Pawtucket Gazette And Chronicle

NARRATIVE
Of the Sufferings of four Russian Sailors,
who were cast away on the Desert Island
of East Spitsbergen.

In the year 1743, Jeremiah Okladnikoff
a merchant of Mesen, in the province of Jungovia, and the government of Archangel, fitted out a vessel carrying 14 men. She was
destined for Spitsbergen, to be employed in
the whale and seal fishery. For eight successive days after they had sailed, the wind
was fair; but on the ninth it changed, so that
instead of getting to the west of Spitsbergen,
the usual place of rendezvous for the Dutch
ships, and those of other nations annually
employed in the whale fishery, they were
driven eastward of those islands; and after
some days they found themselves at a small
distance from one of them called East Spitsbergen. Having approached this Island within about three wersts, or two English miles,
their vessel was suddenly surrounded by ice,
and they found themselves in an extremely
dangerous situation. In this alarming state
a consultation was held, when the mate,
Alexis Himkof, declared he recollected he
had heard that some of the people of Mesen,
having, some time before, formed a resolution of wintering on this island, had accordingly carried from that town timber proper
for building a hut, and had actually erected
one in some distance from the shore. This
information induced the whole company to
resolve on wintering there; if as they hoped,
the hut still existed; for they clearly perceived the imminent danger in which they
were, and that they must inevitably perish if
they continued in the ship. They, therefore,
dispatched four of the crew in search of the
hut, or any succor they could meet with.—
These were Alexis Himkof, the mate, Iwan
Himkof, his god son, Stepben Scharapof, and
Feoder Wergen. As the shore on which
they were to land was uninhabited, it was
necessary that they should make some provision for their expedition. They had almost
two miles to travel over loose bridges of ice,
which, being raised by the waves, and driven
against each other by the wind, rendered the
way equally difficult and dangerous. Prudence, therefore, forbade their loading themselves too much, lest, being overburdened,
they might sink between the pieces of ice and
perish.

Having thus maturely considered the nature of the undertaking, they provided themselves with a musket, a powder-horn, containing twelve charges of powder, with as many
balls, an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about
twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box
and tinder, a bladder filled with tobacco, and
every man his wooden pipe. Thus equipped,
those four sailors arrived on the island, little
suspecting the misfortune that was about to
befall them. The first thing they did was to
explore the country, and soon discovered the
hut they were in search of, about a mile
and a half from the shore. It was thirty-six
feet in length, eighteen in breadth, and as
many high. It contained a small ante-chamber, about twelve feet broad, which had two
doors, one to shut out the exterior air, the
other to communicate with the inner room.—
This contributed greatly to keep the larger
room warm when once heated. In the large
room was an earthen stove, constructed in
the Russian manner; that is, a kind of oven
without a chimney; which serves occasionally
either for baking, for heating the room,
or, as is customary among the Russian peasants in very cold weather, to sleep upon.

The discovery gave our adventurers great
joy. The hut had, however, suffered much
from the weather, having now been built a
considerable time. They passed the night in
it, and early the next morning hastened to
the shore, impatient to inform their comrades
of their success, and also to procure from the
vessel such provisions, ammunition, and other
necessaries, as might better enable the crew
to winter on the island. Their astonishment
and agony of mind, when on reaching the
place where they had landed, they saw nothing but an open sea, free from ice, which but
the day before had covered the ocean, may
more easily be conceived than described. A
violent storm which had arisen during the
preceding night, had been the cause of this
disastrous event. But they could not tell
whether the ice which had before hemmed in
the vessel, had been driven by the violence
of the waves against the ship, and shattered
her to pieces; or whether she had been carried out to sea by the current, a circumstance
which frequently happens in those seas.—
Whatever accident had befallen her, they
saw her no more: and as no tidings were afterwards received of her, it is probable that
she sunk, and that all on board of her perished.

This unfortunate event deprived the wretched mariners of all hope of ever being able to
quit the island, and they returned to the hut
full of horror and despair. Their first attention was employed, as may easily be imagined, in devising the means of providing subsistence and repairing their hut. The twelve
charges of powder which they had brought
with them, soon procured them as many reindeer, with which animals the island abounded.

