Title: The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II
Author: Nordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik), 1832-1901
Language: English
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THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA ROUND ASIA AND EUROPE. VOL. I.

[Illustration: OSCAR, II ]

THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA ROUND ASIA AND EUROPE
WITH A HISTORICAL REVIEW
OF PREVIOUS JOURNEYS ALONG THE NORTH COAST OF THE OLD WORLD


BY A.E. NORDENSKIÖLD

TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER LESLIE

_WITH FIVE STEEL PORTRAITS, NUMEROUS MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS_

IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. I

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1881


TO HIS MAJESTY
KING OSCAR II.
THE HIGH PROTECTOR OF THE VEGA EXPEDITION
THIS SKETCH OF THE VOYAGE
HE SO MAGNANIMOUSLY AND GENEROUSLY PROMOTED
IS WITH THE DEEPEST GRATITUDE
MOST HUMBLY
DEDICATED

BY A.E. NORDENSKIÖLD.



AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


In the work now published I have, along with the sketch of the
voyage of the _Vega_ round Asia and Europe, of the natural
conditions of the north coast of Siberia, of the animal and
vegetable life prevailing there, and of the peoples with whom we
came in contact in the course of our journey, endeavoured to give a
review, as complete as space permitted, of previous exploratory
voyages to the Asiatic Polar Sea. It would have been very ungrateful
on my part if I had not referred at some length to our predecessors,
who with indescribable struggles and difficulties--and generally
with the sacrifice of health and life--paved the way along which we
advanced, made possible the victory we achieved. In this way besides
the work itself has gained a much-needed variety, for nearly all the
narratives of the older North-East voyages contain in abundance what
a sketch of our adventures has not to offer; for many readers
perhaps expect to find in a book such as this accounts of dangers
and misfortunes of a thousand sorts by land and sea. May the
contrast which thus becomes apparent between the difficulties our
predecessors had to contend with and those which the _Vega_ met with
during her voyage incite to new exploratory expeditions to the sea,
which now, for the first time, has been ploughed by the keel of a
sea-going vessel, and conduce to dissipate a prejudice which for
centuries has kept the most extensive cultivable territory on the
globe shut out from the great Oceans of the World.

The work is furnished with numerous maps and illustrations, and is
provided with accurate references to sources of geographical
information. For this I am indebted both to the liberal conception
which my publisher, Herr FRANS BEIJER, formed of the way in which
the work should be executed, and the assistance I have received
while it was passing through the press from Herr E.W. Dahlgren,
amanuensis at the Royal Library, for which it is a pleasant duty
publicly to offer them my hearty thanks.

A.E. NORDENSKIÖLD.

STOCKHOLM, _8th October_, 1881.



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Having been honoured by a request from Baron Nordenskiöld that I
would undertake the translation of the work in which he gives an
account of the voyage by which the North-East Passage was at last
achieved, and Asia and Europe circumnavigated for the first time, I
have done my best to reproduce in English the sense of the Swedish
original as faithfully as possible, and at the same time to preserve
the style of the author as far as the varying idioms of the two
languages permit.

I have to thank two ladies for the help they kindly gave me in
reading proofs, and my friend Herr GUSTAF LINDSTRÖM, for valuable
assistance rendered in various ways.

Where not otherwise indicated, temperature is stated in degrees of
the Centigrade or Celsius thermometer. Longitude is invariably
reckoned from the meridian of Greenwich.

Where distance is stated in miles without qualification, the miles
are Swedish (one of which is equal to 6.64 English miles), except at
page 372, Vol. I., where the geographical square miles are German,
each equal to sixteen English geographical square miles.

ALEX. LESLIE.

CHERRYVALE, ABERDEEN,
_24th November_, 1881.



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Typographical errors corrected, and alternative spellings noticed
during the preparation of this text has been placed at the end.



CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


INTRODUCTION


CHAPTER I.

Departure--Tromsoe--Members of the Exhibition--Stay at
Maosoe--Limit of Trees--Climate--Scurvy and Antiscorbutics--The
first doubling of North Cape--Othere's account of his
Travels--Ideas concerning the Geography of Scandinavia current
during the first half of the sixteenth century--The oldest Maps
of the North--Herbertstein's account of Istoma's voyage--Gustaf
Vasa and the North-East Passage--Willoughby and Chancellor's
voyages.


CHAPTER II.

Departure from Maosoe--Gooseland--State of the Ice--The Vessels of
the Expedition assemble at Chabarova--The Samoyed town there--The
Church--Russians and Samoyeds--Visit to Chabarova in 1875--Purchase
of Samoyed Idols--Dress and dwellings of the Samoyeds--Comparison of
the Polar Races--Sacrificial Places and Samoyed Grave on Waygats
Island visited--Former accounts of the Samoyeds--Their place in
Ethnography.


CHAPTER III.

From the Animal World of Novaya Zemlya--The Fulmar Petrel--The
Rotge or Little Auk--Brünnich's Guillemot--The Black Guillemot--The
Arctic Puffin--The Gulls--Richardson's Skua--The Tern--Ducks and
Geese--The Swan--Waders--The Snow Bunting--The Ptarmigan--The Snowy
Owl--The Reindeer--The Polar Bear--The Arctic Fox--The
Lemming--Insects--The Walrus--The Seal--Whales.


CHAPTER IV.

The Origin of the names Yugor Schar and Kara Sea--Rules for
Sailing through Yugor Schar--The "Highest Mountain" on
Earth--Anchorages--Entering the Kara Sea--Its Surroundings--The
Inland-ice of Novaya Zemlya--True Icebergs rare in certain parts
of the Polar Sea--The Natural Conditions of the Kara Sea--Animals,
Plants, Bog-ore--Passage across the Kara Sea--The Influence of
the Ice on the Sea-bottom--Fresh-water Diatoms on Sea-ice--Arrival
at Port Dickson--Animal Life there--Settlers and Settlements at
the Mouth of the Yenisej--The Flora at Port
Dickson--Evertebrates--Excursion to White Island--Yalmal--Previous
Visits--Nummelin's Wintering on the Briochov Islands.


CHAPTER V.

The history of the North-east Passage from 1556 to 1878--Burrough,
1556--Pet and Jackman, 1580--The first voyage of the Dutch,
1594--Oliver Brunel--The second voyage, 1595--The third voyage,
1596--Hudson, 1608--Gourdon, 1611--Bosman, 1625--De la Martinière,
1653--Vlamingh, 1664--Snobberger, 1675--Roule reaches a land north of
Novaya Zemlya--Wood and Flawes, 1676--Discussion in England
concerning the state of the ice in the Polar Sea--Views of the
condition of the Polar Sea still divided--Payer and Weyprecht, 1872-74.


CHAPTER VI.

The North-east Voyages of the Russians and Norwegians--Rodivan
Ivanov, 1690--The Great Northern Expedition 1734-37--The supposed
Richness in metals of Novaya Zemlya--Iuschkov, 1757--Savva Loschkin,
1760--Rossmuislov, 1768--Lasarev, 1819--Lütke, 1821-24--Ivanov,
1822-28--Pachtussov, 1832-35--Von Baer, 1837--Zivolka and Moissejev,
1838-39--Von Krusenstern, 1860-62--The Origin and History of the Polar
Sea Hunting--Carlsen, 1868--Ed. Johannesen, 1869-70--Ulve, Mack, and
Quale, 1870--Mack, 1871--Discovery of the Relics of Barent's
wintering--Tobiesen's wintering 1872-73--The Swedish Expeditions
1875 and 1876--Wiggins, 1876--Later voyages to and from the Yenisej.


CHAPTER VII.

Departure from Port Dickson--Landing on a rocky island east of the
Yenisej--Self-dead animals--Discovery of crystals on the surface of
the drift-ice--Cosmic dust--Stay in Actinia Bay--Johannesen's
discovery of the island Ensamheten--Arrival at Cape Chelyuskin--The
natural state of the land and sea there--Attempt to penetrate
right eastwards to the New Siberian Islands--The effect of the
mist--Abundant dredging-yield--Preobraschenie Island--Separation
from the _Lena_ at the mouth of the river Lena.


CHAPTER VIII.

The voyage of the _Fraser_ and the _Express_ up the Yenisej and
their return to Norway--Contract for the piloting of the _Lena_ up
the Lena river--The voyage of the _Lena_ through the delta and up
the river to Yakutsk--The natural state of Siberia in general--The
river territories--The fitness of the land for cultivation and the
necessity for improved communications--The great rivers, the
future commercial highways of Siberia--Voyage up the Yenisej in
1875--Sibiriakoff's Island--The _tundra_--The primeval Siberian
forest--The inhabitants of Western Siberia: the Russians, the
Exiles, the "Asiatics"--Ways of travelling on the Yenisej, dog-boats,
floating trading stores propelled by steam--New prospects for Siberia.


CHAPTER IX.

The new Siberian Islands--The Mammoth--Discovery of Mammoth
and Rhinoceros mummies--Fossil Rhinoceros horns--Stolbovoj
Island--Liachoff Island--First discovery of this island--Passage
through the sound between this island and the mainland--Animal life
there--Formation of ice in water above the freezing point--The
Bear Islands--The quantity and dimensions of the ice begin to
increase--Different kinds of sea-ice--Renewed attempt to leave the
open channel along the coast--Lighthouse Island--Voyage along the
coast to Cape Schelagskoj--Advance delayed by ice, shoals, and
fog--First meeting with the Chukches--Landing and visits to Chukch
villages--Discovery of abandoned encampments--Trade with the natives
rendered difficult by the want of means of exchange--Stay at
Irkaipij--Onkilon graves--Information regarding the Onkilon
race--Renewed contact with the Chukches--Kolyutschin Bay--American
statements regarding the state of the ice north of Behring's
Straits--The _Vega_ beset.


CHAPTER X.

Wintering becomes necessary--The position of the _Vega_--The ice
round the vessel--American ship in the neighbourhood of the _Vega_
when frozen in--The nature of the neighbouring country--The _Vega_
is prepared for wintering--Provision-depôt and observatories
established on land--The winter dress--Temperature on board--Health
and dietary--Cold, wind, and snow--The Chukches on board--Menka's
visit--Letters sent home--Nordquist and Hovgaard's excursion to
Menka's encampment--Another visit of Menka--The fate of the
letters--Nordquist's journey to Pidlin--_Find_ of a Chukch
grave--Hunting--Scientific work--Life on board--Christmas Eve.



PORTRAITS.

Engraved on Steel by G.J. Stodart of London.


King Oscar II

Oscar Dickson

Alexander Sibiriakoff



LITHOGRAPHED MAPS.


1. Map of North Europe, from Nicholas Donis's edition of Ptolemy's
   _Cosmographia_, Ulm, 1482

2. Map of the North, from Jakob Ziegler's _Schondia_, Strassburg, 1532

3. Map of North. Europe from _Olai Magni Historia de gentium
   septentrionalium variis conditionibus_, Basil, 1567

4. Map of Port Dickson, by G. Bove. Map of Cape Bolvan on Vaygats
   Island, by the author. The _Lena's_ cruise in Malygin Sound, by
   A. Hovgaard. Map of Cape Chelyuskin, by G. Bove

5. Map showing Barents' Third Voyage, from _J.L. Pontani Rerum et urbis
   Amstelodamensium historia_, Amst., 1611

6. Russian Map of the North Polar Sea from the beginning of the 17th
   century, published in Holland in 1612 by Isaac Massa

7. Sketch-Map of Taimur Sound; Map of Actinia Bay, both by G. Bove

8. Map of the River System of Siberia



LIST OF WOOD-CUTS IN VOL I.


_The wood-cuts, when not otherwise stated below, were engraved at
Herr Wilhelm Meyer's Xylographic Institute in Stockholm._

1. The _Vega_ under sail, drawn by Captain J. Hagg

2. The _Vega_--Longitudinal section, drawn by Lieut. C.A.M. Hjulhammar

3.  ,,      ,,        Plan of arrangement under deck, drawn by ditto

4.  ,,      ,,        Plan of upper deck, drawn by ditto

5. The _Lena_--Longitudinal section, drawn by Marine-engineer J. Pihlgren

6.  ,,      ,,        Plan of arrangement under deck, drawn by ditto

7.  ,,      ,,        Plan of upper deck, drawn by ditto

8. Flag of the Swedish Yacht Club, drawn by V. Andrén

9. Tromsoe, drawn by R. Haglund

10. Old World Polar dress, drawn by O. Sörling

11. New World Polar Dress, drawn by Docent A. Kornrup, Copenhagen

12. Limit of Trees in Norway, drawn by R. Haglund, engraved by J. Engberg

13. Limit of Trees in Siberia, drawn by ditto

14. The Cloudberry (_Rubus Chamæmorus_, L.),
    drawn by Mrs. Professor A. Anderssen

15. Norse Ship of the Tenth Century, drawn by Harald Schöyen, Christiania

16. Sebastian Cabot, engraved by Miss Ida Falander

17. Sir Hugh Willoughby, engraved by J.D. Cooper, London

18. Vardoe in 1594

19. Vardoe in our days, drawn by R. Haglund

20. Coast Landscape from Matotschkin Schar, drawn by R. Haglund

21. Church of Chabarova, drawn by V. Andrén

22. Samoyed Woman's Hood, drawn by O. Sörling

23. Samoyed Sleigh, drawn by R. Haglund

24. Lapp Akja, drawn by ditto; engraved by J. Engberg

25. Samoyed Sleigh and Idols

26. Samoyed Idols, drawn by O. Sörling

27. Samoyed Hair Ornaments, drawn by ditto

28. Samoyed Woman's Dress, drawn by R. Haglund

29. Samoyed Belt with Knife, drawn by O. Sörling

30. Sacrificial Eminence on Vaygat's Island, drawn by R. Haglund;
    engraved by J. Engberg

31. Idols from the Sacrificial Cairn, drawn by O. Sörling

32. Sacrificial Cavity on Vaygat's Island, drawn by V. Andrén

33. Samoyed Grave on Vaygat's Island, drawn by R. Haglund; engraved
    by O. Dahlbäck

34. Samoyed Archers

35. Samoyeds from Schleissing's _Neu-entdektes Sieweria_

36. Breeding-place for Little Auks, drawn by H. Haglund

37. The Little Auk, or Rotge (_Mergulus Alle_, L.), drawn by M. Westergren

38. The Loom, or Brünnich's Guillemot (_Uria Brünnichii_, Sabine), drawn
    by ditto

39. The Arctic Puffin (_Mormon Arcticus_, L.), drawn by ditto

40. The Black Guillemot (_Uria Grylle_, L.), drawn by ditto

41. Breeding-place for Glaucous Gulls, drawn by R. Haglund

42. The Kittiwake (_Larus tridactylus_, L.), and the Ivory Gull
    (_Laruse burneus_, L.), drawn by M. Westergren

43. Rare Northern Gulls--Sabine's Gull (_Larus Sabinii_, Sabine)--Ross's
    Gull (_Larus Rossii_, Richards), drawn by ditto

44. The Common Skua (_Lestris parasitica_, L.)--Buffon's Skua
    (_Lestris Buffonii_, Boie)--the Pomarine Skua (_Lestris pomarina_,
    Tem.) drawn by ditto

45. Heads of the Eider, King Buck, Barnacle Goose,
    and White-fronted Goose, drawn by ditto

46. Bewick's Swan (_Cygnus Bewickii_, Yarr.), drawn by M. Westergren

47. Breastbone of _Cygnus Bewickii_, showing the peculiar position of the
    windpipe, drawn by ditto

48. Ptarmigan Fell, drawn by R. Haglund

49. The Snowy Owl (_Strix nyctea_, L.), drawn by M. Westergren

50. Reindeer Pasture, drawn by R. Haglund

51. Polar Bears, drawn by G. Mützell, engraved by K. Jahrmargt,
    both of Berlin

52. Ditto

53. Walruses, drawn by M. Westergren

54. Walrus Tusks, drawn by ditto

55. Hunting Implements, drawn by O. Sörling

56. Walrus Hunting, after Olaus Magnus

57. Walruses (female with young)

58. Japanese Drawing of the Walrus

59. Young of the Greenland Seal, drawn by M. Westergren

60. The Bearded Seal (_Phoca barbata_, Fabr.), drawn by ditto

61. The Rough Seal (_Phoca hispida_, Erxl.), drawn by ditto

62. The White Whale (_Delphinapterus leucas_, Pallas), drawn by ditto

63. Section of Inland-Ice

64. View from the Inland-ice of Greenland, drawn by H. Haglund

65. Greenland Ice-fjord, drawn by ditto

66. Slowly advancing Glacier, drawn by ditto

67. Glacier with Stationary Front, drawn by O. Sörling

68. Umbellula from the Kara Sea, drawn by M. Westergren

69. _Elpidia Glacialis_ (Théel.), from the Kara Sea, drawn by ditto

70. Manganiferous Iron-ore Formations from the Kara Sea,
    drawn by O. Sörling

71. Section from the South Coast of Matotschkin Sound,
    drawn by the geologist, E. Erdman

72. Map of the Mouth of the Yenisej (zincograph)

73. Ruins of a Simovie at Krestovskoj, drawn by O. Sörling

74. _Sieversia Glacialis_, R. Br., from Port Dickson,
    drawn by Mrs. Prof. Anderssen

75. Evertebrates from Port Dickson, _Yoldia artica_, Gray,
    and _Diastylis Rathkei_, Kr., drawn by M. Westergren

76. Place of Sacrifice on Yalmal, drawn by R. Haglund

77. "Jordgammor" on the Briochov Islands, drawn by ditto

78. Russian "Lodja"

79. Dutch Skipper

80. Capture of a Polar Bear

81. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten

82. Kilduin, in Russian Lapland, in 1594

83. Map of Fietum Nassovicum or Yugor Schar

84. Unsuccessful Fight with a Polar Bear

85. Barents' and Rijp's Vessels

86. Barents' House, outside

87. Ditto inside

88. Jacob van Heemskerk

89. De la Martinière's Map

90. Ammonite with Gold Lustre (_Ammonites alternans_, v. Buch)
    drawn by M. Westergren

91. View from Matotschkin Schar, drawn by R. Haglund

92. Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke, drawn and engraved by Miss Ida
    Falander

