Bear Island has no harbors, and is consequently a rather dangerous place to visit. During the first expedition sent out from Hammerfest, it happened that some of the men who had been landed were abandoned by their ship, which was to have cruised along the coast while they were hunting on shore. But the current, the wind, and a dense fog so confused the ignorant captain that, leaving them to their fate, he at once returned to Hammerfest. When the men became aware of their dreadful situation, they determined to leave the island in their boat, and taking with them a quantity of young walrus flesh, they luckily reached Northkyn after a voyage of eight days. It seems almost incredible that these same people immediately after revisited Bear Island in the same ship, and were again obliged to return to Norway in the same boat. The ship had anchored in the open bay of North Haven, and having taken in its cargo, consisting of 180 walruses, which had all been killed in a few days, was about to leave, when a storm arose, which cast her ashore and broke her to pieces. The Russians had built some huts in the neighborhood, and the provisions might probably have been saved, but rather than winter in the island the crew resolved to venture home again in the boat. This was so small that one-half of them were obliged to lie down on the bottom while the others rowed; the autumn was already far advanced, and they encountered so savage a storm that an English ship they fell in with at the North Cape vainly endeavored to take them on board. After a ten days’ voyage, however, they safely arrived at Magerö, thus proving the truth of the old saying that “Fortune favors the bold.” The distance from Bear Island to North Cape is about sixty nautical miles. * * * * * In a straight line between Spitzbergen and Iceland lies Jan Meyen, which, exposed to the cold Greenland current, almost perpetually veiled with mists, and surrounded by drift ice, would scarcely ever be disturbed in its dreary solitude but for the numerous walrus and seal herds that frequent its shores. The ice-bears and the wild sea-birds are its only inhabitants; once some Dutchmen attempted to winter there, but the scurvy swept them all away. Its most remarkable features are the volcano Esk and the huge mountain Beerenberg, towering to the height of 6870 feet, with seven enormous glaciers sweeping down its sides into the sea. CHAPTER XI. NOVA ZEMBLA.