The Coverings Or Roofs Of
Their Houses Are Constructed For The Most Part In The Following Manner:
Having Carried The Wall To Its Full Height, They Make It To Incline Or Bend
In Gradually Till It Form A Regular Vault.
They are little incommoded with
rain in this country; as the climate is so extremely cold, that the first
snow that falls does not thaw for nine months.
The monks live mostly on fish and wild fowl; for, in consequence of the
boiling hot water running into a large and wide haven of the sea, that bay
is kept from freezing, and there is so great a concourse of sea fowl and
fish in that place, that they easily take as many of them as they can
possibly have occasion for, with which they maintain a great number of
people round about, whom they keep constantly employed either in building
or in catching fish and fowls, and in a thousand other necessary
occupations relative to the monastery. The houses of these natives are
built on the hill near the monastery, of a round form, about twenty-five
feet wide at the bottom, and growing gradually narrower as they go up, in a
conical form, ending in a small hole at top, to admit light and air; and
the floor of the house is so hot, that the inhabitants feel no cold within
doors at any season. To this place many barks resort in summer from the
neighbouring islands, from the cape above Norway, and from Trondon or
Drontheim, which bring to the fathers all kind of commodities and
merchandize that they have occasion for; taking fish in exchange, dried
either in the sun or by means of cold, and the furs of various animals.
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