ration, on the condition that they would remain during a single year in Spitzbergen. The fear of immediate death induced them to comply, but when they saw the desolate, frozen country they were to inhabit, they shrunk back with horror, and entreated to be allowed to return home, and suffer a less lingering death. The captain who had them in charge humanely complied; and on their return the Company interceded in their behalf, and procured their pardon. It was probably about this time that nine men were by accident left at Spitzbergen from one of the London fishing ships; all of them perished in the course of the winter. The same captain who abandoned these poor wretches to so miserable a fate was obliged, by the drifting of the ice towards the shore, to leave eight of his crew who were engaged in hunting rein-deer for provision for the passage home, in the year 1630. These men, like the former, were abandoned to their fate. They took up their abode in the buildings erected for the whale-fishery, and by means of the provision procured by hunting, the fritters of the whale left

in boiling the blubber, and the accidental supplies of bears, foxes, seals, and sea-horses, they were enabled not only to support life, but even to maintain their health little impaired until the arrival of the fleet in the following year.

The preservation of these men led to various experiments for the establishment of permanent colonies. Rewards were offered throughout the fleet to induce volunteers to endeavour to brave the climate; seven volunteers were left at Amsterdam Island, furnished with provisions, clothing, spirits, fuel, &c.; these all died of the scurvy, but another party of seven, who were left at Spitzbergen, nine degrees farther north, all survived, though they suffered great hardships and privations; many others, also, fell victims to the scurvy during another trial in the ensuing winter. Further attempts to colonize were as unsuccessful. The Dutch, however, incurred great expenses in the erection of permanent buildings, which gradually assumed the form of a respectable village. Dr. Anderson, in his "Natural History of Iceland and Greenland," observes from an account of the Dutch

whale-fishing for forty-six years, ending in 1721, that, in this time, that nation alone had employed 5,886 ships, and caught 32,907 whales, which, valued on an average at 500l. each, give an amount for the whole of above 16,000, 000%. sterling, gained out of the sea, mostly by the labour of the people; deducting the expenses of the wear and tear of shipping, the casks, and the provisions.

The Greenland or Spitzbergen whale-fishery of the English is now superior to that of every other power. The first expedition of this Company, in 1607, was very unfortunate, their ships were both wrecked. The first was driven ashore by the ice in a rocky bay at Spitzbergen, and the other upset, and sank. Their crews were all saved, and taken home, together with the most valuable part of the produce of their fishing by a Hull ship, which providentially happened to be on the coast of Spitzbergen at the time. "Captain Jonas Poole, who, at the time of the loss of the second ship, was in the hold, had a most miraculous escape. The vessel having been brought too

light, she suddenly heeled to one side. The few goods in the hold slipped to leeward, and the water instantly began to pour down the hatches. Poole struggled to get upon deck, but was twice beaten back by the falling of casks, and the force of the water which rushed in torrents upon him; but at length, though with broken ribs, and many severe wounds, he was enabled to extricate himself from the vessel, and was picked up by one of the boats."

Great hardships and narrow escapes are still the lot of adventurers in the whale-fishery. It has been called the nursery of British seamen, and truly it is a rough one. The love of gain, sometimes of adventure, induces many to join these dangerous expeditions. Premiums on every whale that is taken are given to all the persons engaged, from the captain even to the men who row the boats. These rewards stimulate the men to pursue the whales through ice and tempest, and to stain the northern seas with their blood. In the dreadful contests they thus wage with the mighty monsters of the deep, the resistance they meet with is in

credible, and their lives are not unfrequently the forfeit. The annals of the whale-fishery abound in narratives and details of the dangers encountered in the inhospitable seas of the northern regions. We will give a few instances, on the authority of Captain Scoresby: "Captain Lyons, of the Raith, of Leith, while prosecuting the whale-fishery on the Labrador coast, in the season of 1802, discovered a large whale at a short distance from the ship. Four boats were despatched in pursuit, and two of them succeeded in approaching it so closely together, that two harpoons were struck at the same moment. The fish descended a few fathoms in the direction of another of the boats, which was on the advance, rose accidentally beneath it, struck it with its head, and threw the boat, men, and apparatus about fifteen feet into the air. It was inverted by the stroke, and fell into the water with its keel upwards. All the crew were picked up alive by the fourth boat, which was just at hand, excepting one man, who having got entangled in the boat, fell beneath it, and was unfortunately drowned.