93. August Karlovitz Zivolka, drawn and engraved by ditto

94. Paul von Krusenstern, Junior, drawn and engraved by ditto

95. Michael Konstantinovitsch Sidoroff, drawn and engraved by ditto

96. Norwegian Hunting Sloop, drawn by Captain J. Hagg

97. Elling Carlson, engraved by J.D. Cooper, of London

98. Edward Hohn Johannesen, engraved by ditto

99. Sivert Kristian Tobiesen, engraved by ditto

100. Tobiesen's Winter House on Bear Island, drawn by R. Haglund

101. Joseph Wiggins, drawn by R. Haglund

102. David Ivanovitsch Schwanenberg, drawn and engraved by Miss Ida
     Falander

103. Gustaf Adolf Nummelin, drawn and engraved by ditto

104. The Sloop _Utrennaja Saria_, drawn by Captain J. Hagg

105. The _Vega_, and _Lena_ anchored to an Ice-floe, drawn by R. Haglund

106. Hairstar from the Taimur Coast (_Antedon Eschrictii_, J. Müller)
     drawn by M. Westergren

107. Form of the Crystals found on the ice off the Taimur Coast

108. Section of the upper part of the Snow on a Drift-ice Field in
     80° N.L.

109. Grass from Actinia Bay (_Pleuropogon Sabini_, R. Br.),
     drawn by Mrs. Professor Andersson

110. The _Vega_ and _Lena_ saluting Cape Chelyuskin, drawn by R. Haglund

111. View at Cape Chelyuskin during the stay of the Expedition,
     drawn by ditto

112. _Draba Alpina_, L., from Cape Chelyuskin, drawn by M. Westergren

113. The Beetle living farthest to the North
     (_Micralymma Dicksoni_, Mackl.) drawn by ditto

114. Ophiuroid from the Sea north of Cape Chelyuskin
     (_Ophiacantha bidentata_ Retz.), drawn by ditto

115. Sea Spider (_pycnogonid_) from the Sea east of Cape Chelyuskin,
     drawn by ditto

116. Preobraschenie Island, drawn by R. Haglund

117. The steamer _Fraser_, drawn by ditto

118. The Steamer _Lena_, drawn by ditto

119. Hans Christian Johannesen, engraved by J.D. Cooper, London

120. Yakutsk in the Seventeenth Century

121. Yakutsk in our days, drawn by R. Haglund

122. River View from the Yenisej, drawn by ditto

123. Sub-fossil Marine Crustacea from the _tundra_,
     drawn by M. Westergren

124. Siberian River Boat, drawn by R. Haglund

125. Ostyak Tent, drawn by ditto

126. Towing with Dogs on the Yenisej, drawn by Professor R.D. Holm

127. Fishing-boats on the Ob, drawn R. Haglund

128. Graves in the Primeval Forest of Siberia, drawn by ditto

129. Chukch Village on a Siberian River, drawn by ditto

130. Mammoth Skeleton in the Imperial Museum of the Academy of Sciences
     in St. Petersburg, drawn by M. Westergren

131. Restored Form of the Mammoth

132. Siberian Rhinoceros Horn, drawn by M. Westergren and V. Andrén

133. Stolbovoj Island, drawn by R. Haglund

134. _Idothea Entomon_, Lin., drawn by M. Westergren

135. _Idothea Sabinei_, Kröyer, drawn by ditto

136. Ljachoff's Island, drawn by E. Haglund

137. Beaker Sponges from the Sea off the mouth of the Kolyma,
     drawn by M. Westergren

138. Lighthouse Island, drawn by R. Haglund

139. Chukch Boats, drawn by O. Sörling

140. A Chukch in Seal-gut Great-coat, drawn and engraved by
     Miss Ida Falander

141. Chukch Tent, drawn by R. Haglund

142. Section of a Chukch Grave, drawn by O. Sörling

143. Irkaipij, drawn by R. Haglund

144. Ruins of an Onkilon House, drawn by O. Sörling

145. Implements found in the Ruins of an Onkilon House, drawn by ditto

146. Alga from Irkaipij (_Laminaria Solidungula_, J.G. Ag.),
     drawn by M. Westergren

147. Cormorant from Irkaipij (_Graculus bierustatus_, Pallas),
     drawn by ditto

148. Pieces of Ice from the Coast of the Chukch Peninsula,
     drawn by O. Sörling

149. Toross from the neighbourhood of the _Vega's_ Winter Quarters,
     drawn by R. Haglund

150. The _Vega_ in Winter Quarters, drawn by ditto

151. The Winter Dress of the _Vega_ men, drawn by Jungstedt

152. Cod from Pitlekaj (_Gadus navaga_, Kolreuter), drawn by M. Westergren

153. Kautljkau, a Chukch Girl from Irgunnuk, drawn and engraved
     by Miss Ida Falander

154. Chukches Angling, drawn by O. Sörling

155. Ice-Sieve, drawn by ditto

156. Smelt from the Chukch Peninsula (_Osmerus eperlanus_, Lin.),
     drawn by M. Westergren

157. Wassili Menka, drawn by O. Sörling, engraved by Miss Ida Falander

158. Chukch Dog-Sleigh, drawn by ditto

159. Chukch Bone-carvings, drawn by O. Sörling

160. Hares from Chukch Land, drawn by M. Westergren

161. The Observatory at Pitlekaj, drawn by R. Haglund

162. An Evening in the Gun-room of the _Vega_ during the Wintering,
     drawn by ditto, engraved by R. Lindgren

163. Refraction Halo, drawn by ditto

164. Reflection Halo, drawn by ditto

165. Section of the Beach Strata at Pitlekaj

166. Christmas Eve on the _Vega_, drawn by V. Andrén

ERRATA [ Transcriber's note: these have been applied to the text ]

Page 44, under Wood-cut _for_ "chammmorus" _read_ "chamæmorus."

Page 58, lines 21, 24, end 28 _for_ "pearls" _read_ "beads."

Page 140, line 13 from top, _for_ "swallow" _read_ "roll away."

Page 184, last line, _for_ "one-third" _read_ "one-and-a-half times."

Page 377, note, _for_ "It is the general rule" _read_
"For the northern hemisphere it is a general rule."

Page 476, line 12 from top, _for_ "leggins" _read_
"leggings."

Page 481, under wood-cut, _for_ "half the natural size"
_read_ "one-third of the natural size."

Page 494, under wood-cut, _for_ "half the natural size"
 _read_ "one-third of the natural size."



INTRODUCTION.


The voyage, which it is my purpose to sketch in this book, owed its
origin to two preceding expeditions from Sweden to the western part
of the Siberian Polar Sea, in the course of which I reached the
mouth of the Yenisej, the first time in 1875 in a walrus-hunting
sloop, the _Procven_, and the second time in 1876 in a steamer, the
_Ymer_.

After my return from the latter voyage, I came to the conclusion,
that, on the ground of the experience thereby gained, and of the
knowledge which, under the light of that experience, it was possible
to obtain from old, especially from Russian, explorations of the
north coast of Asia, I was warranted in asserting that the open
navigable water, which two years in succession had carried me across
the Kara Sea, formerly of so bad repute, to the mouth of the
Yenisej, extended in all probability as far as Behring's Straits,
and that a circumnavigation of the old world was thus within the
bounds of possibility.

It was natural that I should endeavour to take advantage of the
opportunity for making new and important discoveries which thus
presented itself. An opportunity had arisen for solving a
geographical problem--the forcing a north-east passage to China and
Japan--which for more than three hundred years had been a subject of
competition between the world's foremost commercial states and most
daring navigators, and which, if we view it in the light of a
circumnavigation of the old world, had, for thousands of years back,
been an object of desire for geographers. I determined, therefore,
at first to make use, for this purpose, of the funds which Mr. A.
SIBIRIAKOFF, after my return from the expedition of 1876, placed at
my disposal for the continuation of researches in the Siberian Polar
Sea. For a voyage of the extent now contemplated, this sum, however,
was quite insufficient. On this account I turned to His Majesty the
King of Sweden and Norway, with the inquiry whether any assistance
in making preparations for the projected expedition might be
reckoned upon from the public funds. King OSCAR, who, already as
Crown Prince, had given a large contribution to the Torell
expedition of 1861, immediately received my proposal with special
warmth, and promised within a short time to invite the Swedish
members of the Yenisej expeditions and others interested in our
voyages of exploration in the north, to meet him for the purpose of
consultation, asking me at the same time to be prepared against the
meeting with a complete exposition of the reasons on which I
grounded my views--differing so widely from the ideas commonly
entertained--of the state of the ice in the sea off the north coast
of Siberia.

This assembly took place at the palace in Stockholm, on the 26th
January, 1877, which may be considered the birthday of the _Vega_
Expedition, and was ushered in by a dinner, to which a large number
of persons were invited, among whom were the members of the Swedish
royal house that happened to be then in Stockholm; Prince JOHN OF
GLÜCKSBURG; Dr. OSCAR DICKSON, the Gothenburg merchant; Baron F.W.
VON OTTER, Councillor of State and Minister of Marine, well known
for his voyages in the Arctic waters in 1868 and 1871; Docent F.K.
KJELLMAN, Dr. A. STUTXBERG, the former a member of the expedition
which wintered at Mussel Bay in 1872-73, and of that which reached
the Yenisej in 1875, the latter, of the Yenisej Expeditions of 1875
and 1876; and Docents HJALMAR THÉEL and A.N. LUNDSTRÖM, both members
of the Yenisej Expedition of 1875.

[Illustration: Oscar Dickson ]

After dinner the programme of the contemplated voyage was laid
before the meeting, almost in the form in which it afterwards
appeared in print in several languages. There then arose a lively
discussion, in the course of which reasons were advanced for, and
against the practicability of the plan. In particular the question
concerning the state of the ice and the marine currents at Cape
Chelyuskin gave occasion to an exhaustive discussion. It ended by
His Majesty first of all declaring himself convinced of the
practicability of the plan of the voyage, and prepared not only as
king, but also as a private individual, to give substantial support
to the enterprise. Dr. Oscar Dickson shared His Majesty's views, and
promised to contribute to the not inconsiderable expenditure, which
the new voyage of exploration would render necessary. This is the
sixth expedition to the high north, the expenses of which have been
defrayed to a greater or less extent by Dr. O. Dickson.[1] He became
the banker of the _Vega_ Expedition, inasmuch as to a considerable
extent he advanced the necessary funds, but after our return the
expenses were equally divided between His Majesty the King of Sweden
and Norway, Dr. Dickson, and Mr. Sibiriakoff.

I very soon had the satisfaction of appointing, as superintendents
of the botanical and zoological work of the expedition in this new
Polar voyage, my old and tried friends from previous expeditions,
Docents Dr. Kjellman and Dr. Stuxberg, observers so well known in
Arctic literature. At a later period, another member of the
expedition that wintered on Spitzbergen in 1872-73, Lieutenant (now
Captain in the Swedish Navy) L. PALANDER, offered to accompany the
new expedition as commander of the vessel--an offer which I gladly
accepted, well knowing, as I did from previous voyages, Captain
Palander's distinguished ability both as a seaman and an Arctic
explorer. Further there joined the expedition Lieutenant GIACOMO
BOVE, of the Italian Navy; Lieutenant A. HOVGAARD, of the Danish
Navy; Medical candidate E. ALMQUIST, as medical officer; Lieutenant
O. NORDQUIST, of the Russian Guards; Lieutenant E. BRUSEWITZ, of the
Swedish Navy; together with twenty-one men--petty officers and crew,
according to a list which will be found further on.

An expedition of such extent as that now projected, intended
possibly to last two years, with a vessel of its own, a numerous
well-paid _personnel_, and a considerable scientific staff, must of
course be very costly. In order somewhat to diminish the expenses, I
gave in, on the 25th August, 1877, a memorial to the Swedish
Government with the prayer that the steamer _Vega_, which in the
meantime had been purchased for the expedition, should be thoroughly
overhauled and made completely seaworthy at the naval dockyard at
Karlskrona; and that, as had been done in the case of the Arctic
Expeditions of 1868 and 1872-73, certain grants of public money
should be given to the officers and men of the Royal Swedish Navy,
who might take part as volunteers in the projected expedition. With
reference to this petition the Swedish Government was pleased, in
terms of a letter of the Minister of Marine, dated the 31st
December, 1877, both to grant sea-pay, &c., to the officer and
eighteen men of the Royal Navy, who might take part in the
expedition in question, and at the same time to resolve on making a
proposal to the Diet in which additional grants were to be asked for
it.

The proposal to the Diet of 1878 was agreed to with that liberality
which has always distinguished the representatives of the Swedish
people when grants for scientific purposes have been asked for;
which was also the case with a private motion made in the same Diet
by the President, C.F. WAERN, member of the Academy of Sciences,
whereby it was proposed to confer some further privileges on the
undertaking.

It is impossible here to give at length the decision of the Diet,
and the correspondence which was exchanged with the authorities with
reference to it. But I am under an obligation of gratitude to refer
to the exceedingly pleasant reception I met with everywhere, in the
course of these negotiations, from officials of all ranks, and to
give a brief account of the privileges which the expedition finally
came to enjoy, mainly owing to the letter of the Government to the
Marine Department, dated the 14th June, 1878.

Two officers and seventeen men of the Royal Swedish Navy having
obtained permission to take part in the expedition as volunteers, I
was authorised to receive on account of the expedition from the
treasury of the Navy, at Karlskrona--with the obligation of
returning that portion of the funds which might not be required, and
on giving approved security--full sea pay for two years for the
officers, petty officers, and men taking part in the expedition; pay
for the medical officer, at the rate of 3,500 Swedish crowns a year,
for the same time; and subsistence money for the men belonging to
the Navy, at the rate of one and a half Swedish crowns per man per
day. The sum, by which the cost of provisions exceeded the amount
calculated at this rate, was defrayed by the expedition, which
likewise gave a considerable addition to the pay of the sailors
belonging to the Navy. I further obtained permission to receive, on
account of the expedition, from the Navy stores at Karlskrona,
provisions, medicines, coal, oil, and other necessary equipment,
under obligation to pay for any excess of value over 10,000 Swedish
crowns (about 550_l_.); and finally the vessel of the expedition was
permitted to be equipped and made completely seaworthy at the naval
dockyard at Karlskrona, on condition, however, that the excess of
expenditure on repairs over 25,000 crowns (about 1,375_l_.) should
be defrayed by the expedition.

[Illustration: _THE VEGA._ Longitudinal section. ]

Plan of arrangement under deck.

  1. Powder magazine.
  2. Instrument room.
  3. Sofa in gunroom.
  4. Cabin for Lieut. Brusewitz
  5. Cabin fur Lieuts. Bove and Hovgaard.
  6. Pantry during winter.
  7. Corridor.
  8. Cabin for Dr. Stuxberg and Lieut. Nordquist.
  9. Gunroom.
  10. Table in gunroom.
  11. Cabin for Dr. Almquist.
  12. Cabin for Dr. Kjellman.
  13. Stove.
  14. Cabin for Capt. Palander.
  15. Cabin for Prof. Nordenskiöld.
  16. Corridor (descent to gunroom).
  17. Coal bankers.
  18. Boiler.
  19. Storeroom 'tween decks.
  20. Pilot's cabin.
  21. Cabin for Lieut. Bove built in Japan.
  22. Cabin for two petty officers.
  23. Petty officers' mess.
  24. Cabin for carpenter's effects ) built
  25. Cabin for collections.        ) in Japan
  26. Cabin for library.
  27. Gunroom pantry.
  28. Hatch to provision room.
  29. Hatch to the cable-tier.
  30. Hatch to room set apart for scientific purposes.
  31. Galley.
  32. Bunks for the crew--double rows.
  33. Cable-tier and provision store.
  34. Hatch to store-room.
  35. Hatch to room for daily giving out of provisions.
  36. Hatch to rope-room.
  37. Sail-room.
  38. Storeroom for water and coal.
  39. Engine-room.
  40. Cellar.


Plan of upper deck

  _a._ Thermometer case.
  _b._ The rudder.
  _c._ Binnacle with compass.
  _d._  ) Skylights to the gunroom.
  _e._  )
  _f._ Mizenmast.
  _g._ Descent to the gunroom  ) companion common
  _h._ Descent to the engine   )     to both.
  _i._ Bridge.
  _k._ Funnel.
  _l._ Boats lying on gallows.
  _m._ Mainmast.
  _n._ Booms (for reserve masts, yards, &c.).
  _o._ Main hatch.
  _p._ Steam launch.
  _q._ Fore hatch.
  _r._ Hencoops.
  _s._ Water closet.
  _t._ Foremast.
  _u._ Smoke-cowl.
  _v._ Descent to lower deck (companion).
  _x._ Windlass.
  _y._ Capstan on the forecastle.
  _z._ Catheads.


[Illustration: _THE VEGA._ Longitudinal section. ]

Plan of arrangement under deck.

Plan of upper deck.

  A.    Engine-room.
  B. B. Hold.
  C.    Cable.
  D.    Water ballast tank.
  E.    Forecastle.
  F. F. Coal bunkers.
  G.    Fireman's cabin.
  H.    Engineer's cabin.
  K.    Provision-room.
  L.    Captain's cabin.
  M.    Mate's cabin.
  N.    Kitchen.
  O.    Pantry.
  P.    Saloon.
  Q. Q. Presses.
  R.    Engine-room companion.
  S.    Bridge.
  T.    Hatch to hold.
  U.    Descent to provision-room.
  V.    Winch.
  X.    Descent to engine-room.
  Y.    Descent to forecastle and engineer's cabin.
  Z.    Descent to captain's cabin, saloon, &c.

On the other hand my request that the _Vega_, the steamer purchased
for the voyage, might be permitted to carry the man-of-war flag, was
refused by the Minister of Marine in a letter of the 2nd February
1878. The _Vega_ was therefore inscribed in the following month of
March in the Swedish Yacht Club. It was thus under its flag, _the
Swedish man-of-war flag with a crowned O in the middle_, that the
first circumnavigation of Asia and Europe was carried into effect.

The _Vega_, as will be seen from the description quoted farther on,
is a pretty large vessel, which during the first part of the voyage
was to be heavily laden with provisions and coal. It would therefore
be a work of some difficulty to get it afloat, if, in sailing
forward along the coast in new, unsurveyed waters, it should run
upon a bank of clay or sand. I therefore gladly availed myself of
Mr. Sibiriakoff's offer to provide for the greater safety of the
expedition, by placing at my disposal funds for building another
steamer of a smaller size, the _Lena_, which should have the river
Lena as its main destination, but, during the first part of the
expedition, should act as tender to the _Vega_, being sent before to
examine the state of the ice and the navigable waters, when such
service might be useful. I had the _Lena_ built at Motala, of
Swedish Bessemer steel, mainly after a drawing of Engineer R.
Runeberg of Finland. The steamer answered the purpose for which it
was intended particularly well.

