Note 135 — Chapter II · HYPERBOREANS.

'To hunt was their task; to be drowned, or starved, or exhausted, was their reward.' Simpson's Jour., vol. ii., p. 229. 'They are harmless, wretched slaves,' whose race will soon be extinct. Kotzebue's Voy., vol. iii., p. 315. The Russian hunters 'used not unfrequently to place the men close together, and try through how many the ball of their rifle-barrelled musket would pass.' Sauer, Billings' Ex. App., p. 56. 'Of a thousand men, who formerly lived in this spot, scarcely more than forty remained.' Langsdorff's Voy., pt. ii., p. 235. 'La variole, la syphilis, voire même le choléra depuis quelques années, en emportent une effrayante quantité.' Laplace, Circumnav., vol. ii., p. 51.