The following passages are taken from the journal kept by Captain James, the commander of a vessel bound for the northern seas. His ship, having on board a crew of twenty-two men, left England in May, 1631, to attempt the discovery of the long-desired North-West Passage. After terrible storms and disasters, the ship being fast-locked in ice the adventurers were compelled to winter in the Arctic regions; and, as the journal relates, proceeded to make preparations for passing the long months on an uninhabited island near to the ship. The extracts These brave men were not ashamed to own their entire dependence on God’s help, and we find here, as elsewhere, that it is ever the strongest who best know their own weakness—that the noblest are ever the most humble, the most ready to acknowledge the Divine Source of all their courage. And the heroes whom English boys love to remember, and desire to imitate, have, in proportion as they were true heroes, unselfish, “Oct. 7.—It snowed all day, so that we had to clear it off the decks with shovels, and it blew a very storm withal. The sun did shine very clear, and we tore the topsails out of the tops, which were hard frozen in them into a lump, the sun not having power to thaw one drop of them. Seeing therefore that we could no longer make use of our sails, it raised many doubts in our minds that here we must stay and winter. The sick men desired that some little house or hovel might be built ashore, whereby they might be the better sheltered. I took the carpenter, and choosing out a place, they went immediately to work upon it, while I myself wandered up and down in the woods to see if we could discover any signs of savages, but Oct. 12.—We took our mainsail, which was hard frozen, and carried it ashore to cover our house, first thawing it by a great fire; by night they had covered it, and had almost hedged it about, and our six builders desired they might travel up into the country to see what they could discover. Oct. 15.—This evening our hunters returned very weary, and brought with them a small, lean deer, which rejoiced us all, hoping we should have more of them to refresh our sick. Nov. 10.—I urged the men to make traps to catch foxes, for we did daily see many, and I promised that whosoever could take one of them should have the skin for his reward. Nov. 17.—I have lain ashore each night until now, all which time have our miseries increased; and, looking from the shore Nov. 25.—The wind shifted easterly, and we encouraged one another, and to work we go, our endeavor being to put the ship to the shore. This evening we broke through the ice, and put an anchor to keep her to shore if possible. Here Sir Hugh Willoughby came into my mind, who without doubt was driven out of his harbor in this manner, and so starved at sea. But God was more merciful to us. Nov. 20.—I resolved, for the greater safety of the ship, to sink her right down, but she would not sink so fast as we would have her. At noon-day the water rose and beat the bulk-heads of the bread-room, powder-room, and forepiece, all to pieces; thus she continued till three, and then the sea came up on the upper deck, and soon after Dec. 1.—To-day it is so cold that firm ice has formed over the boat-track, and we can reach the ship on foot; we have brought over on our backs five hundred fish, and much of our bedding and clothes, which we had to dig out of the ice. Dec. 10.—We have been busied this past week, save on Sunday, when we rested and performed the Sabbath duties of a Christian, in bringing hither stores from the ship—now bearing them over firm ice, and now wading knee-deep in half-frozen water. I will here describe the house which we have built to shelter us withal. It is among a tuft of thick trees, under a south bank, about a bow-shot from the seaside; it is square, and about twenty feet every way. First we drove strong stakes into the earth round about, which we wattled with boughs as thick as might be, beating them down very Dec. 31.—Our mansion is now covered thick with snow, almost to the very roof of it; we do not go out save we first shovel away the snow, and then by treading, make Jan. 2, 1632.—I observed the sun to rise like an oval along the horizon; I called three or four to see it, the better to confirm my judgment; and we all agreed that it was twice as long as it was broad. We plainly perceived withal, that by degrees as it rose higher it also recovered its soundness. Jan. 30.—But little worthy the writing has happened to us this month. The men grow daily weaker, and our stores less. We have three sorts of sick men—those that cannot move nor turn themselves in their beds, who must be tended like infants; those that are as it were crippled; and those that are something better, but afflicted with sore mouths. These last make shift to work; they go to work through the snow But many of our sick eat nought save a little oatmeal or pease. Hitherto we have taken but a dozen foxes in all our traps. Feb. 10.—The cold is as extreme just now as at any time this year, and many of our men complain heavily of sickness; two-thirds of our company are under the surgeon’s hand. And yet, nevertheless, they must work daily, and go abroad to fetch wood and timber notwithstanding the most of them have no shoes to put on. Their Mar. 15.—One of our men thinks that he has seen a deer, whereupon he with two or three more desire that they may go and see if they can take it, and I have given them leave. Mar. 16.—Last evening did our hunters return, not having seen the deer, but so disabled with cold, that they will not be well in a fortnight. Mar. 31.