Page:Narrative of the extraordinary adventures of four Russian sailors (1).pdf/9

 fire-tree, which nearly approached 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 these 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 large iron hook mentioned above into one, by heating 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 and a round button at one end of the hook served at the face of the hammer. A large pebble supplied the place of an anvil, and a couple of rein-deer’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 rein-deer 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. This equipped with spears, they resolved to attack a white bear;