prived of their last resource, the means of
having provisions and other necessaries conveyed
from the coast, through long and tedious
roads. Nay, many who are totally
destitute of horses are under the necessity
of carrying every load of hay into the outhouses
upon their own backs, and frequently
from a ver•ys considerable distance. Nor is
there any prospect of these invaluable animals
being soon replaced.
In the district of West Skaptefield, where
a great proportion of the people had nothing,
during the whole of the winter of
1/84, but the most unwholesome food, and
consequently became subject to the disorders
which have just been described, numbers
of people necessarily perished, and,
out of seventy families that dwelt nearest
to the fire and forsook their homes, not
more than one half are still remaining in
the district, the other thirty-five having
fled to other districts, where a few of them
have continued, while a part wandered
about the country, and the rest are dead.
It is now fully ascertained that the farms
already burnt, damaged, or destroyed, were, at
the commencement of the fire, inhabited by
four hundred and nine persons in the whole.
With the exception of the district of
Western Skaptefield, it does not appear
that any part of the island has suffered so
much as Tingoe, in the northern district,
where a great mortality happened both
among men and cattle, insomuch that (according
to statements transmitted to the
Boyal Treasury) seven hundred persons
lost their lives by famine and want. One
hundred also have perished in Skagefiord,
and three hundred and fifty-five in Oefiord.
In the parish of Norder-Muhle more than
one hundred died last year of the same
disorder; and, if we calculate the number
of those that have died in the district of
West Skaptefield only at forty-five, the
whole amount of those that have lost
their lives by famine (of whom lists have
been sent in) will be thirteen hundred.
The general distress in the northern country
has been exceedingly great, as it has
also been in Borgefiord and Myrer, in the