—Our carpenter is now among our sick, his cutting tools are but few, and these mostly broken and bound about with rope-yarn as fast as may be. Thus our pinnace, on which lyeth so much of our hope of escape, is but in an indifferent forwardness. April 4.—To-day we have been sitting all about the fire, reasoning and considering together about our estate. The time and season of the year comes forward apace, and we have determined on this course. With the first warm weather we will begin to clear the ship from the ice and water, so that should the pinnace never be finished, as seemeth in doubt through the sickness of our carpenter, we might yet have some hope in our old ship to complete our enterprise, and to return home. April 6.—This day is the deepest snow we have had all this year; it hath filled up all our paths and ways. April 16.—This is the most comfortable sunshine that hath come this year, and I April 25.—Now have we labored so hard that we are mightily encouraged, for the water doth rise without the ship, and yet doth not make its way into the hold. I have bid the cook that he pour hot water into the pumps, and so thaw them. April 27.—One of the pumps is cleared, and by means of this we have drawn two feet of water from the hold, and we find to our satisfaction that it doth not rise again. May 2.—It doth snow and blow so that we must keep house all day; our sick men are so grieved at this unexpected cold that they grow worse and worse. May 3.—To-day some of the snow melted on the land, and some cranes and geese have come to it. I and the surgeon have been May 9.—We have at last come to and got up our five barrels of beef and pork which were sunk in the hold, and we have also found four butts of beer, which will be as a cordial to our sick men. God make us ever thankful for the comforts that He gives us! May 13.—This is the Sabbath day, which we have solemnized, giving God thanks for those hopes and comforts which we daily have. May 21.—This is the warmest day we have yet had. Two of my men have I sent a fowling, and myself, the master, the surgeon, and one more with our guns and our dogs, have been into the woods to see what May 24.—Very warm sunshine. The ice doth consume by the shore side, and cracks all over the bay with a fearful noise. This morning I sent two to search for the ship’s rudder, which was buried among the ice, and a fortunate fellow, one David Hammon, pecking between the broken blocks, struck upon it, who crying out that he had found it, the rest came and got it up on the ice, and so into the ship. O, this was May 31.—We have found some vetches on the beach, which I have made the men pick up, and boil for their sick comrades. June 4.—These four days hath it snowed, hailed, and blown hard; and it hath been so cold that the water in our cans did freeze in the very house, our clothes also, that had been washed and hung out to dry, did not thaw all day. June 15.—This day I went to our watch-tree, but the sea was still firm and frozen, and the bay we were in was full of ice. June 16.—Here have there lately appeared divers sorts of flies, and such an abundance of mosquitoes, that we are more tormented with them than ever we were with the cold weather. Here be likewise ants, and frogs in the ponds upon the land, but we durst not eat of them, they looked so speckled like toads. By this time there June 17.—At high water we did heave our ship with such good-will that we heaved her through the sand into a foot and a half deeper water. After we had moored her we went all to prayers, and gave God thanks that had given us our ship again. June 19.—There hath been the highest tide that we have known since we have been here, and in a happy hour have we got our ship off. This evening I went up to our watch-tree; and this was the first time I could see any open water, anyway, except that little by the shore-side. This sight gave us some comfort. June 22.—We have sounded all about the ship, where she was sunken, and find it very bad ground, with stones three feet high, and two of them within a ship’s breadth of the ship, wherein did more manifestly appear God’s mercies to us; for if when we forced June 24.—The wind hath put all the ice upon us, so that for a while we were in such apparent danger that I verily thought we should have lost our ship. With poles and oars did we heave away and part the ice from her. But it was God that did protect and preserve us; for it was past any man’s understanding how the ship could endure it, or we by our labor save her. June 26.—These have been indeed days of fear and of confusion, but also, in the end, of comfort. Yesterday evening I went up to our watch-tree, taking a man with me, who should make a fire on the highest place of the island, to see if it would be answered. When I was come to the tree I laid down my lance, and while I climbed up to the top of the tree, I ordered him to set fire to some decayed wood thereabouts. He unadvisedly set light to some trees that were to June 29.—These three days have we wrought hard in fetching our things aboard, as likewise our water, and have been all about the eastern point, searching for driftwood. June 30.—To-day have we most earnestly continued our labor, and by eleven this night was our ship in readiness, for we have sought to finish our business with the week and the month, that so we might the better solemnize the Sabbath ashore to-morrow, and so take leave of our wintering island. July 1.—To-day, the first of the month, being Sunday, we were up betimes. We went ashore, and first we marched up to the high cross we had put up to mark the graves of our dead companions. There we had morning prayer, and walked up and down till dinner-time. After dinner we walked to the highest hills to see which way the fire had wafted. We saw that it had consumed to the westward sixteen miles at |