alarming nature to our sailors. Without fire it was impossible to resist the rigour of the climate; and, without wood, how was that fire to be produced, or supported? Providence, however, has so ordered it, that in this particular, the sea supplies the defects of the land. In wandering along the beach, they collected plenty of wood, which had been driven ashore by the waves; and which at first consisted of the wrecks of ships, and afterwards of whole trees with their roots, the produce of some more hospitable, but to them unknown climate, which the overflowing of rivers, or other accidents, had sent into the ocean.
Nothing proved of more essential service to these unfortunate men, during the first year of their exile, then some boards they found upon the beach, having a long iron hook, some nails of about five or six inches long, and proportionably thick, and other bits of old iron fixed in them; the melancholy relics of some vessels cast away in some remote parts. These were thrown ashore by the waves at a time when the want of powder gave our men reason to apprehend that they must fall a prey to hunger, as they had nearly consummed those rein-deer they had killed. This lucky circumstance was attended with another equally fortunate: they found, on the shore, the root of a