An unexpected opportunity of providing the steamers with coal during
the course of the voyage besides arose by my receiving a commission,
while preparations were making for the expedition of the _Vega_, to
fit out, also on Mr. Sibiriakoff's account, two other vessels, the
steamer _Fraser_, and the sailing vessel _Express_, in order to
bring to Europe from the mouth of the Yenisej a cargo of grain, and
to carry thither a quantity of European goods. This was so much the
more advantageous, as, according to the plan of the expedition, the
_Vega_ and the _Lena_ were first to separate from the _Fraser_ and
the _Express_ at the mouth of the Yenisej. The first-named vessels
had thus an opportunity of taking on board at that place as much
coal as there was room for.

[Illustration: Alexander Sibiriakoff ]

I intend further on to give an account of the voyages of the
other three vessels, each of which deserves a place in the
history of navigation. To avoid details I shall only mention
here that, at the beginning of the voyage which is to be
described here, the following four vessels were at my disposal:--

1. The _Vega_, commanded by Lieutenant L. Palander, of the Swedish
Navy; circumnavigated Asia and Europe.

2. The _Lena_, commanded by the walrus-hunting captain, Christian
Johannesen; the first vessel that reached the river Lena from the
Atlantic.

3. The _Fraser_, commanded by the merchant captain, Emil Nilsson.

4. The _Express_, commanded by the merchant captain, Gundersen; the
first which brought cargoes of grain from the Yenisej to Europe.[2]

When the _Vega_ was bought for the expedition it was described by
the sellers as follows:--

"The steamer _Vega_ was built at Bremerhaven in 1872-73, of the best
oak, for the share-company 'Ishafvet,' and under special inspection.
It has twelve years' first class 3/3 I.I. Veritas, measures 357
register tons gross, or 299 net. It was built and used for
whale-fishing in the North Polar Sea, and strengthened in every way
necessary and commonly used for that purpose. Besides the usual
timbering of oak, the vessel has an ice-skin of greenheart, wherever
the ice may be expected to come at the vessel. The ice-skin extends
from the neighbourhood of the under chain bolts to within from 1.2
to 1.5 metres of the keel The dimensions are:--

 Length of keel ... ... ... 37.6 metres.
 Do. over deck  ... ... ... 43.4 metres.
 Beam extreme   ... ... ...  8.4 metres.
 Depth of hold  ... ... ...  4.6 metres.

"The engine, of sixty horse-power, is on Wolff's plan, with
excellent surface condensers. It requires about ten cubic feet of
coal per hour. The vessel is fully rigged as a barque, and has pitch
pine masts, iron wire rigging, and patent reefing topsails. It sails
and manoeuvres uncommonly well, and under sail alone attains a speed
of nine to ten knots. During the trial trip the steamer made seven
and a half knots, but six to seven knots per hour may be considered
the speed under steam. Further, there are on the vessel a powerful
steam-winch, a reserve rudder, and a reserve propeller. The vessel
is besides provided in the whole of the under hold with iron tanks,
so built that they lie close to the vessel's bottom and sides, the
tanks thus being capable of offering a powerful resistance in case
of ice pressure. They are also serviceable for holding provisions,
water, and coal."[3]


We had no reason to take exception to this description,[4] but, in
any case, it was necessary for an Arctic campaign, such as that now
in question, to make a further inspection of the vessel, to assure
ourselves that all its parts were in complete order, to make the
alterations in rig, &c., which the altered requirements would render
necessary, and finally to arrange the vessel, so that it might house
a scientific staff, which, together with the officers, numbered nine
persons. This work was done at the Karlskrona naval dockyard, under
the direction of Captain Palander. At the same time attention was
given to the scientific equipment, principally in Stockholm, where a
large number of instruments for physical, astronomical, and
geological researches was obtained from the Royal Academy of
Sciences.

The dietary during the expedition was fixed upon, partly on the
ground of our experience from the wintering of 1872-73, partly under
the guidance of a special opinion given with reference to the
subject by the distinguished physician who took part in that
expedition, Dr. A. Envall. Preserved provisions,[5] butter, flour,
&c., were purchased, part at Karlskrona, part in Stockholm and
Copenhagen; a portion of pemmican was prepared in Stockholm by Z.
Wikström; another portion was purchased in England; fresh ripe
potatoes[6] were procured from the Mediterranean, a large quantity
of cranberry juice from Finland; preserved cloudberries and clothes
of reindeer skins, &c., from Norway, through our agent Ebeltoft, and
so on--in a word, nothing was neglected to make the vessel as well
equipped as possible for the attainment of the great object in view.

What this was may be seen from the following

PLAN OF THE EXPEDITION,

PRESENTED TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY, _July_ 1877.

The exploring expeditions, which, during the recent decades, have
gone out from Sweden towards the north, have long ago acquired a
truly national importance, through the lively interest that has been
taken in them everywhere, beyond, as well as within, the fatherland;
through the considerable sums of money that have been spent on them
by the State, and above all by private persons; through the
practical school they have formed for more than thirty Swedish
naturalists; through the important scientific and geographical
results they have yielded; and through the material for scientific
research, which by them has been collected for the Swedish
Riks-Museum, and which has made it, in respect of Arctic natural
objects, the richest in the world. To this there come to be added
discoveries and investigations which already are, or promise in the
future to become, of practical importance; for example, the
meteorological and hydrographical work of the expeditions; their
comprehensive inquiries regarding the Seal and Whale Fisheries in
the Polar Seas; the pointing out of the previously unsuspected
richness in fish, of the coasts of Spitzbergen; the discoveries, on
Bear Island and Spitzbergen, of considerable strata of coal and
phosphatic minerals which are likely to be of great economic
importance to neighbouring countries; and, above all, the success of
the two last expeditions in reaching the mouths of the large
Siberian rivers, navigable to the confines of China--the Obi and
Yenisej--whereby a problem in navigation, many centuries old, has
at last been solved.

But the very results that have been obtained incite to a
continuation, especially as the two last expeditions have opened a
new field of inquiry, exceedingly promising in a scientific, and I
venture also to say in a practical, point of view, namely, the part
of the Polar Sea lying east of the mouth of the Yenisej. Still, even
in our days, in the era of steam and the telegraph, there meets us
here a territory to be explored, which is new to science, and
hitherto untouched. Indeed, the whole of the immense expanse of
ocean which stretches over 90 degrees of longitude from the mouth of
the Yenisej past Cape Chelyuskin--the Promontorium Tabin of the old
geographers--has, if we except voyages in large or small boats along
the coast, never yet been ploughed by the keel of any vessel, and
never seen the funnel of a steamer.

It was this state of things which led me to attempt to procure funds
for an expedition, equipped as completely as possible, both in a
scientific and a nautical respect, with a view to investigate the
geography, hydrography, and natural history of the North Polar Sea
beyond the mouth of the Yenisej, if possible as far as Behring's
Straits. It may be affirmed without any danger of exaggeration, that
since Cook's famous voyages in the Pacific Ocean, no more promising
field of research has lain before any exploring expedition, if only
the state of the ice permit a suitable steamer to force a passage in
that sea. In order to form a judgment on this point, it may perhaps
be necessary to cast a brief glance backwards over the attempts
which have been made to penetrate in the direction which the
projected expedition is intended to take.

The Swedish port from which the expedition is to start will probably
be Gothenburg. The time of departure is fixed for the beginning of
July, 1878. The course will be shaped at first along the west coast
of Norway, past North Cape and the entrance to the White Sea, to
Matotschkin Sound in Novaya Zemlya.

The opening of a communication by sea between the rest of Europe and
these regions, by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancelor in 1553,
was the fruit of the first exploring expedition sent out from
England by sea. Their voyage also forms the first attempt to
discover a north-east passage to China. The object aimed at was not
indeed accomplished; but on the other hand, there was opened by the
voyage in question the sea communication between England and the
White Sea; the voyage thus forming a turning-point not only in the
navigation of England and Russia, but also in the commerce of the
world. It also demanded its sacrifice, Sir Hugh Willoughby himself,
with all the men in the vessels under his command, having perished
while wintering on the Kola peninsula. In our days thousands of
vessels sail safely along this route.

With the knowledge we now possess of the state of the ice in the
Murman Sea--so the sea between Kola and Novaya Zemlya is called on
the old maps--it is possible to sail during the latter part of
summer from the White Sea to Matotschkin without needing to fear the
least hindrance from ice. For several decades back, however, in
consequence of want of knowledge of the proper season and the proper
course, the case has been quite different--as is sufficiently
evident from the account of the difficulties and dangers which the
renowned Russian navigator, Count Lütke, met with during his
repeated voyages four summers in succession (1821-1824) along the
west coast of Novaya Zemlya. A skilful walrus-hunter can now, with a
common walrus-hunting vessel, in a single summer, sail further in
this sea than formerly could an expedition, fitted out with all the
resources of a naval yard, in four times as long time.

There are four ways of passing from the Murman Sea to the Kara Sea,
viz:--

_a._ Yugor Sound--the Fretum Nassovicum of the old Dutchmen--between
Vaygats Island and the mainland.

_b._ The Kara Port, between Vaygats Island and Novaya Zemlya.

_c._ Matotschkin Sound, which between 73° and 74° N. Lat.
divides Novaya Zemlya into two parts, and, finally,

_d._ The course north of the double island. The course past the
northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya is not commonly clear of ice
till the beginning of the month of September, and perhaps ought,
therefore, not to be chosen for an expedition having for its object
to penetrate far to the eastward in this sea. Yugor Sound and the
Kara Port are early free of fast ice, but instead, are long rendered
difficult to navigate by considerable masses of drift ice, which are
carried backwards and forwards in the bays on both sides of the
sound by the currents which here alternate with the ebb and flow of
the tide. Besides, at least in Yugor Sound, there are no good
harbours, in consequence of which the drifting masses of ice may
greatly inconvenience the vessels, which by these routes attempt to
enter the Kara Sea. Matotschkin Sound, again, forms a channel nearly
100 kilometres long, deep and clear, with the exception of a couple
of shoals, the position of which is known, which indeed is not
usually free from fast ice until the latter half of July, but, on
the other hand, in consequence of the configuration of the coast, is
less subject to be obstructed by drift ice than the southern
straits. There are good harbours at the eastern mouth of the sound.
In 1875 and 1876 both the sound and the sea lying off it were
completely open in the end of August, but the ice was much earlier
broken up also on the eastern side, so that a vessel could without
danger make its way among the scattered pieces of drift ice.
The part of Novaya Zemlya which is first visited by the
walrus-hunters in spring is usually just the west coast off
Matotschkin.

In case unusual weather does not prevail in the regions in question
during the course of early and mid-summer, 1878--for instance, very
steady southerly winds, which would early drive the drift ice away
from the coast of the mainland--I consider, on the grounds which I
have stated above, that it will be safest for the expedition to
choose the course by Matotschkin Sound.

We cannot, however, reckon on having, so early as the beginning of
August, open water _direct_ to Port Dickson at the mouth of the
Yenisej, but must be prepared to make a considerable detour towards
the south in order to avoid the masses of drift ice, which are to be
met with in the Kara Sea up to the beginning of September. The few
days' delay which may be caused by the state of the ice here, will
afford, besides, to the expedition an opportunity for valuable work
in examining the natural history and hydrography of the channel,
about 200 fathoms deep, which runs along the east coast of Novaya
Zemlya. The Kara Sea is, in the other parts of it, not deep, but
evenly shallow (ten to thirty fathoms), yet without being fouled by
shoals or rocks. The most abundant animal life is found in the
before-mentioned deep channel along the east coast, and it was from
it that our two foregoing expeditions brought home several animal
types, very peculiar and interesting in a systematic point of view.
Near the coast the algæ, too, are rich and luxuriant. The coming
expedition ought, therefore, to endeavour to reach Matotschkin Sound
so early that at least seven days' scientific work may be done in
those regions.

The voyage from the Kara Sea to Port Dickson is not attended,
according to recent experience, with any difficulty. Yet we cannot
reckon on arriving at Port Dickson sooner than from the 10th to the
15th August. In 1875 I reached this harbour with a sailing-vessel on
the 15th August, after having been much delayed by calms in the Kara
Sea. With a steamer it would have been possible to have reached the
harbour, that year, in the beginning of the month. In 1876 the state
of the ice was less favourable, in consequence of a cold summer and
a prevalence of north-east winds, but even then I arrived at the
mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th August.

It is my intention to lie to at Port Dickson, at least for some
hours, in order to deposit letters on one of the neighbouring
islands in case, as is probable, I have no opportunity of meeting
there some vessel sent out from Yeniseisk, by which accounts of the
expedition may be sent home.

Actual observations regarding the hydrography of the coast between
the mouth of the Yenisej and Cape Chelyuskin are for the present
nearly wholly wanting, seeing that, as I have already stated, no
large vessel has ever sailed from this neighbourhood. Even about the
boat voyages of the Russians along the coast we know exceedingly
little, and from their unsuccessful attempts to force a passage here
we may by no means draw any unfavourable conclusion as to the
navigability of the sea during certain seasons of the year. If, with
a knowledge of the resources for the equipment of naval expeditions
which Siberia now possesses, we seek to form an idea of the
equipment of the Russian expeditions[7] sent out with extraordinary
perseverance during the years 1734-1743 by different routes to the
north coast of Siberia, the correctness of this assertion ought to
be easily perceived. There is good reason to expect that a
well-equipped steamer will be able to penetrate far beyond the point
where they were compelled to return with their small but numerously
manned craft, too fragile to encounter ice, and unsuitable for the
open sea, being generally held together with willows.

There are, besides these, only three sea voyages, or perhaps more
correctly coast journeys, known in this part of the Kara Sea, all
under the leadership of the mates Minin and Sterlegoff. The first
attempt was made in 1738 in a "double sloop," 70 feet long, 17
broad, and 7-1/2 deep, built at Tobolsk and transported thence to
the Yenisej by Lieutenant Owzyn. With this vessel Minin penetrated
off the Yenisej to 72°s 53' N.L. Hence a jolly boat was sent
farther towards the north, but it too was compelled, by want of
provisions, to return before the point named by me, Port Dickson,
was reached. The following year a new attempt was made, without a
greater distance being traversed than the summer before. Finally in
the year 1740 the Russians succeeded in reaching, with the double
sloop already mentioned, 75° 15' N.L., after having survived
great dangers from a heavy sea at the river mouth. On the 2nd
September, just as the most advantageous season for navigation in
these waters had begun, they returned, principally on account of the
lateness of the season.

There are, besides, two statements founded on actual observations
regarding the state of the ice on this coast. For Middendorff, the
Academician, during his famous journey of exploration in North
Siberia, reached from land the sea coast at Tajmur Bay (75°
40' N.L.), and _found the sea on the 25th August_, 1843, _free of
ice as far as the eye could reach from the chain of heights along
the coast_.[8] Middendorff, besides, states that the Yakoot Fomin,
the only person who had passed a winter at Tajmur Bay, declared that
the ice loosens in the sea lying off it in the first half of August,
and that it is driven away from the beach by southerly winds, yet
not further than that the edge of the ice can be seen from the
heights along the coast.

The land between the Tajmur and Cape Chelyuskin was mapped by means
of _sledge_ journeys along the coast by mate Chelyuskin in the year
1742. It is now completely established that the northernmost
promontory of Asia was discovered by him in the month of May in the
year already mentioned, and at that time the sea in its
neighbourhood was of course covered with ice. We have no observation
as to the state of the ice during summer or autumn in the sea lying
immediately to the west of Cape Chelyuskin; but, as the question
relates to the possibility of navigating this sea, this is the place
to draw attention to the fact that Prontschischev, on the 1st
September, 1736, in an open sea, with coasting craft _from the
east_, very nearly reached the north point of Asia, which is
supposed to be situated in 77° 34' N. Lat. and 105° E. Long., and
that the Norwegian walrus-hunters during late autumn have repeatedly
sailed far to the eastward from the north point of Novaya Zemlya
(77° N. Lat., and 68° E. Long.), _without meeting with any ice_.

From what has been already stated, it is evident that for the
present we do not possess any complete knowledge, founded on actual
observations, of the hydrography of the stretch of coast between the
Yenisej and Cape Chelyuskin. I, however, consider that during
September, and possibly the latter half of August, we ought to be
able to reckon with complete certainty on having here ice-free
water, or at least a broad, open channel along the coast, from the
enormous masses of warm water, which the rivers Obi, Irtisch, and
Yenisej, running up through the steppes of High Asia, here pour into
the ocean, after having received water from a river territory,
everywhere strongly heated during the month of August, and more
extensive than that of all the rivers put together, which fall into
the Mediterranean and the Black Seas.

Between Port Dickson and White Island, there runs therefore a strong
fresh-water current, at first in a northerly direction. The
influence which the rotation of the earth exercises, in these high
latitudes, on streams which run approximately in the direction of
the meridian, is, however, very considerable, and gives to those
coming from the south an easterly bend. In consequence of this, the
river water of the Ohi and Yenisej must be confined as in a proper
river channel, at first along the coast of the Tajmur country, until
the current is allowed beyond Cape Chelyuskin to flow unhindered
towards the north-east or east. Near the mouths of the large rivers
I have, during calm weather in this current, in about 74°
N.L., observed the temperature rising off the Yenisej to +9.4°
C. (17th August, 1875), and off the Obi to +8° C. (10th August
of the same year). As is usually the case, this current coming from
the south produces both a cold undercurrent, which in stormy weather
readily mixes with the surface water and cools it, and on the
surface a northerly cold ice-bestrewn counter-current, which, in
consequence of the earth's rotation, takes a bend to the west, and
which evidently runs from the opening between Cape Chelyuskin and
the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya, towards the east side of
this island, and perhaps may be the cause why the large masses of
drift ice are pressed during summer against the east coast of Novaya
Zemlya. According to my own experience and the uniform testimony of
the walrus-hunters, _this ice melts away almost completely during
autumn_.

In order to judge of the distance at which the current coming from
the Obi and the Yenisej can drive away the drift ice, we ought to
remember that even a very weak current exerts an influence on the
position of the ice, and that, for instance, the current from the
Plata River, whose volume of water, however, is not perhaps so great
as that of the Obi and Yenisej, is still clearly perceptible at a
distance of 1,500 kilometres from the river mouth, that is to say,
about three times as far as from Port Dickson to Cape Chelyuskin.
The only bay which can be compared to the Kara Sea in respect of the
area, which is intersected by the rivers running into it, is the
Gulf of Mexico.[9] The river currents from this bay appear to
contribute greatly to the Gulf Stream.

