CHAPTER III

THE TRAGEDY OF SPITZBERGEN

Before I tell you the story of the first voyage to India I want to give a short account of another Dutch expedition in the Arctic Sea which ended even more sadly than that of Heemskerk and Barendsz.

On their voyage to Nova Zembla the two mariners had discovered a group of islands which on account of their high mountains they had called the "Islands of the Steep Peaks," or Spitzbergen in the Dutch language. These islands provided an excellent center for the whaling fisheries. During the first half of the seventeenth century a large Dutch fleet went northward every spring to catch whales. The dead animals were brought to Spitzbergen, where the blubber was turned into whale-oil, and the rest of the huge animal was got ready for a market that was not as finicky in its taste as in our own time.

Soon a small city was built around the large furnaces and the rooming-houses for the workmen. This town was appropriately called "Greaseville" (in Dutch, Smeerenburg). It consisted of the usual gathering of saloons, eating-places, and small stores, that you might find in a Western American town during a mining boom. When the autumn came, the inhabitants moved back to Holland and left the city to the tender mercies of the bears and foxes. Unfortunately, the owners of this curious and somewhat motley settlement were not always the first to arrive upon the scene in the summer. Other sailors, Scotch or Norwegian, had often visited Greaseville before they arrived and either appropriated what they wanted or destroyed what they could not carry away. As early as 1626 a plan was discussed of leaving a guard on the island during the winter. The men could live comfortably in one of the houses and they could support themselves by hunting and fishing. It was not a bad idea, but Nova Zembla still spooked in people's heads, and nobody wanted to try a winter of darkness and cold such as had been just described by De Veer. But in the year 1630 eight English sailors were accidentally left behind from a ship, and next spring they were found little the worse for wear. As a result the experiment was at last made in the winter of the year 1633. Seven men were left on Spitzbergen and seven others on the Jan Mayen, an island somewhat to the west and farther away from the pole. The seven on Jan Mayen all died of scurvy. When next spring a fleet came to relieve them they were found frozen dead in their bunks. On Spitzbergen, however, all the men had passed a comfortable winter. They had suffered a good deal from the cold, but they had managed to keep out in the open, take a lot of exercise, and pass the long winter as cheerfully as the heavy blizzards and storms allowed. It was decided to leave a small guard upon the island every year. When in September of 1634 the fleet of whalers sailed back for Holland, seven new men, under the leadership of Adriaen Janzzoon, who came from Delft, had agreed to remain behind and keep watch over the little settlement of Smeerenburg. They were well provided with supplies, but all perished before the spring of the next year. They left a diary, and from this we copy a few items to show the quiet and resigned courage with which they went to their death.

"On the eleventh of September of the year of our Lord 1634 the whaling ships sailed for home. We wished them a happy voyage. We saw several whales and often tried to get one, but we did not succeed. We looked for fresh vegetables, foxes, and bears with great industry, but we did not find any.

"Between the twentieth and the twenty-first of October the sun left us. On the twenty-fourth of November we began to suffer from scurvy. Therefore we looked for fresh vegetables, foxes, and bears with great industry, but we did not succeed, to our great grief. Therefore we consoled each other that the good Lord would provide. On the second of December Klaes Florisz took a remedy against scurvy, and we set traps to catch foxes.

"On the eleventh of December Jeroen Caroen also took a remedy against scurvy, and we all began to eat separately from each other because some suffered more from scurvy and others less. We looked every day, trying to find fresh vegetables, but we found nothing. So we recommended our souls into the hands of God.

"On the twelfth of December Cornelis Thysz took a remedy for scurvy. On the twenty-third of December we saw our first bear. Just as the cook was pouring out hot water from his kitchen the bear stood outside the window, but when he heard a noise he hastily fled. On the twenty-fourth we again heard a bear, and we at once ran for him with three men, whereupon he stood upright on his hind legs and looked quite horrible; but we shot a musket-ball through his belly, and he began to groan and bleed quite badly, and with his teeth he bit one of our halberds to pieces and then fled. We followed him with two lanterns, but we could not get him, although we needed him sorely on account of the sick people as well as of those who were still well, for nobody was quite without pain. If things do not improve before long we shall all be dead before the ships come back; but God knows what is best for us. On the twenty-fifth of December Cornelis Thysz took a remedy for scurvy for the second time, for things were going badly with him. On the fourteenth of January Adriaen Janszoon died, being the first of the seven of us to go; but we are now all very ill and have much pain.

"On the fifteenth Fetje Otjes died.

"On the seventeenth Cornelis Thysz died. Next to God we had put our hope upon him. We who were still alive made coffins for the three dead ones, and we laid them into their coffins, although we were hardly strong enough to do this, and every day we are getting worse.

"On the twenty-eighth we saw the first fox, but we could not get him. On the twenty-ninth we killed our red dog, and we ate him in the evening. On the seventh of February we caught our first fox, and we were all very happy; but it did not do us much good, for we are all too far gone by now. We saw many bears, yes, sometimes we saw as many as three, four, five, six, ten, twelve at the same time; but we did not have strength enough to fire a gun, and even if we had hit a bear, we could not have walked out to get him, for we are all so weak that we can not put one foot before the other. We can not even eat our bread; we have terrible pains all over our bodies; and the worse the weather is the more pain we have. Many of us are losing blood. Jeroan Caroen is the strongest, and he went out and got some coals to make a fire.

"On the twenty-third we laid flat on our backs almost all the time. The end has come, and we commend our souls into the hands of God.

"On the twenty-fourth we saw the sun again, for which we praised God, for we had not seen the sun since the twentieth or twenty-first of October of last year.

"On the sixth of February the four of us who are still alive are lying in our bunks. We would eat something if only one of us were strong enough to get up and make a fire; we can not move from the pain we suffer. With folded hands we pray to God to deliver us from this sorrowful world. If it pleases Him we are ready; for we would prefer not to stand this suffering much longer without food and without a fire, and yet we cannot help each other, and each one must bear his own fate as well as he can."

When the ships came to Spitzbergen in the spring of 1635 they found the cabin locked. A sailor climbed into the house through the attic window. The first things he found were pieces of the red dog hanging from the rafters, where they had been put to dry. In front of the stairs he stumbled over the frozen body of the other dog. Inside the cabin the seven sailors rested together. Three were lying in open coffins, two in one bunk, two others on a piece of sail on the floor, all of them frozen, with their knees pulled up to their chins.

That was the last time an attempt was made to have anybody pass the winter on the island.