried.
One of the Russian huts they tore down and used as fuel. They had
neither axe nor saw, but they split up the fuel by means of a piece
of iron, which they took from the keel of the boat, and of which
they made, by hammering with stones, a sort of knife. Of some nails,
which they also took from the boat, they likewise forged needles by
means of stones; they used reindeer sinews for thread, and of the
hides they sewed clothes for themselves. They lived in the hut until
some time in April. During this time