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DEATH OF BARENTSZ.

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men, Nicolas Andrisz, was likewise ill. That they might be the more commodiously attended, they were embarked one in each boat; but all the care and nursing that could be bestowed on them, exposed to the open air in a small boat, was not capable of saving them from falling victims to the severity of the weather. On the 16th, the boats were at the Isle Van Orange, which lies near the northern extremity of Nova Zembla. The next day they were beset by ice, and remained the three following days without being able to proceed. On the forenoon of the 20th, word was brought to Barentsz that Andrisz appeared to be drawing to his end. Barentsz said, in reply, that he believed his own was not far distant. The people in the boat with him, seeing that he was at this very time inspecting and considering a chart which Girard le Ver had made of the places they had seen in the voyage, did not apprehend immediate danger, but continued sitting and conversing, till Barentsz put down the chart and asked for some drink, to which he was helped, and immediately after expired, to the great affliction of his remaining companions, he being esteemed one of the most capable seamen of his time.

They proceeded westward and southward along the western coast of Nova Zembla, as well as the ice and

weather would permit them. On the 28th of July they had the good fortune to meet two Russian loddies, and to obtain from them a supply of provisions. They also learnt that three Dutch ships were lying at Kola; and after a fatiguing navigation, having been obstructed by ice from entering the White Sea, on the 25th of August they arrived at Kilduyn. Here, not less to their surprise than satisfaction, in a short time came to them with provisions and refreshments, Jan Cornelisz Rijp, who commanded one of the Dutch ships then lying at Kola, and who the year before had sailed from Holland in company with Jacob Heemskerk and W. Barentsz, from whom (as related) he had separated to seek by a more northerly route, a passage to India. He had not succeeded in that attempt, and had returned to Holland; and was now again homeward bound from a trading voyage to the White Sea.

Jacob Heemskerk and his remaining companions embarked with Rijp, and they arrived at Amsterdam on the 1st of November, 1597.

Of the seventeen men cast on Nova Zembla, the carpenter and another man died there; Willem Barentsz and two other men died whilst navigating in the small boats along the coast of Nova Zembla; and twelve lived to return to their native country. What

BARENTSZ RELICS.

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doubtless much contributed to their preservation, was their sea provision being well cured, which is particularly noticed by the journalist, who remarks that it was as good at the time of its being used as when first put up.

The house also in which they had passed that memorable winter remains to the present day, and its contents were found in a condition but little altered, when some Dutch sailors entered, in the season of 1872, the long closed door. There they found such of the various articles saved from the wreck in 1596 as were too cumbrous to carry away in the boat the survivors had constructed, and by whose means they had made their escape. The shoes of the little ship's boy who died in the winter lay there, along with his flute, along with the rapiers and halberts, gun-barrels, and earthenware utensils, as well as white metal vases and quaint metal articles, destined, perhaps, for gifts to Oriental potentates, when the Orient was gained. They found also the most recent printed books of that period on China and India, with nautical works, and a curious metal disk, made by Plaucius, the great instrument maker of that day; it was found to be based on a wrong principle, however, and though described in old books of scientific purport, never again repeated, although this one is

specially mentioned. These, with a clock and other precious relics, are now deposited in the Royal Museum at the Hague, and we are able to give, on page 11, a slight sketch of the group as it is arranged in the Museum.

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CHAPTER XII.

"I go across the ocean foam,

Swift skating to my southern home,

Upon the ocean skates fast driven,

By gales, by Thurse's witch wife driven."

Saga of King Harald Greyskin.-LAING.

On the eleventh we weighed and paid a visit to the salmon lake from whence the fish we had received the other day had been taken. This lake lay at the foot of the mountains, and was about two miles in extent. The scenery here was peculiarly striking, and to the lover of the rod and line a more enchanting scene could hardly be found elsewhere. The day was lovely, the air bright and serene; we hurried along the distance that separated us from our expected sport with feelings not to be described, and were looking forward to the successful capture of splendid char or Alpine trout without fear of hitch of any kind, but when we arrived, the water, to our dismay, was frozen over, and we could not use our net for fishing. Winter surely comes, and it is time for us to return home-time to hasten too, for up here in the north when winter approaches, it comes with such haste as we have little experience

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