It has already been observed that the hut
discovered by the sailors had sustained some
damage. There were cracks in many places
between the boards of the building, which allowed free admission to the air. This inconvenience was, however, easily remedied; as
they had an axe, and the beams were still
sound, it was an easy matter to make the
boards join again very tolerably: besides, as
moss grew in great abundance all over the island, there was more than sufficient to fill up
the crevices to which wooden houses must be
liable. Repairs of this kind cost the unhappy
men the less trouble, as they were Russians,
for all Russian peasants are good carpenters,
building their own houses, and being, in general, very expert in handling the axe.

The intense cold which makes those climates habitable to so few species of animals,
renders them equally unfit for the production
of vegetables. No species of tree or even
shrub is found on any of the islands of Spitsbergen, a circumstance of the most alarming
nature to our sailors, for without a fire they
certainly could not survive the rigors of the
weather. But necessity is the mother of invention. From the sinews and skins of the
reindeer they made ropes, and with these
they were enabled to supply themselves with
fuel by drawing from the sea such branches
of trees and other kinds of wood as the tide
brought near the shore, by dragging them
over the beach. The wood thus procured
also served to make spears, and with such
weapons did these unhappy sailors kill game
enough to supply them with food. One day,
equipped with their wooden spears, they resolved to attack a white bear: and after a
most dangerous encounter, they killed the
formidable creature, and thus obtained a
fresh supply of provisions. The flesh of this
animal they relished exceedingly, and they
thought it much resembled beef in flavor.—
They perceived, with great pleasure, that the
tendons might, with little or no trouble, be
divided into filaments as fine as they pleased.
This was perhaps the most fortunate discovery these men could have made; for, besides
other advantages, they were thus furnished
with strings with which to furnish their cross
bows.

The success our unfortunate islanders had
experienced in making the spears, and the
great utility of the latter, encouraged them
to proceed, and to forge some pieces of iron
into heads of arrows of the same shape, though
somewhat smaller than those of the spears.—
Having ground and sharpened these like the
former, they tied them with the sinews of
the white bears to pieces of fir, to which, by
means of sinews also of the white bear, they
fastened feathers of sea-fowl, and thus became possessed of a complete bow and arrows.
Their ingenuity in this respect was crowned
with success far beyond their expectations;
for during the time of their continuance upon
the island, they killed with these arrows no
less than 250 reindeer, besides a great number of blue and white foxes. The flesh of
these animals served them also for food, and
their skins for clothing, and other necessary
preservations against the intense cold of a
climate so near the pole.

They, however, killed only ten white bears
in all, and these not without the utmost danger; for these animals being prodigiously
strong, defended themselves with astonishing
vigor and fury. The first they attacked designedly, but the other nine they killed in
their own defense; for some of these creatures even ventured to enter the outer room
of their hut in order to devour them. All
the bears did not, it is true, show an equal
degree of fury; either because some were
less pressed by hunger, or were naturally of
less ferocious disposition; for several which
entered the hut immediately betook themselves to flight on the first attempt of the sailors to
drive them away. A repetition of these formidable attacks threw the men into great terror and anxiety, as they were in almost perpetual danger of being devoured. The reindeer, the blue and white foxes, and the white
bears, were the only food these mariners tasted during their continuance in that dreary
abode.