The winds which, during the autumn months, often blow in these
regions from the north-east, perhaps also, in some degree,
contribute to keep a broad channel, along the coast in question,
nearly ice-free.

The knowledge we possess regarding the navigable water to the east
of Cape Chelyuskin towards the Lena, is mainly founded on the
observations of the expeditions which were sent out by the Russian
Government, before the middle of last century, to survey the
northern part of Asia. In order to form a correct judgment of the
results obtained, we must, while fully recognising the great
courage, the extraordinary perseverance, and the power of bearing
sufferings and overcoming difficulties of all kinds, which have
always distinguished the Russian Polar explorers, always keep in
mind that the voyages were carried out with small sailing-vessels of
a build, which, according to modern requirements, is quite
unsuitable for vessels intended for the open sea, and altogether too
weak to stand collision with ice. They wanted, besides, not only the
powerful auxiliary of our time, steam, but also a proper sail rig,
fitted for actual manoeuvring, and were for the most part manned
with crews from the banks of the Siberian rivers, who never before
had seen the water of the ocean, experienced a high sea, or tried
sailing among sea ice. When the requisite attention is given to
these circumstances, it appears to me that the voyages referred to
below show positively that even here we ought to be able during
autumn to reckon upon a navigable sea.

The expeditions along the coast, east of Cape Chelyuskin, started
from the town Yakoutsk, on the bank of the Lena, in 62° N.L.,
upwards of 900 miles from the mouth of the river. Here also were
built the vessels which were used for these voyages.

The first started in 1735, under the command of Marine-Lieutenant
Prontschischev. After having sailed down the river, and passed, on
the 14th August, the eastern mouth-arm of the Lena, he sailed round
the large delta of the river. On the 7th September he had not got
farther than to the mouth of the Olonek. Three weeks had thus been
spent in sailing a distance which an ordinary steamer ought now to
be able to traverse in one day. Ice was seen, but not encountered.
On the other hand, the voyage was delayed by contrary winds,
probably blowing on land, whereby Prontschischev's vessel, if it had
incautiously ventured out, would probably have been cast on the
beach. The late season of the year induced Prontschischev to lay up
his vessel for the winter here, at some summer yourts built by
fur-hunters in 72° 54' N.L. The winter passed happily, and the
following year (1736) Prontschischev again broke up, as soon as the
state of the ice in Olonek Bay permitted, which, however, was not
until the 15th August. The course was shaped along the coast toward
the north-west. Here drift ice was met with, but he nevertheless
made rapid progress, so that on the 1st September he reached 77°
29' N.L., as we now know, in the neighbourhood of Cape Chelyuskin.
Compact masses of ice compelled him to turn here, and the Russians
sailed back to the mouth of the Olonek, which was reached on the
15th September. The distinguished commander of the vessel had died
shortly before of scurvy, and, some days after, his young wife,
who had accompanied him on his difficult voyage, also died. As
these attacks of scurvy did not happen during winter, but immediately
after the close of summer, they form very remarkable contributions
to a judgment of the way in which the Arctic expeditions of that
period were fitted out.

A new expedition, under Marine-Lieutenant Chariton Laptev, sailed
along the same coast in 1739. The Lena was left on the 1st August,
and Cape Thaddeus (76° 47' N.L.) reached on the 2nd September,
the navigation having been obstructed by drift ice only off Chatanga
Bay. Cape Thaddeus is situated only fifty or sixty English miles
from Cape Chelyuskin. They turned here, partly on account of the
masses of drift ice which barred the way, partly on account of the
late season of the year, and wintered at the head of Chatanga Bay,
which was reached on the 8th September. Next year Laptev attempted
to return along the coast to the Lena, but his vessel was nipped by
drift ice off the mouth of the Olonek. After many difficulties and
dangers, all the men succeeded in reaching safely the winter
quarters of the former year. Both from this point and from the
Yenisej, Laptev himself and his second in command, Chelyuskin, and
the surveyor, Tschekin, the following year made a number of sledge
journeys, in order to survey the peninsula which projects farthest
to the north-west from the mainland of Asia.

With this ended the voyages west of the Lena. The northernmost point
of Asia, which was reached from land in 1742 by Chelyuskin, one of
the most energetic members of most of the expeditions which we have
enumerated, could not be reached by sea, and still less had any one
succeeded in forcing his way with a vessel from the Lena to the
Yenisej. Prontschischev had, however, turned on the 1st September,
1736, only some few minutes, and Laptev on the 2nd September, 1739,
only about 50' from the point named, after voyages in vessels, which
clearly were altogether unsuitable for the purpose in view. Among
the difficulties and obstacles which were met with during these
voyages, not only ice, but also unfavourable and stormy winds played
a prominent part. From fear of not being able to reach any winter
station visited by natives, the explorers often turned at that
season of the year when the Polar Sea is most open. With proper
allowance for these circumstances, we may safely affirm that no
serious obstacles to sailing round Cape Chelyuskin would probably
have been met with in the years named, by any steamer properly
fitted out for sailing among ice.

From the sea between the Lena and Behring's Straits there are much
more numerous and complete observations than from that further west.
The hope of obtaining tribute and commercial profit from the wild
races living along the coast tempted the adventurous Russian
hunters, even before the middle of the 17th century, to undertake a
number of voyages along the coast. On a map which is annexed to the
previously quoted work of Müller, founded mainly on researches in
the Siberian archives, there is to be found a sea route pricked out
with the inscription, "_Route anciennement fort fréquentée. Voyage
fait par mer en_ 1648 _par trois vaisseaux russes, dont un est
parvenu jusqu'à la Kamschatka_."[10]

Unfortunately the details of most of these voyages have been
completely forgotten; and, that we have obtained some scanty
accounts of one or other of them, has nearly always depended on some
remarkable catastrophe, on lawsuits or other circumstances which led
to the interference of the authorities. This is even the case with
the most famous of these voyages, that of the Cossack, Deschnev, of
which several accounts have been preserved, only through a dispute
which arose between him and one of his companions, concerning the
right of discovery to a walrus bank on the east coast of Kamschatka.
This voyage, however, was a veritable exploring expedition
undertaken with the approval of the Government, partly for the
discovery of some large islands in the Polar Sea, about which a
number of reports were current among the hunters and natives, partly
for extending the territory yielding tribute to the Russians, over
the yet unknown regions in the north-east.

Deschnev started on the 1st July, 1648, from the Kolyma in command
of one of the seven vessels (_Kotscher_),[11] manned with thirty
men, of which the expedition consisted. Concerning the fate of four
of these vessels we have no information. It is probable that they
turned back, and were not lost, as several writers have supposed;
three, under the command of the Cossacks, Deschnev and Ankudinov,
and the fur-hunter, Kolmogorsov, succeeding in reaching Chutskojnos
through what appears to have been open water. Here Ankudinov's
vessel was shipwrecked; the men, however, were saved and divided
among the other two, which were speedily separated. Deschnev
continued his voyage along the east coast of Kamschatka to the
Anadir, which was reached in October. Ankudinov is also supposed to
have reached the mouth of the Kamschatka River, where he settled
among the natives and finally died of scurvy.

The year following (1649) Staduchin sailed again, for seven days,
eastward from the Kolyma to the neighbourhood of Chutskojnos, in an
open sea, so far as we can gather from the defective account.
Deschnev's own opinion of the possibility of navigating this sea may
be seen from the fact, that, after his own vessel was lost, he had
timber collected at the Anadir for the purpose of building new ones.
With these he intended to send to Yakoutsk the tribute of furs which
he had received from the natives. He was, however, obliged to desist
from his project by an easily understood want of materials for the
building of the new vessels; he remarks also in connection with this
that the sea round Chutskojnos is not free of ice every year.

A number of voyages from the Siberian rivers northward, were also
made after the founding of Nischni Kolymsk, by Michael Staduchin in
1644 in consequence of the reports which were current among the
natives at the coast, of the existence of large inhabited islands,
rich in walrus tusks and mammoth bones, in the Siberian Polar Sea.
Often disputed, but persistently taken up by the hunting races,
these reports have finally been verified by the discovery of the
islands of New Siberia, of Wrangel's Land, and of the part of North
America east of Behring's Straits, whose natural state gave occasion
to the golden glamour of tradition with which the belief of the
common people incorrectly adorned the bleak, treeless islands in the
Polar Sea.

All these attempts to force a passage in the open sea from the
Siberian coasts northwards, failed, for the single reason, that an
open sea with a fresh breeze was as destructive to the craft which
were at the disposal of the adventurous, but ill-equipped Siberian
polar explorer as an ice-filled sea; indeed, more dangerous, for in
the latter case the crew, if the vessel was nipped, generally saved
themselves on the ice, and had only to contend with hunger, snow,
cold, and other difficulties to which the most of them had been
accustomed from their childhood; but in the open sea the ill-built,
weak vessel, caulked with moss mixed with clay, and held together
with willows, leaked already with a moderate sea, and with a
heavier, was helplessly lost, if a harbour could not be reached in
time of need.

The explorers soon preferred to reach the islands by sledge journeys
on the ice, and thus at last discovered the whole of the large group
of islands which is named New Siberia. The islands were often
visited by hunters for the purpose of collecting mammoth tusks, of
which great masses, together with the bones of the mammoth,
rhinoceros, sheep, ox, horse, etc., are found imbedded in the beds
of clay and sand here. Afterwards they were completely surveyed
during Hedenström's expeditions, fitted out by Count Rumanzov,
Chancellor of the Russian Empire, in the years 1809-1811, and during
Lieutenant Anjou's in 1823. Hedenström's expeditions were carried
out by travelling with dog-sledges on the ice, before it broke, to
the islands, passing the summer there, and returning in autumn, when
the sea was again covered with ice. As the question relates to the
possibility of navigating this sea, these expeditions, carried out
in a very praiseworthy way, might be expected to have great
interest, especially through observations from land, concerning the
state of the ice in autumn; but in the short account of Hedenström's
expeditions which is inserted in Wrangel's _Travels_, pp. 99-119,
the only source accessible to me in this respect, there is not a
single word on this point.[12] Information on this subject, so
important for our expedition, has, however, by Mr. Sibiriakoff's
care, been received from inhabitants of North Siberia, who earn
their living by collecting mammoths' tusks on the group of islands
in question. By these accounts the sea between the north coast of
Asia and the islands of New Siberia, is every year pretty free of
ice.

A very remarkable discovery was made in 1811 by a member of
Hedenström's expedition, the Yakoutsk townsman Sannikov; for he
found, on the west coast of the island Katelnoj, remains of a
roughly-timbered winter habitation, in the neighbourhood of the
wreck of a vessel, differing completely in build from those which
are common in Siberia. Partly from this, partly from a number of
tools which lay scattered on the beach, Sannikov drew the
conclusion, that a hunter from Spitzbergen or Novaya Zemlya had been
driven thither by the wind, and had lived there for a season with
his crew. Unfortunately the inscription on a monumental cross in the
neighbourhood of the hut was not translated.

During the great northern expeditions,[13] several attempts were
also made to force a passage eastwards from the Lena. The first was
under the command of Lieutenant Lassinius in 1735. He left the most
easterly mouth-arm of the Lena on the 21st of August, and sailed 120
versts eastward, and there encountered drift ice which compelled him
to seek a harbour at the coast. Here the winter was passed, with the
unfortunate result, that the chief himself, and most of the
fifty-two men belonging to the expedition, perished of scurvy.

The following year, 1736, there was sent out, in the same direction,
a new expedition under Lieutenant Dmitri Laptev. With the vessel of
Lassinius he attempted, in the middle of August, to sail eastward,
but he soon fell in with a great deal of drift ice. So soon as the
end of the month--the time when navigation ought properly to
begin--he turned towards the Lena on account of ice.

In 1739 Laptev undertook his third voyage. He penetrated to the
mouth of the Indigirka, which was frozen over on the 21st September,
and wintered there. The following year the voyage was continued
somewhat beyond the mouth of the Kolyma to Cape Great Baranov, where
further advance was prevented by drift ice on the 26th September.
After having returned to the Kolyma, and wintered at Nischni
Kolymsk, he attempted, the following year, again to make his way
eastwards in some large boats built during winter, but, on account
of fog, contrary winds, and ice, without success. In judging of the
results these voyages yielded, we must take into consideration the
utterly unsuitable vessels in which they were undertaken--at first
in a double sloop, built at Yakoutsk, in 1735, afterwards in two
large boats built at Nischni Kolymsk. If we may judge of the nature
of these craft from those now used on the Siberian rivers, we ought
rather to be surprised that any of them could venture out on a real
sea, than consider the unsuccessful voyages just described as proofs
that there is no probability of being able to force a passage here
with a vessel of modern build, and provided with steam power.

It remains, finally, for me to give an account of the attempts that
have been made to penetrate westward from Behring's Straits.

Deschnev's voyage, from the Lena, through Behring's Straits to the
mouth of the Anadir, in 1648, became completely forgotten in the
course of about a century, until Muller, by searches in the Siberian
archives, recovered the details of these and various other voyages
along the north coast of Siberia. That the memory of these
remarkable voyages has been preserved to after-times, however,
depends, as has been already stated, upon accidental circumstances,
lawsuits, and such like, which led to correspondence with the
authorities. Of other similar undertakings we have certainly no
knowledge, although now and then we find it noted that the Polar Sea
had in former times often been traversed. In accounts of the
expeditions fitted out by the authorities, it, for instance, often
happens that mention is made of meeting with hunters and traders,
who were sailing along the coast in the prosecution of private
enterprise. Little attention was, however, given to these voyages,
and, eighty-one years after Deschnev's voyage, the existence of
straits between the north-eastern extremity of Asia and the
north-western extremity of America was quite unknown, or at least
doubted. Finally, in 1729, Behring anew sailed through the Sound,
and attached his name to it. He did not sail, however, very far (to
172° W. Long.) along the north coast of Asia, although he does
not appear to have met with any obstacle from ice. Nearly fifty
years afterwards Cook concluded in these waters the series of
splendid discoveries with which he enriched geographical science.
After having, in 1778, sailed a good way eastwards along the north
coast of America, he turned towards the west, and reached the 180th
degree of longitude on the 29th August: the fear of meeting with ice
deterred him from sailing further westward, and his vessel appears
to have scarcely been equipped or fitted for sailing among ice.

After Cook's time we know of only three expeditions which have
sailed westwards from Behring's Straits. The first was an American
expedition, under Captain Rodgers, in 1855. He reached, through what
appears to have been open water, the longitude of Cape Yakan
(176° E. from Greenwich). The second was that of the English
steam-whaler Long, who, in 1867, in search of a new profitable
whale-fishing ground, sailed further west than any before him. By
the 10th August he had reached the longitude of Tschaun Bay (170°
E. from Greenwich). He was engaged in whale-fishing, not in
an exploring expedition, and turned here; but, in the short account
he has given of his voyage, he expresses the decided conviction that
a voyage from Behring's Straits to the Atlantic belongs to the
region of possibilities, and adds that, even if this sea-route does
not come to be of any commercial importance, that between the Lena
and Behring's Straits ought to be useful for turning to account the
products of Northern Siberia.[14] Finally, last year a Russian
expedition was sent out to endeavour to reach Wrangel's Land from
Behring's Straits. According to communications in the newspapers, it
was prevented by ice from sailing thence, as well as from sailing
far to the west.

Information has been obtained through Mr. Sibiriakoff, from North
Siberia, regarding the state of the ice in the neighbouring sea. The
hunting in these regions appears to have now fallen off so
seriously, that only few persons were found who could give any
answers to the questions put.

Thus in Yakoutsk there was only one man (a priest) who had been at
the coast of the Polar Sea. He states that when the wind blows off
the land the sea becomes free of ice, but that the ice comes back
when the wind blows on to the land, and thereby exposes the vessels
which cannot reach a safe harbour to great danger.

Another correspondent states, on the ground of observations made during
Tschikanovski's expedition, that in 1875 the sea off the Olonek was
_completely_ free of ice, but adds at the same time that the year in
this respect was an exceptional one. The Arctic Ocean, not only in
summer, but also during winter, is _occasionally_ free of ice, and at a
distance of 200 versts from the coast, the sea is open even in winter,
in what direction, however, is uncertain. The latter fact is also
confirmed by Wrangel's journeys with dog-sledges on the ice in
1821-1823.

A third person says, "According to the information which I have
received, the north coast, from the mouth of the Lena to that of the
Indigirka, is free from ice from July to September. The north wind
drives the ice towards the coast, but not in large masses. According
to the observations of the men who search for mammoth tusks, the sea
is open as far as the southern part of the New Siberia Islands. It
is probable that these islands form a protection against the ice in
the Werchnojan region. It is otherwise on the Kolyma coast; and if
the Kolyma can be reached from Behring's Straits, so certainly can
the Lena."

The circumstance that the ice during summer is driven from the coast
by southerly winds, yet not so far but that it returns, in larger or
smaller quantity, with northerly winds, is further confirmed by
other correspondents, and appears to me to show that the New
Siberian Islands and Wrangel's Land only form links in an extensive
group of islands, running parallel with the north coast of Siberia,
which, on the one hand, keeps the ice from the intermediate sea from
drifting away altogether, and favours the formation of ice during
winter, but, on the other hand, protects the coast from the Polar
ice proper, formed to the north of the islands. The information I
have received besides, refers principally to the summer months. As
in the Kara Sea, which formerly had a yet worse reputation, the ice
here, too, perhaps, melts away for the most part during autumn, so
that at this season we may reckon on a pretty open sea.

Most of the correspondents, who have given information about the
state of the ice in the Siberian Polar Sea, concern themselves
further with the reports current in Siberia, that American whalers
have been seen from the coast far to the westward. The correctness
of these reports was always denied in the most decided way: yet they
rest, at least to some extent, on a basis of fact. For I have myself
met with a whaler, who for three years in a steamer carried on trade
with the inhabitants of the coast from Cape Yakan to Behring's
Straits. He was quite convinced that some years at least it would be
possible to sail from Behring's Straits to the Atlantic. On one
occasion he had returned through Behring's Straits as late as the
17th October.

