"Without fire it was impossible to resist the rigour of the climate, and, without wood, how was the fire to be produced or supported? However, 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 hospitable (but to them unknown) climate, which the overflowings 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, than 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 those remote parts. These were thrown ashore by the waves, at the time when the want of powder gave our men reason to apprehend that they must fall a prey to hunger, as they had nearly consumed those reindeer they had killed. This lucky circumstance was attended with another equally fortunate; they found on the shore the root of a fir-tree, which nearly approached to the figure of a bow. As necessity has ever been the mother of invention, so they soon fashioned this root to a good bow by the help of a knife; but still they wanted a string and arrows. Not knowing how to procure them at present, they resolved upon making a couple of lances, to defend themselves against the white bears, by far the most ferocious of their kind, whose attacks they had great reason to dread. Finding they could neither make the heads of their lances nor of their arrows without the help of a hammer, they contrived to form the above-mentioned large iron hook into one, by beating it, and widening a hole it happened to have about its middle with the help of one of their largest nails--this received the handle; a round button at one end of the hook served for the face of the hammer. A large pebble supplied the place of an anvil, and a couple of reindeer's horns made the tongs. By the means of such tools they made two heads of spears, and, after polishing and sharpening them on stones, they tied them as fast as possible, with thongs made of reindeer's skins, to sticks about the thickness of a man's arm, which they got from some branches of trees that had been cast on shore. Thus equipped with spears, they resolved to attack a white bear, and, after a most dangerous encounter, they killed the formidable creature, and thereby made a new supply of provisions. The flesh of this animal they relished exceedingly, as they thought it much resembled beef in taste and flavour. The tendons, they saw with much pleasure, could, with little or no trouble, be divided into filaments of what fineness they thought fit. This, perhaps, was the most fortunate discovery these men could have made, for, besides other advantages,