Among other curious contrivances for their
comfort these sailors made a clay lamp, which
they rendered oil-proof by some process, and
thenceforth their hut was enlivened during
the long arctic nights by a cheerful light.—
The wood which they got being limited in
supply, they were obliged to be saving of it,
and so they kept their lamp constantly burning. For wicks, they used up all their clothing, during the six years they lived this
queer life. For a supply of clothes they
adopted the following ingenious plan: Having an abundance of skins of foxes and reindeer, that had hitherto served them for bedding, they resolved to tan them; and for this
purpose they soaked the skins for several
days in fresh water, till they could pull off
the hair pretty easily; they then rubbed the
wet skin with their hands till it was nearly
dry, when they spread some melted reindeer's
fat over it, and again rubbed it well. By
this process the leather was rendered soft,
pliant and supple, and proper for every purpose for which they wanted to employ it.—
Those skins that were designed for furs they
soaked only one day to prepare them for
being wrought, and then proceeded in the
manner before mentioned, excepting only
that they did not remove the hair. Thus
they soon provided themselves with the necessary materials for all the parts of dress they
wanted. They made a curious needle out of
a piece of wire; and the sinews of the bear
and the reindeer, which they split into
threads, served them to sew with.

Excepting the uneasiness which generally
accompanies an involuntary solicitude, these
people who had thus by their ingenuity, so far
overcome their wants, might have had reason
to be contented with what Providence had
done for their distressed situation. But that
melancholy reflection to which each of these
forlorn persons could not help giving way,
that perhaps he might survive his companions, and then perish for want of subsistence,
or become a prey to the wild beasts, incessantly disturbed their minds. The mate
Alexis Himkof, more particularly suffered:
having left a wife and three children behind
him, he was deeply afflicted at his separation
from them. He declared, after his return,
that they were constantly in his mind, and
that the thought of never more seeing them,
rendered him very unhappy.

When our four mariners had passed nearly six years in this dreary place, Feoder
Wergen, who had from the first been in a
languid condition, died, after suffering excruciating pains during the latter part of his life.
Though they were relieved by that event
from the trouble of attending him, and the
pain of witnessing without being able to alleviate his misery, yet his death affected them
not a little. They saw their numbers diminished, and each of the survivors wished to be
the next to follow him. As he died in winter, they dug a grave in the snow as deep as
they could, in which they laid the corpse, and
then covered it to the best of their power,
that the white bears might not get at it. The
melancholy reflections occasioned by the death of their comrade were still fresh in their
minds, and each expected to pay this last duty to his remaining companions in misfortune,
or to receive it from them, when, on the 15th
of August, 1749, a Russian ship unexpectedly appeared in sight. The vessel belonged
to a trader, who had come with it to Archangel, intending that it should winter in Nova Zembla, but, fortunately for our poor exiles, the director of the whale fishery proposed
to the merchant to let his vessel winter at
West Spitsbergen, to which, after many objections, he at length agreed.

The contrary winds they met with on their
passage made it impossible for them to reach
their destination. The vessel was driven
towards East Spitsbergen, directly opposite to
the residence of our mariners, who as soon as
they perceived her, hastened to light fires upon the hills nearest their habitation, and then
ran to the beach, waving a flag made of reindeer's skin, fastened to a pole. The people
on board, perceiving these signals, concluded
that there were men upon the island, who
implored their assistance, and therefore came
to an anchor near the shore. It would be in
vain to attempt to describe the joy of these
poor people, at seeing the moment of their
deliverance so near. They soon agreed with
the master of the ship to work for him during
the voyage, and to pay him eighty rubles on
their arrival, for taking them on board with
all their riches, which consisted of fifty pud
or 2000 pounds of reindeer's fat: besides
many hides of those animals, skins of blue
and white foxes, and those of the ten white
bears they had killed. They took care not
to forget their bow and arrows, their spears,
their knife and axe, which were almost worn
out, their awls and their needles, which they
carefully kept in a bone box very ingeniously made with their knife only; and in short
everything they possessed.

Our adventurers arrived safe at Archangel
on the 28th of September, 1749, having spent
six years and three months in their dreary
solitude. The moment of their landing was
near proving fatal to the loving and beloved
wife of Alexis Himkof, who being present
when the vessel came into port, immediately
knew her husband, and ran with such eagerness to his embraces, that she slipped into
the water, and very narrowly escaped being
drowned.

All three on their arrival were strong and
healthy: but having lived so long without
bread, they could not reconcile themselves to
the use of it, and complained that it filled
them with wind: nor could they bear any
spirituous liquors, and therefore drank nothing but water.