From what I have thus stated, it follows,--

That the ocean lying north of the north coast of Siberia, between
the mouth of the Yenisej and Tschaun Bay, has never been ploughed by
the keel of any proper sea-going vessel, still less been traversed
by any steamer specially fitted out for navigation among ice:

That the small vessels with which it has been attempted to traverse
this part of the ocean never ventured very far from the coast:

That an open sea, with a fresh breeze, was as destructive for them,
indeed more destructive, than a sea covered with drift ice:

That they almost always sought some convenient winter harbour, just
at that season of the year when the sea is freest of ice, namely,
late summer or autumn:

That, notwithstanding the sea from Cape Chelyuskin to Bearing's
Straits has been repeatedly traversed, no one has yet succeeded in
sailing over the whole extent at once:

That the covering of ice formed during winter along the coast, but
probably not in the open sea, is every summer broken up, giving
origin to extensive fields of drift ice, which are driven, now by a
northerly wind towards the coast, now by a south wind out to sea,
yet not so far but that it comes back to the coast after some days'
northerly wind; whence it appears probable that the Siberian Sea is,
so to say, shut off from the Polar Sea proper, by a series of
islands, of which, for the present, we know only Wrangel's Land and
the islands which form New Siberia.

In this connection it seems to me probable that a well-equipped
steamer would be able without meeting too many difficulties, at
least obstacles from ice, to force a passage this way during autumn
in a few days, and thus not only solve a geographical problem of
several centuries' standing, but also, with all the means that are
now at the disposal of the man of science in researches in
geography, hydrography, geology, and natural history, survey a
hitherto almost unknown sea of enormous extent.

The sea north of Behring's Straits is now visited by hundreds of
whaling steamers, and the way thence to American and European
harbours therefore forms a much-frequented route. Some few decades
back, this was, however, by no means the case. The voyages of
Behring, Cook, Kotzebue, Beechey, and others were then considered as
adventurous, fortunate exploring expeditions of great value and
importance in respect of science, but without any direct practical
utility. For nearly a hundred and fifty years the same was the case
with Spangberg's voyage from Kamschatka to Japan in the year 1739,
by which the exploring expeditions of the Russians, in the
northernmost part of the Pacific Ocean, were connected with those of
the Dutch and the Portuguese to India, and Japan; and in case our
expedition succeeds in reaching the Suez Canal, after having
circumnavigated Asia, there will meet us there a splendid work,
which, more than any other, reminds us, that what to-day is declared
by experts to be impossible, is often carried into execution
to-morrow.

I am also fully convinced that it is not only possible to sail along
the north coast of Asia, provided circumstances are not too
unfavourable, but that such an enterprise will be of incalculable
practical importance, by no means directly, as opening a new
commercial route, but indirectly, by the impression which would
thereby be communicated of the practical utility of a communication
by sea between the ports of North Scandinavia and the Obi and
Yenisej, on the one hand, and between the Pacific Ocean and the Lena
on the other.

Should the expedition, contrary to expectation, not succeed in
carrying out the programme which has been arranged in its entirety,
it ought not to be looked upon as having failed. In such a case the
expedition will remain for a considerable time at places on the
north coast of Siberia, suitable for scientific research. Every mile
beyond the mouth of the Yenisej is a step forward to a complete
knowledge of our globe--an object which sometime or other must be
attained, and towards which it is a point of honour for every
civilised nation to contribute in its proportion.

Men of science will have an opportunity, in these hitherto unvisited
waters, of answering a number of questions regarding the former and
present state of the Polar countries, of which more than one is of
sufficient weight and importance to lead to such an expedition as
the present. I may be permitted here to refer to only a few of
these.

If we except that part of the Kara Sea which has been surveyed by
the two last Swedish expeditions, we have for the present no
knowledge of the vegetable and animal life in the sea which washes
the north coast of Siberia. Quite certainly we shall here, in
opposition to what has been hitherto supposed, meet with the same
abundance of animals and plants as in the sea round Spitzbergen. In
the Siberian Polar sea, the animal and vegetable types, so far as we
can judge beforehand, exclusively consist of survivals from the
glacial period, which next preceded the present, which is not the
case in the Polar Sea, where the Gulf Stream distributes its waters,
and whither it thus carries types from more southerly regions. But a
complete and exact knowledge of which animal types are of glacial,
and which of Atlantic origin, is of the greatest importance, not
only for zoology and the geography of animals, but also for the
geology of Scandinavia, and especially for the knowledge of our
loose earthy layers.

Few scientific discoveries have so powerfully captivated the
interest, both of the learned and unlearned, as that of the colossal
remains of elephants, sometimes well preserved, with flesh and hair,
in the frozen soil of Siberia. Such discoveries have more than once
formed the object of scientific expeditions, and careful researches
by eminent men; but there is still much that is enigmatical with
respect to a number of circumstances connected with the mammoth
period of Siberia, which _perhaps_ was contemporaneous with our
glacial period. Specially is our knowledge of the animal and
vegetable types, which lived contemporaneously with the mammoth,
exceedingly incomplete, although we know that in the northernmost
parts of Siberia, which are also most inaccessible from land, there
are small hills covered with the bones of the mammoth and other
contemporaneous animals, and that there is found everywhere in that
region so-called Noah's wood, that is to say, half-petrified or
carbonised vegetable remains from several different geological
periods.

Taking a general view of the subject, we see that an investigation,
as complete as possibly, of the geology of the Polar countries, so
difficult of access, is a condition indispensable to a knowledge of
the former history of our globe. In order to prove this I need only
point to the epoch-making influence which has been exerted on
geological theories by the discovery, in the rocks and earthy layers
of the Polar countries, of beautiful fossil plants from widely
separated geological periods. In this field too our expedition to
the north coast of Siberia ought to expect to reap abundant
harvests. There are besides to be found in Siberia, strata which
have been deposited almost contemporaneously with the coal-bearing
formations of South Sweden, and which therefore contain animal and
vegetable petrifications which just now are of very special interest
for geological science in our own country, with reference to the
discoveries of splendid fossil plants which of late years have been
made at several places among us, and give us so lively an idea of
the sub-tropical vegetation which in former times covered the
Scandinavian peninsula.

Few sciences perhaps will yield so important practical results as
meteorology is likely to do at some future date--a fact, or rather
an already partly realised expectation, which has won general
recognition, as is shown by the large sums which in all civilised
countries have been set apart for establishing meteorological
offices and for encouraging meteorological research. But the state
of the weather in a country is so dependent on the temperature,
wind, pressure of the air, etc., in very remote regions that the
laws of the meteorology of a country can only be ascertained by
comparing observations from the most distant regions. Several
international meteorological enterprises have already been started,
and we may almost consider the meteorological institutions of the
different countries as separate departments of one and the same
office, distributed over the whole world, through whose harmonious
co-operation the object in view shall one day be reached. But,
beyond the places for which daily series of observations may be
obtained, there are regions hundreds of square miles in extent from
which no observations, or only scattered ones, are yet to be had,
and here notwithstanding we have just the key to many meteorological
phenomena, otherwise difficult of explanation, within the civilised
countries of Europe. Such a meteorological territory, unknown, but
of the greatest importance, is formed by the Polar Sea lying to the
north of Siberia, and the land and islands there situated. It is of
great importance for the meteorology of Europe and of Sweden to
obtain trustworthy accounts of the distribution of the land, of the
state of the ice, the pressure of the air, and the temperature in
that in these respects little-known part of the globe, and the
Swedish expedition will here have a subject for investigation of
direct importance for our own country.

To a certain extent the same may be said of the contributions which
may be obtained from those regions to our knowledge of terrestrial
magnetism, of the aurora, etc. There are, besides, the examination
of the flora and fauna in those countries, hitherto unknown in this
respect, ethnographical researches, hydrographical work, etc.

I have of course only been able to notice shortly the scientific
questions which will meet the expedition during a stay of some
length on the north coast of Siberia, but what has been said may
perhaps be sufficient to show that the expedition, even if its
geographical objects were not attained, ought to be a worthy
continuation of similar enterprises which have been set on foot in
this country, and which have brought gain to science and honour to
Sweden.

Should the expedition again, as I hope, be able to reach Behring's
Straits with little hindrance, and thus in a comparatively short
time--in that case indeed the time, which on the way can be devoted
to researches in natural history, will be quite too short for
solving many of the scientific questions I have mentioned. But
without reckoning the world-historical navigation problem which will
then be solved, extensive contributions of immense importance ought
also to be obtainable regarding the geography, hydrography, zoology,
and botany of the Siberian Polar Sea, and, beyond Behring's Straits,
the expedition will meet with other countries having a more
luxuriant and varied nature, where other questions which perhaps
concern us less, but are not on that account of less importance for
science as a whole, will claim the attention of the observer and
yield him a rich reward for his labour and pains. These are the
considerations which formed the grounds for the arrangement of the
plan of the expedition which is now in question.

It is my intention to leave Sweden in the beginning of July, 1878,
in a steamer, specially built for navigation among ice, which will
be provisioned for two years at most, and which, besides a
scientific staff of four or five persons, will have on board a naval
officer, a physician, and at most eighteen men--petty officers and
crew, preferably volunteers, from your Royal Majesty's navy. Four
walrus-hunters will also be hired in Norway. The course will be
shaped at first to Matotschkin Sound, in Novaya Zemlya, where a
favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara
Sea. Afterwards the voyage will be continued to Port Dickson, at the
mouth of the Yenisej, which I hope to be able to reach in the first
half of August. As soon as circumstances permit, the expedition will
continue its voyage from this point in the open channel which the
river-water of the Obi and the Yenisej must indisputably form along
the coast to Cape Chelyuskin, possibly with some short excursions
towards the north-west in order to see whether any large island is
to be found between the northern part of Novaya Zemlya and New
Siberia.

At Cape Chelyuskin the expedition will reach the only part of the
proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel,
and this place is perhaps rightly considered as that which it will
be most difficult for a vessel to double during the whole north-east
passage. As Prontschischev, in 1736, in small river craft built with
insufficient means reached within a few minutes of this
north-westernmost promontory of our vessel, equipped with all modern
appliances, ought not to find insuperable difficulties in doubling
this point, and if that be accomplished, we will probably have
pretty open water towards Behring's Straits, which ought to be
reached before the end of September.

If time, and the state of the ice permit, it would be desirable that
the expedition during this voyage should make some excursions
towards the north, in order to ascertain whether land is not to be
found between Cape Chelyuskin and the New Siberian group of islands,
and between it and Wrangel's Land. From Behring's Straits the course
will be shaped, with such stoppages as circumstances give rise to,
for some Asiatic port, from which accounts may be sent home, and
then onwards round Asia to Suez. Should the expedition be prevented
from forcing a passage east of Cape Chelyuskin, it will depend on
circumstances which it is difficult to foresee, whether it will
immediately return to Europe, in which case the vessel with its
equipment and crew may be immediately available for some other
purpose, or whether it ought not to winter in some suitable harbour
in the bays at the mouths of the Tajmur, Pjäsina, or Yenisej. Again,
in case obstacles from ice occur east of Cape Chelyuskin, a harbour
ought to be sought for at some convenient place on the north coast
of Siberia, from which, during the following summer, opportunities
would be found for important surveys in the Polar Sea, and during
the course of the summer some favourable opening will also certainly
occur, when southerly winds have driven the ice from the coast, for
reaching Behring's Straits. Probably also, if it be necessary to
winter, there will be opportunities of sending home letters from the
winter station.

[Illustration]

[Footnote 1: The expeditions to Spitzbergen in 1868, to Greenland in
1870, to Spitzbergen in 1872-73, and to the Yenisej in 1875 and 1876. ]

[Footnote 2: The first cargo of goods from Europe to the Yenisej was
taken thither by me in the _Ymer_ in 1876. The first vessel that
sailed from the Yenisej to the Atlantic was a sloop, _The Dawn_,
built at Yeniseisk, commanded by the Russian merchant captain,
Schwanenberg, in 1877. ]

[Footnote 3: In order to obtain sufficient room for coal and
provisions most of these tanks were taken out at Karlskrona. ]

[Footnote 4: The consumption of coal, however, was reckoned by
Captain Palander at twelve cubic feet or 0.3 cubic metre an hour,
with a speed of seven knots. ]

[Footnote 5: The preserved provisions were purchased part from Z.
Wikström of Stockholm, part from J.D. Beauvois of Copenhagen. ]

[Footnote 6: The potatoes were to be delivered at Gothenburg on the
1st July. In order to keep, they had to be newly taken up and yet
_ripe_. They were therefore procured from the south through Mr. Carl
W. Boman of Stockholm. Of these, certainly one of the best of all
anti-scorbutics, we had still some remaining on our arrival at
Japan. ]

[Footnote 7: A carefully written account of these voyages will be
found in _Reise des Kaiserlich-russischen Flotten-Lieutenants
Ferdinand von Wrangel längs der Nordküste von Siberien und auf dem
Eismeere_, 1820-1824, bearbeitet von G. Engelhardt, Berlin, 1839;
and G.P. Müller, _Voyages et Découvertes faites par les Russes le
long des Côtes de la Mer Glaciale_, &c. Amsterdam: 1766. ]

[Footnote 8: Th. von Middendorff, _Reise in dem äussersten Norden
und Osten Siberiens_, vol. iv. I., pages 21 and 508 (1867). ]

[Footnote 9: Compare von Middendorff, _Reise im Norden u. Osten
Siberiens_ (1848), part i., page 59, and a paper by von Baer, _Ueber
das Klima des Tajmurlandes_. ]

[Footnote 10: The map bears the title, "Nouvelle carte des découvertes
faites par des vaisseaux Russiens, etc., dressée sur des mémoires
authentiques de ceux qui ont assisté à ces découvertes, et sur d'autres
connaissances dont on rend raison dans un mémoire séparé. St.
Pétersbourg à l'Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1758." ]

[Footnote 11: Pretty broad, flat-bottomed, keelless vessels, 12
fathoms long, generally moved forward by rowing; sail only used with
fair wind (_Wrangels Reise_, p. 4). ]

[Footnote 12: Wrangel's own journeys were carried out during winter,
with dog sledges on the ice, and, however interesting in many other
respects, do not yield any other direct contribution to our
knowledge of the state of the ice in summer and autumn. ]

[Footnote 13: This is a common name for the many Russian expeditions
which, during the years 1734-1743, were sent into the North Polar
Sea from the Dwina, Obi, Yenisej, Lena, and Kamschatka. ]

[Footnote 14: _Petermann's Mittheilungen_, 1868, p. 1, and 1869, p. 32. ]



CHAPTER I.

    Departure--Tromsoe--Members of the Expedition--Stay at
    Maosoe--Limit of Trees--Climate--Scurvy and Antiscorbutics--
    The first doubling of North Cape--Othere's account of his
    Travels--Ideas concerning the Geography of Scandinavia
    current during the first half of the sixteenth century--
    The oldest Maps of the North--Herbertstein's account of
    Istoma's voyage--Gustaf Vasa and the North-east Passage--
    Willoughby and Chancelor's voyages.


The _Vega_ left the harbour of Karlskrona on the 22nd June, 1878.
Including Lieutenants Palander and Brusewitz, there were then on
board nineteen men belonging to the Swedish navy, and two foreign
naval officers, who were to take part in the expedition--Lieutenants
Hovgaard and Bove. The two latter had lived some time at Karlskrona
in order to be present at the fitting out and repairing of the
vessel.

On the 24th June the _Vega_ called at Copenhagen in order to take on
board the large quantity of provisions which had been purchased
there. On the 26th June the voyage was resumed to Gothenburg, where
the _Vega_ anchored on the 27th. During the passage there was on
board the famous Italian geographer, Commendatore CHRISTOFORO NEGRI,
who, for several years back, had followed with special interest all
Arctic voyages, and now had received a commission from the
Government of his native country to be present at the departure of
the _Vega_ from Sweden, and to make himself acquainted with its
equipment, &c. At Gothenburg there embarked Docent Kjellman, Dr.
Almquist, Dr. Stuxberg, Lieutenant Nordquist, and an assistant to
the naturalists, who had been hired in Stockholm; and here were
taken on board the greater part of the scientific equipment of the
expedition, and various stocks of provisions, clothes, &c., that had
been purchased in Sweden.

[Illustration: TROMSOE. After a photograph by Glaus Knudsen,
Christiania. ]

On the 4th July the _Vega_ left the harbour of Gothenburg. While
sailing along the west coast of Norway there blew a fresh head wind,
by which the arrival of the vessel at Tromsoe was delayed till the
17th July. Here I went on board. Coal, water, reindeer furs[15] for
all our men, and a large quantity of other stores, bought in Finmark
for the expedition, were taken in here; and three walrus-hunters,
hired for the voyage, embarked.

On the 21st July the whole equipment of the _Vega_ was on board, the
number of its crew complete, all clear for departure, and the same
day at 2.15 P.M. we weighed anchor, with lively hurrahs from a
numerous crowd assembled at the beach, to enter in earnest on our
Arctic voyage.

The members of the expedition on board the _Vega_ were--


A.E. Nordenskiöld, Professor, in command
of the expedition........................ born 18th Nov.  1832

A.A.L. Palander, Lieutenant, now Captain
in the Royal Swedish Navy, chief
of the steamer _Vega_..................... ,,   2nd Oct.  1840

F.R. Kjellman, Ph.D., Docent in Botany
in the University of Upsala, superintendent
of the botanical work of the
expedition..............................   ,,   4th Nov.  1846

A.J. Stuxberg, Ph.D., superintendent
of the zoological work...................  ,,  18th April 1849

E. Almquist, Candidate of Medicine,
medical officer of the expedition,
lichenologist...........................   ,,   8th Aug.  1852

E.O. Brusewitz, Lieutenant in the Royal
Swedish Navy, second in command of
the vessel..............................   ,,   1st Dec.  1844

G. Bove, Lieutenant in the Royal Italian
Navy, superintendent of the hydrographical
work of the expedition .................   ,,  23rd Oct.  1853

A. Hovgaard, Lieutenant in the Royal
Danish Navy, superintendent of the
magnetical and meteorological work
of the expedition.......................   ,,   1st Nov.  1853

O. Nordquist, Lieutenant in the Imperial
Russian Regiment of Guards,
interpreter, assistant zoologist........   ,,  20th May   1858

R. Nilsson, sailing-master .............   ,,   5th Jan.  1837

F.A. Pettersson, first engineer.........   ,,   3rd July  1835

O. Nordström, second engineer...........   ,,  24th Feb.  1855

C. Carlström, fireman ..................   ,,  14th Dec.  1845

O. Ingelsson, fireman...................   ,,   2nd Feb.  1849

O. Oeman, seaman........................   ,,  23rd April 1843

G. Carlsson, seaman.....................   ,,  22nd Sep.  1843

C. Lundgren, seaman.....................   ,,   5th July  1851

O. Hansson, seaman......................   ,,   6th April 1856

D. Asplund, boatswain, cook.............   ,,  28th Jan.  1827

C.J. Smaolaenning, boatswain...........   ,,  27th Sep.  1839

C. Levin, boatswain, steward............   ,,  24th Jan.  1844

P.M. Lustig, boatswain..................   ,,  22nd April 1845

C. Ljungstrom, boatswain................   ,,  12th Oct.  1845

P. Lind, boatswain......................   ,,  15th Sep.  1856

P.O. Faeste, boatswain..................  born 23rd Sep.  1856

S. Andersson, carpenter.................   ,,   3rd Sep.  1847

J. Haugan, walrus-hunter[16]............   ,,  23rd Jan.  1825

P. Johnsen, walrus-hunter...............   ,,  15th May   1845

P. Sivertsen, walrus-hunter.............   ,,   2nd Jan.  1853

Th. A. Bostrom, assistant to the scientific
men.....................................   ,,  21st Sep.  1857


There was also on board the _Vega_ during the voyage from Tromsoe to
Port Dickson, as commissioner for Mr. Sibiriakoff, Mr. S.J.
Serebrenikoff, who had it in charge to oversee the taking on board
and the landing of the goods that were to be carried to and from
Siberia in the _Fraser_ and _Express_. These vessels had sailed
several days before from Vardoe to Chabarova in Yugor Schar, where
they had orders to wait for the _Vega_. The _Lena_, again, the
fourth vessel that was placed at my disposal, had, in obedience to
orders, awaited the _Vega_ in the harbour of Tromsoe, from which
port these two steamers were now to proceed eastwards in company.

