Thus, most of their traffic being carried on by means of barter, they have little money among them, nor is it very necessary.  When these exchanges have been made at Bergen, the vessel returns to Rostoe, landing in one other place only, whence they carry wood sufficient for a whole year’s fuel, and for other necessary purposes.

The inhabitants of these rocks are a well-looking people, and of pure morals.  Not being in the least afraid of robbery, they never lock up any thing, and their doors are always open.  Their women also are not watched in the smallest degree; for the guests sleep in the same room with the husbands and their wives and daughters; who even stripped themselves quite naked in presence of the strangers before going to bed; and the beds allotted for the foreigners stood close to those in which their sons and daughters slept.  Every other day the fathers and sons went out a fishing by day-break, and were absent for eight hours together, without being under the least anxiety for the honour and chastity of their wives and daughters[4].  In the beginning of May, the women usually begin to bathe; and custom and purity of morals has made it a law among them, that they should first strip themselves quite naked at home, and they then go to the bath at the distance of a bow-shot from the house.  In their right hands they carry a bundle of herbs to wipe the moisture from their backs, and extend their left hands before them, as if to cover the parts of shame, though they do not seem to take much pains about the matter.  In the bath they are seen promiscuously with the men[5].  They have no notion of fornication or adultery; neither do they marry from sensual motives, but merely to conform to the divine command.  They also abstain from cursing and swearing.  At the death of relations, they shew the greatest resignation to the will of God, and even give thanks in the churches for having spared their friends so long, and in now calling them to be partakers of the bounty of heaven.  They shew so little extravagance of grief and lamentation on these occasions, that it appeared as if the deceased had only fallen into a sweet sleep.  If the deceased was married, the widow prepares a sumptuous banquet for the neighbours on the day of burial; when she and her guests appear in their best attire, and she entreats her guests to eat heartily, and to drink to the memory of the deceased, and to his eternal repose and happiness.  They went regularly to church, where they prayed very devoutly on their knees, and they kept the fast days with great strictness.

Their houses are built of wood, in a round form, having a hole in the middle of the roof for the admission of light; and which hole they cover over in winter with a transparent fish skin, on account of the severity of the cold.  Their clothes are made of coarse cloth, manufactured at London, and elsewhere.  They wore furs but seldom; and in order to inure themselves to the coldness of their climate, they expose their new born infants, the fourth day after birth, naked under the sky-light, which they then open to allow the snow to fall upon them; for it snowed almost continually during the whole winter that Quirini and his people were there, from the 5th of February to the 14th of May.  In consequence of this treatment, the boys are so inured to the cold, and become so hardy, that they do not mind it in the least.