Page:Narrative of the extraordinary adventures of four Russian sailors (1).pdf/12

 during their continuance in this dreary abode.

In their excursions through the island, they had met with slimy loam or a kind of clay, nearly in the middle of it. Out of this they found means to form an utensil which might serve for a lamp; and they proposed to keep it constantly burning, with the fat of the animals they should kill. This was certainly the most rational scheme they could have thought of, for to be without a light, in a climate where, during winter, darkness reigns for several months together, would have added much to their other calamities. Having therefore fashioned a kind of lamp, they filled it with rein-deer's fat, and stuck in it some twisted linen, shaped into a wick. But they, had the mortification to find, that, as soon as the fat melted, it not only soaked into the clay, but fairly ran through it on all sides. The thing therefore was to devise some means for preventing this inconveniency, not arising from cracks, but from the substance of which the lamp was made being too porous. They made therefore a new one, dried it thoroughly in the air, then heated it red-hot, and afterwards quenched it in there kittle, wherein they had boiled a quantity of flour down to the consistence of thin starch. The lamp being thus dried and filled with melted fat, they now found, to