After leaving Tromsoe, the course was shaped at first within the
archipelago to Maosoe, in whose harbour the _Vega_ was to make some
hours' stay, for the purpose of posting letters in the post-office
there, probably the most northerly in the world. But during this
time so violent a north-west wind began to blow, that we were
detained there three days.

Maosoe is a little rocky island situated in 71° N.L.,
thirty-two kilometres south-west from North Cape, in a region
abounding in fish, about halfway between Bred Sound and Mageroe
Sound. The eastern coast of the island is indented by a bay, which
forms a well-protected harbour. Here, only a few kilometres south of
the northernmost promontory of Europe, are to be found, besides a
large number of fishermen's huts, a church, shop, post-office,
hospital, &c.; and I need scarcely add, at least for the benefit of
those who have travelled in the north of Norway, several friendly,
hospitable families in whose society we talked away many hours of
our involuntary stay in the neighbourhood. The inhabitants of course
live on fish. All agriculture is impossible here. Potatoes have
indeed sometimes yielded an abundant crop on the neighbouring Ingoe
(71° 5' N.L.), but their cultivation commonly fails, in
consequence of the shortness of the summer; on the other hand,
radishes and a number of other vegetables are grown with success in
the garden-beds. Of wild berries there is found here the red
whortleberry, yet in so small quantity that one can seldom collect a
quart or two: the bilberry is somewhat more plentiful; but the
grapes of the north, the cloudberry (_multer_), grow in profuse
abundance. From an area of several square fathoms one can often
gather a couple of quarts. There is no wood here--only bushes.

[Illustration: OLD-WORLD POLAR DRESS. Lapp, after original in the
Northern Museum, Stockholm. ]

[Illustration: NEW WORLD POLAR DRESS. Greenlanders, after an old
painting in the Ethnographical Museum, Copenhagen.[17] ]

[Illustration: LIMIT OF TREES IN NORWAY. At Præstevandet, on
Tromsoen, after a photograph. ]

In the neighbourhood of North Cape, the wood, for the present, does
not go quite to the coast of the Polar Sea, but at sheltered places,
situated at a little distance from the beach, birches,[18] three to
four metres high, are already to be met with. In former times,
however, the outer archipelago itself was covered with trees, which
is proved by the tree-stems, found imbedded in the mosses on the
outer islands on the coast of Finmark, for instance, upon Renoe. In
Siberia the limit of trees runs to the beginning of the estuary
delta, _i.e._, to about 72° N.L.[19] As the latitude of North
Cape is 71° 10', the wood in Siberia at several places, viz,
along the great rivers, goes considerably farther north than in
Europe. This depends partly on the large quantity of warm water
which these rivers, in summer, carry down from the south, partly on
the transport of seeds with the river water, and on the more
favourable soil, which consists of a rich mould, yearly renewed by
inundations, but in Norway again for the most part of rocks of
granite and gneiss or of barren beds of sand. Besides, the limit of
trees has a quite dissimilar appearance in Siberia and Scandinavia:
in the latter country, the farthest outposts of the forests towards
the north consist of scraggy birches, which, notwithstanding
their stunted stems, clothe the mountain sides with a very
lively and close green; while in Siberia the outermost trees are
gnarled and half-withered larches (_Larix daliurica_, Turez),
which stick up over the tops of the hills like a thin grey
brush.[20] North of this limit there are to be seen on the Yenisej
luxuriant bushes of willow and alder. That in Siberia too, the
large wood, some hundreds or thousands of years ago, went
farther north than now, is shown by colossal tree-stumps found
still standing in the _tundra_, nor is it necessary now to go far
south of the extreme limit, before the river banks are to be
seen crowned with high, flourishing, luxuriant trees.

[Illustration: LIMIT OF TREES IN SIBERIA. At Boganida, after
Middendorff. ]

[Illustration: THE CLOUDBERRY (RUBUS CHAMÆMORUS, L.) Fruit of the
natural size. Flowering stalks diminished. ]

The climate at Maosoe is not distinguished by any severe winter
cold,[21] but the air is moist and raw nearly all the year round.
The region would however be very healthy, did not scurvy, especially
in humid winters, attack the population, educated and uneducated,
rich and poor, old and young. According to a statement made by a
lady resident on the spot, very severe attacks of scurvy are cured
without fail by preserved cloudberries and rum. Several spoonfuls
are given to the patient daily, and a couple of quarts of the
medicine is said to be sufficient for the complete cure of children
severely attacked by the disease. I mention this new method of using
the cloudberry, the old well-known antidote to scurvy, because I am
convinced that future Polar expeditions, if they will avail
themselves of the knowledge of this cure, will find that it conduces
to the health and comfort of all on board, and that the medicine is
seldom refused, unless it be by too obstinate abstainers from
spirituous liquors.


It enters into the plan of this work, as the _Vega_ sails along, to
give a brief account of the voyages of the men who first opened the
route along which she advances, and who thus, each in his measure,
contributed to prepare the way for the voyage whereby the passage
round Asia and Europe has now at last been accomplished. On this
account it is incumbent on me to begin by giving a narrative of the
voyage of discovery during which the northernmost point of Europe
was first doubled, the rather because this narrative has besides
great interest for us, as containing much remarkable information
regarding the condition of the former population in the north of
Scandinavia.

This voyage was accomplished about a thousand years ago by a Norwegian,
OTHERE, from Halogaland or Helgeland, that part of the Norwegian coast
which lies between 65° and 66° N.L. Othere, who appears to have
travelled far and wide, came in one of his excursions to the court of
the famous English king, Alfred the Great. In presence of this king he
gave, in a simple, graphic style, a sketch of a voyage which he had
undertaken from his home in Norway towards the north and east. The
narrative has been preserved by its having been incorporated, along with
an account of the travels of another Norseman, Wulfstan, to the southern
part of the Baltic, in the first chapter of Alfred's Anglo-Saxon
reproduction of the history of PAULUS OROSIUS: _De Miseria Mundi_.[22]
This work has since been the subject of translation and exposition by a
great number of learned men, among whom may be named here the
Scandinavians, H.G. PORTHAN of Åbo, RASMUS RASK and C-CHR. RAFN of
Copenhagen.

Regarding Othere's relations to King Alfred statements differ. Some
inquirers suppose that he was only on a visit at the court of the
king, others that he had been sent out by King Alfred on voyages of
discovery, and finally, others say that he was a prisoner of war,
who incidentally narrated his experience of foreign lands. Othere's
account of his travels runs as follows:--

    "Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt
    northmost of all the Northmen. He said that he dwelt in
    the land to the northward, along the West-Sea; he said,
    however, that that land is very long north from thence,
    but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Fins
    at times dwell, hunting in the winter, and in the summer
    fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try,
    once on a time, how far that country extended due north,
    or whether any one lived to the north of the waste. He
    then went due north along the country, leaving all the way
    the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left.
    After three days he was as far north as the whale-hunters
    go at the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due
    north, as far as he could sail within another three days;
    then the land there inclined due east, or the sea into the
    land, he knew not which; but he knew that he waited there
    for a west wind or a little north, and sailed thence
    eastward along that land as far as he could sail in four
    days. Then he had to wait for a due north wind because the
    land inclined there due south, or the sea in on that land,
    he knew not which. He then sailed along the coast due
    south, as far as he could sail in five days. There lay a
    great river up in that land; they then turned in that
    river, because they durst not sail on up the river on
    account of hostility; because all that country was
    inhabited on the other side of the river. He had not
    before met with any land that was inhabited since he left
    his own home; but all the way he had waste land on his
    right, except some fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of
    whom were Fins: and he had constantly a wide sea to the
    left. The Beormas had well cultivated their country, but
    they (Othere and his companions) did not dare to enter it.
    And the Terfinna[23] land was all waste, except where
    hunters, fishers, or fowlers had taken up their quarters.

    "The Beormas told him many particulars both of their own
    land and of other lands lying around them; but he knew not
    what was true because he did not see it himself. It seemed
    to him that the Fins and the Beormas spoke nearly the same
    language. He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing
    the country, on account of the walruses,[24] because they
    have very noble bones in their teeth, of which the
    travellers brought some to the king; and their hides are
    very good for ship-ropes. These whales are much less than
    other whales, not being longer than seven ells. But in his
    own country is the best whale-hunting. There they are
    eight-and-forty ells long, and the largest are fifty ells
    long. Of these he said he and five others had killed sixty
    in two days.[25] He was a very wealthy man in those
    possessions in which their wealth consists, that is, in
    wild deer. He had at the time he came to the king, six
    hundred unsold tame deer. These deer they call rein-deer,
    of which there were six decoy rein-deer, which are very
    valuable among the Fins, because they catch the wild
    rein-deer with them.

    "He was one of the first men in that country, yet he had
    not more than twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep and
    twenty swine, and the little that he ploughed he ploughed
    with horses. But their wealth consists mostly in the rent
    paid them by the Fins. That rent is in skins of animals
    and birds' feathers, and whalebone, and in ship-ropes made
    of whales'[26] hides, and of seals'. Every one pays
    according to his birth; the best-born, it is said, pay the
    skins of fifteen martens, and five rein-deers, and one
    bear's skin, ten ambers of feathers, a bear's or otter's
    skin kyrtle, and two ship-ropes, each sixty ells long,
    made either of whale or of seal hide."

The continuation of Othere's narrative consists of a sketch of the
Scandinavian peninsula, and of a journey which he undertook from his
home towards the south. King Alfred then gives an account of the
Dane, Wulfstan's voyage in the Baltic. This part of the introduction
to Orosius, however, has too remote a connection with my subject to
be quoted in this historical sketch.

[Illustration: NORSE SHIP OF THE TENTH CENTURY. Drawn with reference
to the vessel found at Sandefjord in 1880, under the superintendence
of Ingvald Undset, Assistant at the Christiania University's
collection of Northern antiquities. ]

It appears from Othere's simple and very clear narrative that he
undertook a veritable voyage of discovery in order to explore the
unknown lands and sea lying to the north-east. This voyage was also
very rich in results, as in the course of it the northernmost part
of Europe was circumnavigated. Nor perhaps is there any doubt that
during this voyage Othere penetrated as far as to the mouth of the
Dwina or at least of the Mesen in the land of the Beormas.[27] We
learn from the narrative besides, that the northernmost part of
Scandinavia was already, though sparsely, peopled by Lapps, whose
mode of life did not differ much from that followed by their
descendants, who live on the coast at the present day.

[Illustration: Map of North Europe, from Nicholas Donis's edition
of Ptolemy's _Cosmographia_, Ulm, 1482. ]

[Illustration: Map of the North, from Jakob Ziegler's _Schondia_,
Strassburg, 1532. ]

[Illustration: Map of North Europe from _Olai Magni Historia de gentium
septentrionalium variis conditionibus_, Basil, 1567. ]

The Scandinavian race first migrated to Finmark and settled there in
the 13th century, and from that period there was naturally spread
abroad in the northern countries a greater knowledge of those
regions, which, however, was for a long time exceedingly incomplete,
and even in certain respects less correct than Othere's. The idea of
the northernmost parts of Europe, which was current during the first
half of the 16th century, is shown by lithographed copies of two
maps of the north, one dated 1482, the other 1532,[28] which are
appended to this work. On the latter of these Greenland is still
delineated as connected with Norway in the neighbourhood of
Vardoehus. This map, however, is grounded, according to the
statement of the author in the introduction, among other sources, on
the statements of two archbishops of the diocese of Nidaro,[29] to
which Greenland and Finmark belonged, and from whose inhabited parts
expeditions were often undertaken both for trade and plunder, by
land and sea, as far away as to the land of the Beormas. It is
difficult to understand how with such maps of the distribution of
land in the north the thought of the north-east passage could arise,
if voices were not even then raised for an altogether opposite view,
grounded partly on a survival of the old idea, we may say the old
popular belief, that Asia, Europe and Africa were surrounded by
water, partly on stories of Indians having been driven by wind to
Europe, along the north coast of Asia.[30] To these was added in
1539 the map of the north by the Swedish bishop OLAUS MAGNUS,[31]
which for the first time gave to Scandinavia an approximately
correct boundary towards the north. Six hundred years,[32] in any
case, had run their course before Othere found a successor in Sir
Hugh Willoughby; and it is usual to pass by the former, and to
ascribe to the latter the honour of being the first in that long
succession of men who endeavoured to force a passage by the
north-east from the Atlantic Ocean to China.

Here however it ought to be remarked that while such maps as those
of Ziegler were published in western Europe, other and better
knowledge of the regions in question prevailed in the north. For it
may be considered certain that Norwegians, Russians and Karelians
often travelled in boats on peaceful or warlike errands, during the
fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, from the west
coast of Norway to the White Sea, and in the opposite direction,
although we find nothing on record regarding such journeys except
the account that SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN[33] gives, in his famous
book on Russia, of the voyage of GREGORY ISTOMA and the envoy DAVID
from the White Sea to Trondhjem in the year 1496.

The voyage is inserted under the distinctive title _Navigatio per
Mare Glaciale_[34] and the narrative begins with an explanation that
Herbertstein got it from Istoma himself, who, when a youth, had
learned Latin in Denmark. As the reasons for choosing the unusual,
long, "but safe" circuitous route over the North Sea in preference
to the shorter way that was usually taken, Istoma gives the disputes
between Sweden and Russia, and the revolt of Sweden against Denmark,
at the time when the voyage was undertaken (1496). After giving an
account of his journey from Moscow to the mouth of the Dwina, he
continues thus:--

    "After having gone on board of four boats, they kept first
    along the right bank of the ocean, where they saw very
    high mountain, peaks;[35] and after having in this way
    travelled sixteen miles, and crossed an arm of the sea,
    they followed the western strand, leaving on their right
    the open sea, which like the neighbouring mountains has
    its name from the river Petzora. They came here to a
    people called Fin-Lapps, who, though they dwell in low
    wretched huts by the sea, and live almost like wild
    beasts, in any case are said to be much more peaceable
    than the people who are called wild Lapps. Then, after
    they had passed the land of the Lapps and sailed forward
    eighty miles, they came to the land, Nortpoden, which is
    part of the dominions of the King of Sweden. This region
    the Rutheni call Kayenska Selma, and the people they call
    Kayeni. After sailing thence along a very indented coast
    which jutted out to the right, they came to a peninsula,
    called the Holy Nose,[36] consisting of a great rock,
    which like a nose projects into the sea. But in this there
    is a grotto or hollow which for six hours at a time
    swallows up water, and then with great noise and din casts
    out again in whirls the water which it had swallowed. Some
    call it the navel of the sea, others Charybdis. It is said
    that this whirlpool has such power, that it draws to
    itself ships and other things in its neighbourhood and
    swallows them. Istoma said that he had never been in such
    danger as at that place, because the whirlpool drew the
    ship in which he travelled with such force, that it was
    only by extreme exertion at the oars that they could
    escape. After passing this _Holy Nose_ they came to a
    rocky promontory, which they had to sail round. After
    having waited here some days on account of head winds, the
    skipper said: 'This rock, which ye see, is called Semes,
    and we shall not get so easily past it if it be not
    propitiated by some offering.' Istoma said that he
    reproved the skipper for his foolish superstition, on
    which the reprimanded skipper said nothing more. They
    waited thus the fourth day at the place on account of the
    stormy state of the sea, but after that the storm ceased,
    and the anchor was weighed. When the voyage was now
    continued with a favourable wind, the skipper said: 'You
    laughed at my advice to propitiate the Semes rock, and
    considered it a foolish superstition, but it certainly
    would have been impossible for us to get past it, if I had
    not secretly by night ascended the rock and sacrificed.'
    To the inquiry what he had offered, the skipper replied:
    'I scattered oatmeal mixed with butter on the projecting
    rock which we saw.' As they sailed further they came to
    another great promontory, called Motka, resembling a
    peninsula. At the end of this there was a castle, Barthus,
    which means _vakthus_, watch-house, for there the King of
    Norway keeps a guard to protect his frontiers. The
    interpreter said that this promontory was so long that it
    could scarcely be sailed round in eight days, on which
    account, in order not to be delayed in this way, they
    carried their boats and baggage with great labour on their
    shoulders over land for the distance of about half a mile.
    They then sailed on along the land of the Dikilopps or
    wild Lapps to a place which is called Dront (Trondhjem)
    and lies 200 miles north of[37] the Dwina. And they said
    that the prince of Moscow used to receive tribute as far
    as to this place."

The narrative is of interest, because it gives us an idea of the way
in which men travelled along the north coast of Norway, four hundred
years ago. It may possibly have had an indirect influence on the
sending of Sir Hugh Willoughby's expedition, as the edition of
Herbertstein's work printed at Venice in 1550 probably soon became
known to the Venetian, Cabot, who, at that time, as Grand Pilot of
England, superintended with great care the fitting out of the first
English expedition to the north-east.

