Excerpt: ...Tartary, "wherewith as if God had purposely sent them unto us we were much comforted." Through the September days they drew wood across the ice and snow to build a house for the winter. Only sixteen men could work and they were none too strong and well. BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE. From a coloured woodcut in the account of Barents's three voyages by Gerard de Veer, published in 1598. Throughout October and November they were snowed up in their winter hut, with "foul stormie weather" outside, the wind blowing ceaselessly out of the north and snow lying deep around. They trapped a few foxes from day to day to eat, making warm caps out of their fur; they heated stones and took them into their cabin beds, but their sheets froze as they washed them and at last their clock froze too. "They looked pitifully upon one another, being in great fear that if the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more we should all die there with the cold." Christmas came and went and they comforted one another by remembering that the sun was as low as it could go, and that it must begin to come to them again; but "as the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens," and the snow now lay deeper until it covered the roof of their house. The New Year found them still imprisoned, "with great cold, danger, and disease." January, February, March, April passed and still the little ship was stuck fast in the ice. But as the sun began to gain power, hope revived, and they began to repair their boats, to make new sails, and repair tackle. They were too weak and ill to do much work, but by the middle of June the boats were fairly ready and they could cut a way through the ice to the open sea. This was their only hope of escape, to leave the ship behind and embark in two little open boats for the open sea. "Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a musket's charge and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the kingdom of China,...
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