There is still greater probability that the map of Scandinavia by
Olaus Magnus, already mentioned, was known in England before 1553.
This map is an expression of a view which before that time had taken
root in the north, which, in opposition to the maps of the
South-European cosmographers, assumed the existence of an open
sea-communication in the north, between the Chinese Sea and the
Atlantic, and which even induced GUSTAF VASA to attempt to bring
about a north-east expedition. This unfortunately did not come to
completion, and all that we know of it is contained in a letter to
the Elector August of Saxony, from the Frenchman HUBERT LANGUET, who
visited Sweden in 1554. In this letter, dated 1st April 1576,
Languet says:--"When I was in Sweden twenty-two years ago, King
Gustaf often talked with me about this sea route. At last he urged
me to undertake a voyage in this direction, and promised to fit out
two vessels with all that was necessary for a protracted voyage, and
to man them with the most skilful seamen, who should do what I
ordered. But I replied that I preferred journeys in inhabitated
regions to the search for new unsettled lands."[38] If Gustaf Vasa
had found a man fit to carry out his great plans, it might readily
have happened that Sweden would have contended with England for the
honour of opening the long series of expeditions to the
north-east.[39]

England's navigation is at present greater beyond comparison than
that of any other country, but it is not of old date. In the middle
of the sixteenth century it was still very inconsiderable, and
mainly confined to coast voyages in Europe, and a few fishing
expeditions to Iceland and Newfoundland.[40] The great power of
Spain and Portugal by sea, and their jealousy of other countries
rendered it impossible at that period for foreign seafarers to carry
on traffic in the East-Asiatic countries, which had been sketched by
Marco Polo with so attractive accounts of unheard-of richness in
gold and jewels, in costly stuffs, in spices and perfumes. In order
that the merchants of northern Europe might obtain a share of the
profit, it appeared to be necessary to discover new routes,
inaccessible to the armadas of the Pyrenean peninsula. Here lies the
explanation of the zeal with which the English and the Dutch, time
after time, sent out vessels, equipped at great expense, in search
of a new way to India and China, either by the Pole, by the
north-west, along the north coast of the new world, or by the
north-east, along the north coast of the old. The voyages first
ceased when the maritime supremacy of Spain and Portugal was broken.
By none of them was the intended object gained, but it is remarkable
that in any case they gave the first start to the development of
England's ocean navigation.

[Illustration: SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. (After a portrait in the
Great Picture Hall, Greenwich.) ]

Sir HUGH WILLOUOUGHBY's in 1553 was thus the first maritime
expedition undertaken on a large scale, which was sent from England
to far distant seas. The equipment of the vessels was carried out
with great care under the superintendence of the famous navigator,
Sebastian Cabot, then an old man, who also gave the commander
precise instructions how he should behave in the different incidents
of the voyage. Some of these instructions now indeed appear rather
childish,[41] but others might still be used as rules for every
well-ordered exploratory expedition. Sir Hugh besides obtained from
Edward VI. an open letter written, in Latin, Greek, and several
other languages, in which it was stated that discoveries and the
making of commercial treaties were the sole objects of the
expedition; and the people, with whom the expedition might come in
contact, were requested to treat Sir Hugh Willoughby as they
themselves would wish to be treated in case they should come to
England. So sanguine were the promoters of the voyage of its success
in reaching the Indian seas by this route, that they caused the
ships that were placed at Sir Hugh Willoughby's disposal to be
sheathed with lead in order to protect them from the attacks of the
teredo and other worms.[43] These vessels were:--

[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT. After a portrait in E. Vale
Blake's Arctic Experiences, London. 1874.[42] ]

1. The _Bona Esperanza_, admiral of the fleet, of 120 tons burden,
on board of which was Sir Hugh Willoughby, himself, as captain
general of the fleet. The number of persons in this ship, including
Willoughby, the master of the vessel, William Gefferson, and six
merchants, was thirty-five.

2. The _Edward Bonaventure_, of 160 tons burden, the command of
which was given to Richard Chancelor, captain and pilot major of the
fleet. There were on board this vessel fifty men, including two
merchants. Among the crew whose names are given in Hakluyt we find
the name of Stephen Burrough, afterwards renowned in the history of
the north-east passage, and that of Arthur Pet.

3. The _Bona Confidentia_, of ninety tons, under command of
Cornelius Durfoorth, with twenty-eight men, including three
merchants.

The expense of fitting out the vessels amounted to a sum of 6,000
pounds, divided into shares of 25 pounds. Sir Hugh Willoughby was
chosen commander "both by reason of his goodly personage (for he was
of tall stature) as also for his singular skill in the services of
warre."[44] In order to ascertain the nature of the lands of the
east, two "Tartars" who were employed at the royal stables were
consulted, but without any information being obtained from them. The
ships left Ratcliffe the 20/10th May 1553.[45] They were towed down
by the boats, "the mariners being apparelled in watchet or skie
coloured cloth," with a favourable wind to Greenwich, where the
court then was. The King being unwell could not be present, but "the
courtiers came running out, and the common people flockt together,
standing very thicke upon the shoare; the Privie Consel, they lookt
out at the windowes of the court, and the rest ran up to the toppes
of the towers; the shippes hereupon discharge their ordinance, and
shoot off their pieces after the maner of warre, and of the sea,
insomuch that the tops of the hilles sounded therewith, the valleys
and the waters gave an echo, and the mariners they shouted in such
sort, that the skie rang again with the noise thereof."[46] All was
joy and triumph; it seemed as if men foresaw that the greatest
maritime power, the history of the world can show, was that day
born.

The voyage itself was, however, very disastrous for Sir Hugh and
many of his companions. After sailing along the east coast of
England and Scotland the three vessels crossed in company to Norway,
the coast of which came in sight the 24/14th July in 66° N.L.
A landing was effected and thirty small houses were found, whose
inhabitants had fled, probably from fear of the foreigners. The
region was called, as was afterwards ascertained, "Halgeland," and
was just that part of Norway from which Othere began his voyage to
the White Sea. Hence they sailed on along the coast. On the 6th
Aug/27th July they anchored in a harbour, "Stanfew" (perhaps
Steenfjord on the west coast of Lofoten), where they found a
numerous and friendly population, with no articles of commerce,
however, but dried fish and train oil. In the middle of September
the _Edward Bonaventure_, at Senjen during a storm, parted company
with the two other vessels. These now endeavoured to reach
Vardoehus, and therefore sailed backwards and forwards in different
directions, during which they came among others to an uninhabited,
ice-encompassed land, along whose coast the sea was so shallow that
it was impossible for a boat to land. It was said to be situated
480' east by north from Senjen, in 72° N.L.[47] Hence they
sailed first to the north, then to the south-east. Thus they reached
the coast of Russian Lapland, where, on the 28/18th September they
found a good harbour, in which Sir Hugh determined to pass the
winter. The harbour was situated at the mouth of the river Arzina
"near Kegor." Of the further fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby and his
sixty-two companions, we know only that during the course of the
winter they all perished, doubtless of scurvy. The journal of the
commander ends with the statement that immediately after the arrival
of the vessels three men were sent south-south west, three west, and
three south-east to search if they could find people, but that they
all returned "without finding of people or any similitude of
habitation." The following year Russian fishermen found at the
wintering station the ships and dead bodies of those who had thus
perished, together with the journal from which the extract given
above is taken, and a will witnessed by Willoughby,[48] from which
it appeared that he himself and most of the company of the two ships
were alive in January, 1554.[49] The two vessels, together with
Willoughby's corpse, were sent to England in 1555 by the merchant
George Killingworth.[50]

With regard to the position of Arzina it appears from a statement in
Anthony Jenkinson's first voyage (_Hakluyt_, p. 335) that it took
seven days to go from Vardoehus to Swjatoinos, and that on the sixth
he passed the mouth of the river where Sir Hugh Willoughby wintered.
At a distance from Vardoehus of about six-sevenths of the way
between that town and Swjatoinos, there debouches into the Arctic
Ocean, in 68° 20' N.L. and 38° 30' E.L. from Greenwich, a
river, which in recent maps is called the Varzina. It was doubtless
at the mouth of this river that two vessels of the first North-east
Passage Expedition wintered with so unfortunate an issue for the
officers and men.

The third vessel, the _Edward Bonaventure_, commanded by Chancelor,
had on the contrary a successful voyage, and one of great importance
for the commerce of the world. As has been already stated, Chancelor
was separated from his companions during a storm in August. He now
sailed alone to Vardoehus. After waiting there seven days for Sir
Hugh Willoughby, he set out again, resolutely determined "either to
bring that to passe which was intended, or else to die the death;"
and though "certaine Scottishmen" earnestly attempted to persuade
him to return, "he held on his course towards that unknown part of
the world, and sailed so farre that hee came at last to the place
where hee found no night at all, but a continuall light and
brightnesse of the sunne shining clearly upon the huge and mighty
sea."[51] In this way he finally reached the mouth of the river
Dwina in the White Sea, where a small monastery was then standing at
the place where Archangel is now situated. By friendly treatment he
soon won the confidence of the inhabitants, who received him with
great hospitality. They, however, immediately sent off a courier to
inform Czar Ivan Vasilievitsch of the remarkable occurrence. The
result was that Chancelor was invited to the court at Moscow, where
he and his companions passed a part of the winter, well entertained
by the Czar. The following summer he returned with his vessel to
England. Thus a commercial connection was brought about, which soon
became of immense importance to both nations, and within a few years
gave rise to a number of voyages, of which I cannot here give any
account, as they have no connection with the history of the
North-east Passage.[52]

[Illustration: VARDOE IN 1594. After Linschoten. ]

[Illustration: VARDOE IN OUR DAYS. After a photograph. ]

Great geographer or seaman Sir Hugh Willoughby clearly was not, but
his and his followers' voluntary self-sacrifice and undaunted
courage have a strong claim on our admiration. Incalculable also was
the influence which the voyages of Willoughby and Chancelor had upon
English commerce, and on the development of the whole of Russia, and
of the north of Norway. From the monastery at the mouth of the Dwina
a flourishing commercial town has arisen, and a numerous population
has settled on the coast of the Polar Sea, formerly so desolate.
Already there is regular steam and telegraphic communication to the
confines of Russia. The people of Vardoe can thus in a few hours get
accounts of what has happened not only in Paris or London, but also
in New York, the Indies, the Cape, Australia, Brazil, &c., while a
hundred years ago the post came thither only once a year. It was
then that a journal-loving commandant took the step, giving evidence
of strong self-command, of not "devouring" the post at once, but
reading the newspapers day by day a year after they were published.
All this is now different, and yet men are not satisfied. The
interests of commerce and the fisheries require railway
communication with the rest of Europe. That will certainly come in a
few years, nor will it be long before the telegraph has spun its
net, and regular steam communication has commenced along the coast
of the Arctic Ocean far beyond the sea which was opened by Chancelor
to the commerce of the world.

[Illustration: COAST LANDSCAPE FROM MATOTSCHKIN SCHAR. After Svenske. ]


[Footnote 15: In many Polar expeditions, sealskin has been used as
clothing instead of reindeer skin. The reindeer skin, however, is
lighter and warmer, and ought therefore to have an unconditional
preference as a means of protection against severe cold. In mild
weather, clothing made of reindeer skin in the common way has indeed
the defect that it is drenched through with water, and thereby
becomes useless, but in such weather it is in general unnecessary to
use furs. The coast Chukchis, who catch great numbers of seals, but
can only obtain reindeer skins by purchase, yet consider clothing
made of the latter material indispensable in winter. During this
season they wear an overcoat of the same form as the Lapps' _pesk_,
the suitableness of whose cut thus appears to be well proved. On
this account I prefer the old-world Polar dress to that of the new,
which consists of more closely fitting clothes. The Lapp shoes of
reindeer skin (_renskallar, komager_) are, on the other hand, if one
has not opportunity to change them frequently, nor time to take
sufficient care of them, quite unserviceable for Arctic journeys. ]

[Footnote 16: Haugan had formerly for a long series of years carried
his own vessel to Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, and was known as
one of the most fortunate walrus-hunters of the Norwegian Polar Sea
fleet. ]

[Footnote 17: The original of this drawing, for which I am indebted
to Councillor of Justice H. Rink, of Copenhagen, was painted by a
German painter at Beigen, in 1654. The painting has the following
inscription:--

Mit Ledern Schifflein auff dem Meer De grönleinder fein bein undt
her Bön Thieren undt Bogelen haben see Ire tracht Das falte lands
bon winter nacht ]

[Footnote 18: The birch which grows here is the sweet-scented birch
(_Betula odorata_, Bechst.), not the dwarf birch (_Betula nana_,
L.), which is found as far north as Ice Fjord in Spitzbergen (78
degree 7' N.L.), though there it only rises a few inches above
ground. ]

[Footnote 19: According to Latkin, _Die Lena und ihr Flussgebiet_
(_Petermann's Mittheilungen_, 1879, p. 91). On the map which
accompanies Engehardt's reproduction of Wrangel's _Journey_ (Berlin,
1839), the limit of trees at the Lena is placed at 71° N.L. ]

[Footnote 20: On the Kola Peninsula, and in the neighbourhood of the
White Sea, as far as to Ural, the limit of trees consists of a
species of pine (_Picea obovata_, Ledeb.), but farther east in
Kamschatka again of birch.--Th. von Middendorff, _Reise in dem
äussersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens_, vol. iv. p. 582. ]

[Footnote 21: An idea of the influence exerted by the immediate
neighbourhood of a warm ocean-current in making the climate milder
may be obtained from the following table of the mean temperatures of
the different months at

  1. Tromsoe (69° 30' N.L.);
  2. Fruholm, near North Cape (71° 6' N.L.);
  3. Vardoe (70° 22' N.L.);
  4. Enontekis and Karesuando, on the river Muonio, in the interior
     of Lapland (68° 26' N.L.).
                     Tromsoe     Fruholm      Vardoe      Enontekis
  January...........  -4.2°       -2.7°        -6.0°        -13.7°
  February..........  -4.0        -4.7         -6.4         -17.1
  March.............  -3.8        -3.2         -5.1         -11.4
  April.............  -0.1        -0.9         -1.7          -6.0
  May...............  +3.2        +2.7         +1.8          +0.9
  June..............  +8.7        +7.5         +5.9          +8.0
  July.............. +11.5        +9.3         +8.8         +11.6
  August...........  +10.4        +9.9         +9.8         +12.0
  September.........  +7.0        +5.8         +6.4          +4.5
  October...........  +2.0        +2.5         +1.3          -4.0
  November..........  -1.7        -1.1         -2.1          -9.9
  December..........  -3.2        -1.9         -4.0         -11.3

The figures are taken from H. Mohn's _Norges Klima_ (reprinted from
O.F. Schubeler's _Voextlivet i Norge_, Christiania, 1879), and A.
J. Ångström, _Om lufttemperaturen i Enontekis_ (Öfvers. af Vet. Akad.
Förhandl, 1860). ]

[Footnote 22: Orosius was born in Spain in the fourth century after
Christ, and died in the beginning of the fifth. He was a Christian,
and wrote his work to show that the world, in opposition to the
statements of several heathen writers, had been visited during the
heathen period by quite as great calamities as during the Christian.
This is probably the reason why his monotonous sketch of all the
misfortunes and calamities which befell the heathen world was long
so highly valued, was spread in many copies and printed in
innumerable editions, the oldest at Vienna in 1471. In the
Anglo-Saxon translation now in question, Othere's account of his
journey is inserted in the first chapter, which properly forms a
geographical introduction to the work written by King Alfred. This
old Anglo-Saxon work is preserved in England in two beautiful
manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries. Orosius' history
itself is now forgotten, but King Alfred's introduction, and
especially his account of Othere's and Wulfstan's travels, have
attracted much attention from inquirers, as appears from the list of
translations of this part of King Alfred's Orosius, given by Joseph
Bosworth in his _King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the
Compendious History of the World by Orosius_. London, 1859. ]

[Footnote 23: By Fins are here meant Lapps; by Terfins the
inhabitants of the Tersk coast of Russian Lapland. ]

[Footnote 24: Walruses are still captured yearly on the ice at the
mouth of the White Sea, not very far from the shore (cf. A.E.
Nordenskiöld, _Redogörelse för en expedition till mynningen af
Jenisej och Sibirien år_ 1875, p. 23; _Bihang till Vetenskaps-A kad.
Handl_. B. iv. No. 1). Now they occur there indeed only in small
numbers, and, it appears, not in the immediate neighbourhood of
land; but there is scarcely any doubt that in former days they were
common on the most northerly coasts of Norway. They have evidently
been driven away thence in the same way as they are now being driven
away from Spitzbergen. With what rapidity their numbers at the
latter place are yearly diminished, may be seen from the fact that
during my many Arctic journeys, beginning in 1858, I never saw
walruses on Bear Island or the west coast of Spitzbergen, but have
conversed with hunters who ten years before had seen them in herds
of hundreds and thousands. I have myself seen such herds in
Hinloopen Strait in July 1861, but when during my journeys in 1868
and 1872-3 I again visited the same regions, I saw there not a
single walrus. ]

[Footnote 25: As it appears to be impossible for six men to kill
sixty great whales in two days, this passage has caused the editors
of Othere's narrative much perplexity, which is not wonderful if
great whales, as the _Balæna mysticetus_ are here meant. But if the
narrative relates to the smaller species of the whale, a similar
catch may still, at the present day, be made on the coasts of the
Polar countries. For various small species go together in great
shoals; and, as they occasionally come into water so shallow that
they are left aground at ebb, they can be killed with ease.
Sometimes, too, a successful attempt is made to drive them into
shallow water. That whales visit the coast of Norway in spring in
large shoals dangerous to the navigator is also stated by Jacob
Ziegler, in his work, _Quæ intus continentur Syria, Palestina,
Arabia, Ægyptus, Schondia, &c._ Argentorati, 1532, p. 97. ]

[Footnote 26: In this case is meant by "whale" evidently the walrus,
whose skin is still used for lines by the Norwegian walrus-hunters,
by the Eskimo, and the Chukchis. The skin of the true whale might
probably be used for the same purpose, although, on account of its
thickness, perhaps scarcely with advantage without the use of
special tools for cutting it up. ]

[Footnote 27: It ought to be remarked here that the distances which
Othere in that case traversed every day, give a speed of sailing
approximating to that which a common sailing vessel of the present
day attains _on an average_. This circumstance, which on a cursory
examination may appear somewhat strange, finds its explanation when
we consider that Othere sailed only with a favourable wind, and,
when the wind was unfavourable, lay still. It appears that he
usually sailed 70' to 80' in twenty-four hours, or perhaps rather
_per diem._ ]

[Footnote 28: The maps are taken from _Ptolemæi Cosmographia latine
reddita a Jac. Angelo, curam mapparum gerente Nicolao Donis Germano,
Ulmoe_ 1482, and from the above-quoted work of Jacobus Ziegler,
printed in 1532. That portion of the latter which concerns the
geography of Scandinavia is reprinted in _Geografiska Sektionens
Tidskrift_, B.I. Stockholm, 1878. ]

[Footnote 29: These were the Dane, Erik Valkendorff, and the
Norwegian, Olof Engelbrektsson. The Swedes, Johannes Magnus,
Archbishop of Upsala, and Peder Maonsson, Bishop of Vesteraos, also
gave Ziegler important information regarding the northern countries. ]

[Footnote 30: Of these much-discussed narratives concerning
_Indians_--probably men from North Scandinavia, Russia, or North
America, certainly not Japanese, Chinese, or Indians--who were
driven by storms to the coasts of Germany, the first comes down to
us from the time before the birth of Christ. For B.C. 62 Quintus
Metellus Celer, "when as proconsul he governed Gaul, received as a
present from the King of the Bæti [Pliny says of the Suevi] some
Indians, and when he inquired how they came to those countries, he
was informed that they had been driven by storm from the Indian
Ocean to the coasts of Germany" (Pomponius Mela, lib. iii. cap. 5,
after a lost work of Cornelius Nepos. Plinius, _Hist. Nat._, lib.
ii. cap. 67).

Of a similar occurrence in the middle ages, the learned Æneas
Sylvius, afterwards Pope under the name of Pius II., gives the
following account of his cosmography:--"I have myself read in Otto
[Bishop Otto, of Freising], that in the time of the German Emperor
an Indian vessel and Indian merchants were driven by storm to the
German coast. Certain it was that, driven about by contrary winds,
they came from the east, which had been by no means possible, if, as
many suppose, the North Sea were unnavigable and frozen" (Pius II.,
_Cosmographia in Asiæ et Europæ eleganti descriptione, etc._,
Parisiis, 1509, leaf 2). Probably it is the same occurrence which is
mentioned by the Spanish historian Gomara (_Historia general de las
Indias_, Saragoça, 1552-53), with the addition, that the Indians
stranded at Lübeck in the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
(1152-1190). Gomara also states that he met with the exiled Swedish
Bishop Olaus Magnus, who positively assured him that it was possible
to sail from Norway by the north along the coasts to China (French
translation of the above-quoted work, Paris, 1587, leaf 12). An
exceedingly instructive treatise on this subject is to be found in
_Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie_, Kjöbenhavn, 1880.
It is written by F. Schiern, and entitled _Om en etnologisk Gaade
fra Oldtiden_. ]

[Footnote 31: Olaus Magnus, _Auslegung und Verklerung der neuen
Mappen von den alten Goettewreich_, Venedig, 1539. Now perhaps
(according to a communication from the Librarian-in-chief, G.E.
Klemming) there is scarcely any copy of this edition of the map
still in existence, but it is given unaltered in the 1567 Basel
edition of Olaus Magnus, "_De gentium septentrionalium rariis
conditionibus_," &c. The edition of the same work printed at Rome in
1555, on the other hand, has a map, which differs a little from the
original map of 1539. ]

[Footnote 32: To interpret Nicolò and Antonio Zeno's travels towards
the end of the fourteenth century, which have given rise to so much
discussion, as Mr. Fr. Krarup has done, in such a way as if they had
visited the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea, appears to
me to be a very unfortunate guess, opposed to innumerable
particulars in the narrative of the Zenos, and to the accompanying
map, remarkable in more respects than one, which was first published
at Venice in 1558, unfortunately in a somewhat "improved" form by
one of Zeno's descendants. On the map there is the date MCCCLXXX.
(Cf. _Zeniernes Reise til Norden, et Tolknings Forsög_, af Fr.
Krarup, Kjöbenhavn, 1878; R.H. Major, _The Voyages of the Venetian
Brothers Nicolò and Antonio Zeno_, London, 1873, and other works
concerning these much-bewritten travels). ]

[Footnote 33: The first edition, entitled _Rerum Moscoviticarum
Commentarii, &c._, Vienna, 1549, has three plates, and a map of
great value for the former geography of Russia. It is, however, to
judge by the copy in the Royal Library at Stockholm, partly drawn by
hand, and much inferior to the map in the Italian edition of the
following year (_Comentari della Moscovia et parimente della Russia,
&c., per il Signor Sigismondo libero Barone in Herbetstain, Neiperg
and Guetnbag, tradotti nuaomente di Latino in lingua nostra volgare
Italiana_, Venetia, 1550, with two plates and a map, with the
inscription "per Giacomo Gastaldo cosmographo in Venetia, MDL"). Von
Herbertstein visited Russia as ambassador from the Roman Emperor on
two occasions, the first time in 1517, the second in 1525, and on
the ground of these two journeys published a sketch of the country,
by which it first became known to West-Europeans, and even for
Russians themselves it forms an important original source of
information regarding the state of civilisation of the empire of the
Czar in former times. Von Adelung enumerates in _Kritisch-literärische
Übersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 1700_, St. Petersburg and
Leipzig, 1846, eleven Latin, two Italian, nine German, and one
Bohemian translation of this work. An English translation has since
been published by the Hakluyt Society. ]

[Footnote 34: _Von Herbertstein_, first edition, leaf xxviii., in
the second of the three separately-paged portions of the work. ]

[Footnote 35: An erroneous transposition of mountains seen in
Norway, the northeastern shore of the White Sea being low land. ]

[Footnote 36: An unfortunate translation, which often occurs in old
works, of Swjatoinos, "the holy headland." ]

[Footnote 37: Instead of "north of," the true reading probably is
"beyond" the Dwina. ]

[Footnote 38: Huberti Langueti _Epistoloe Secretoe_, Halæ, 1699, i.
171. Compare also a paper by A.G. Ahlquist, in _Ny Illustrerad
Tidning_ for 1875, p. 270. ]

[Footnote 39: The first to incite to voyages of discovery in the
polar regions was an Englishman, Robert Thorne, who long lived at
Seville. Seeing all other countries were already discovered by
Spaniards and Portuguese, he urged Henry VIII. in 1527 to undertake
discoveries in the north. After reaching the Pole (going
sufficiently far north) one could turn to the east, and, first
passing the land of the Tartars, get to China and so to Malacca, the
East Indies, and the Cape of Good Hope, and thus circumnavigate the
"whole world." One could also turn to the west, sail along the back
of Newfoundland, and return by the Straits of Magellan (Richard
Hakluyt, _The Principael Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of
the English Nation, &c._, London, 1589, p. 250). Two years before,
Paulus Jovius, on the ground of communications from an ambassador
from the Russian Czar to Pope Clement VII., states that Russia is
surrounded on the north by an immense ocean, by which it is
possible, if one keeps to the right shore, and if no land comes
between, to sail to China. (Pauli Jovii _Opera, Omnia_, Basel, 1578,
third part, p. 88; the description of Russia, inserted there under
the title "Libellus de legatione Basilii ad Clementem VII.," was
printed for the first time at Rome in 1525.) ]

[Footnote 40: In the year 1540, London, exclusive of the Royal Navy,
had no more than four vessels, whose draught exceeded 120 tons
(Anderson, _Origin of Commerce_, London, 1787, vol. ii. p. 67). Most
of the coast towns of Scandinavia have thus in our days a greater
sea-going fleet than London had at that time. ]

[Footnote 41: For instance Article 30: "Item, if you shall see them
[the foreigners met with during the voyage] weare Lyons or Bears
skinnes, hauing long bowes, and arrowes, be not afraid of that
sight: for such be worne oftentimes more to feare strangers, then
for any other cause." (_Hakluyt_, 1st edition, p. 262.) ]

[Footnote 42: The endeavour to procure for this work a copy of an
original portrait of Cabot, stated to be in existence in England,
has unfortunately not been crowned with success. ]

[Footnote 43: According to Clement Adams' account of the voyage.
(_Hakluyt_, 1st edition, p. 271.) ]

[Footnote 44: "Cum ob corporis formam (erat enim proceræ staturæ)
tum ob singularem in re bellica industriam." Clement Adams'
account--_Hakluyt_, p. 271. ]

[Footnote 45: Ten days earlier or later are of very great importance
with respect to the state of the ice in summer in the Polar seas. I
have, therefore, in quoting from the travels of my predecessors,
reduced the old style to the new. ]

[Footnote 46: "Vibrantur bombardarum fulmina, Tartariæ volvuntur
nubes, Martem sonant crepitacula, reboant summa montium juga,
reboant valles, reboant undæ, claraque Nautarum percellit sydara
clamor." Clement Adams' account.--_Hakluyt_, p. 272. ]

[Footnote 47: At the time when the whale-fishing at Spitzbergen
commenced, Thomas Edge, a captain of one of the Muscovy Company's
vessels, endeavoured to show that the land which Willoughby
discovered while sailing about after parting company with Chancelor
was Spitzbergen (_Purchas_, iii. p. 462). The statement, which was
evidently called forth by the wish to monopolise the Spitzbergen
whale-fishing for England, can be shown to be incorrect. It has also
for a long time back been looked upon as groundless. Later inquirers
have instead supposed that the land which Willoughby saw was
Gooseland, on Novaya Zemlya. For reasons which want of space
prevents me from stating here, this also does not appear to me to be
possible. On the other hand, I consider it highly probable that
"Willoughby's Land" was Kolgujev Island, which is surrounded by
shallow sand-banks. Its latitude has indeed in that case been stated
2° too high, but such errors are not impossible in the determinations
of the oldest explorers. ]

[Footnote 48: The testator was Gabriel Willoughby, who, as merchant,
sailed in the commander's vessel. ]

[Footnote 49: _Hakluyt_, p. 500; _Purchas_, iii. p. 249, and in the
margin of p. 463. ]

[Footnote 50: It is of him that it is narrated in a letter written
from Moscow by Henrie Lane, that the Czar at an entertainment
"called them to his table, to receave each one a cuppe from his hand
to drinke, and tooke into his hand Master George Killingworths
beard, which reached over the table, and pleasantly delivered it the
Metropolitane, who seeming to bless it, sad in Russe, 'this is Gods
gift.'"--_Hakluyt_, p. 500. ]

[Footnote 51: As the Dwina lies to the south of Vardoehus, these
remarks probably relate to an earlier part of the voyage than that
which is referred to in the narrative. ]

[Footnote 52: Writings on these voyages are exceedingly numerous.
An account of them was published for the first time in Hakluyt,
_The principael Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English
Nation, &c._, London, 1589; _Ordinances, King Edward's Past, &c._,
p. 259; _Copy of Sir Hugh Willoughby's Journal, with a List of all
the Members of the Expedition_, p. 265; _Clement Adams' Account of
Chancelor's Voyage_, p. 270, &c. The same documents were afterwards
printed in Purchas' _Pilgrimage_, iii. p. 211. For those who wish to
study the literature of this subject further, I may refer to Fr. von
Adelung, _Kritisch-literärische Übersicht der Reisenden in Russland_,
St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1846, p. 200; and L. Hamel,
_Tradesrunt der Aeltere 1618 in Russland_, St. Petersburg and
Leipzig, 1847. ]



CHAPTER II.

    Departure from Maosoe--Gooseland--State of the Ice--
    The Vessels of the Expedition assemble at Chabarova--
    The Samoyed town there--The Church--Russians and Samoyeds--
    Visit to Ohabarova in 1875--Purchase of Samoyed Idols--
    Dress and Dwellings of the Samoyeds--Comparison of the
    Polar Races--Sacrificial Places and Samoyed Grave on
    Vaygats Island visited--Former accounts of the Samoyeds--
    Their place in Ethnography.


The _Vega_ was detained at Maosoe by a steady head wind, rain, fog,
and a very heavy sea till the evening of the 25th July. Though the
weather was still very unfavourable, we then weighed anchor,
impatient to proceed on our voyage, and steamed out to sea through
Mageroe Sound. The _Lena_ also started at the same time, having
received orders to accompany the _Vega_ as far as possible, and,
in case separation could not be avoided, to steer her course to the
point, Ohabarova in Yugor Schar, which I had fixed on as the
rendezvous of the four vessels of the expedition. The first night,
during the fog that then prevailed, we lost sight of the _Lena_,
and did not see her again until we had reached the meeting place.

The course of the _Vega_ was shaped for South Goose Cape. Although,
while at Tromsoe, I had resolved to enter the Kara Sea through Yugor
Schar, the most southerly of the sounds which lead to it--so
northerly a course was taken, because experience has shown that in
the beginning of summer so much ice often drives backwards and
forwards in the bay between the west coast of Vaygats Island and the
mainland, that navigation in these waters is rendered rather
difficult. This is avoided by touching Novaya Zemlya first at
Gooseland, and thence following the western shore of this island and
Vaygats to Yugor Schar. Now this precaution was unnecessary; for the
state of the ice was singularly favourable, and Yugor Schar was
readied without seeing a trace of it.

During our passage from Norway to Gooseland we were, favoured at
first with a fresh breeze, which, however, fell as we approached
Novaya Zemlya; this notwithstanding, we made rapid progress under
steam, and without incident, except that the excessive rolling of
the vessel caused the overturn of some boxes containing instruments
and books, fortunately without any serious damage ensuing.

Land was sighted on the 28th July at 10.30 P.M. It was the headland
which juts out from the south of Gooseland in 70° 33' N.L. and 51° 54'
E.L. (Greenwich). Gooseland is a low stretch of coast, occupied by
grassy flats and innumerable small lakes, which projects from the
mainland of Novaya Zemlya between 72° 10' and 71° 30' N.L. The name is a
translation of the Russian Gusinnaja Semlja, and arises from the large
number of geese and swans (_Cygnus Bewickii_, Yarr.) which breed in that
region. The geese commonly place their exceedingly inconsiderable nests
on little hillocks near the small lakes which are scattered over the
whole of Gooseland; the powerful swans, which are very difficult of
approach by the hunter, on the other hand breed on the open plain. The
swans' nests are so large that they may be seen at a great distance. The
building material is moss, which is plucked from the ground within a
distance of two metres from the nest, which by the excavation which is
thus produced, is surrounded by a sort of moat. The nest itself forms a
truncated cone, 0.6 metre high and 2.4 metres in diameter at the bottom.
In its upper part there is a cavity, 0.2 metre deep and 0.6 metre broad,
in which the four large grayish-white eggs of the bird are laid. The
female hatches the eggs, but the male also remains in the neighbourhood
of the nest. Along with the swans and geese, a large number of waders,
a couple of species of Lestris, an owl and other birds breed on the
plains of Gooseland, and a few guillemots or gulls upon the summits of
the strand cliffs. The avifauna along the coast here is besides rather
poor. At least there are none of the rich fowl-fells, which, with their
millions of inhabitants and the conflicts and quarrels which rage
amongst them, commonly give so peculiar a character to the coast cliffs
of the high north. I first met with true loom and kittiwake fells
farther north on the southern shore of Besimannaja Bay.

Although Gooseland, seen from a distance, appears quite level and
low, it yet rises gradually, with an undulating surface, from the
coast towards the interior, to a grassy plain about sixty metres
above the sea-level, with innumerable small lakes scattered over it.
The plain sinks towards the sea nearly everywhere with a steep
escarpment, three to fifteen metres high, below which there is
formed during the course of the winter an immense snowdrift or
so-called "snow-foot," which does not melt until late in the season.
_There are no true glaciers here, nor any erratic blocks, to show
that circumstances were different in former times._ Nor are any
snow-covered mountain-tops visible from the sea. It is therefore
possible at a certain season of the year (during the whole of the
month of August) to sail from Norway to Novaya Zemlya, make sporting
exclusions there, and return without having seen a trace of ice or
snow. This holds good indeed only of the low-lying part of the south
island, but in any case it shows how erroneous the prevailing idea
of the natural state of Novaya Zemlya is. By the end of June or
beginning of July the greater part of Gooseland is nearly free of
snow, and soon after the Arctic flower-world develops during a few
weeks all its splendour of colour. Dry, favourably situated spots
are now covered by a low, but exceedingly rich flower bed, concealed
by no high grass or bushes. On moister places true grassy turf is to
be met with, which, at least when seen from a distance, resembles
smiling meadows.

In consequence of the loss of time which had been caused by the
delay in sailing along the coast of Norway, and our stay at Maosoe,
we were unable to land on this occasion, but immediately continued
our course along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya towards Yugor
Schar, the weather being for the most part glorious and calm.
The sea was completely free of ice, and the land bare, with the
exception of some small snow-fields concealed in the valleys. Here
and there too along the steep strand escarpments were to be seen,
remains of the winter's snow-foot, which often, when the lower
stratum of air was strongly heated by the sun, were magnified by a
strong mirage, so that, when seen from a distance, they resembled
immense glaciers terminating perpendicularly towards the sea. Coming
farther south the clear weather gave us a good view of Vaygats
Island. It appears, when seen from the sea off the west coast,
to form a level grassy plain, but when we approached Yugor Schar,
low ridges were seen to run along the east side of the island, which
are probably the last ramifications of the north spur of Ural, known by
the name of Paj-koi.

When we were off the entrance to Yugor Schar, a steamer was sighted.
After much guessing, the _Fraser_ was recognised. I was at first
very uneasy, and feared that an accident had occurred, as the course
of the vessel was exactly the opposite of that which had been fixed
beforehand, but found, when Captain Nilsson soon after came on
board, that he had only come out to look for us. The _Express_ and
the _Fraser_ had been waiting for us at the appointed rendezvous
since the 20th. They had left Vardoe on the 13th, and during the
passage had met with as little ice as ourselves. The _Vega_ and
_Fraser_ now made for the harbour at Chabarova, where they anchored
on the evening of the 30th July with a depth of fourteen metres and
a clay bottom. The _Lena_ was still wanting. We feared that the
little steamer had had some difficulty in keeping afloat in the sea
which had been encountered on the other side of North Cape.
A breaker had even dashed over the side of the larger _Vega_ and
broken in pieces one of the boxes which were fastened to the deck.
Our fears were unwarranted. The _Lena_ had done honour to her
builders at Motala works, and behaved well in the heavy sea. The
delay had been caused by a compass deviation, which, on account of
the slight horizontal intensity of the magnetism of the earth in
these northern latitudes, was greater than that obtained during the
examination made before the departure of the vessel from Gothenburg.
On the 31st the _Lena_ anchored alongside the other vessels, and
thus the whole of our little Polar Sea squadron was collected at the
appointed rendezvous.

Chabarova is a little village, situated on the mainland, south of
Yugor Schar, west of the mouth of a small river in which at certain
seasons fish are exceedingly abundant. During summer the place is
inhabited by a number of Samoyeds, who pasture their herds of
reindeer on Vaygats Island and the surrounding _tundra_, and by some
Russians and Russianised Fins, who come hither from Pustosersk to
carry on barter with the Samoyeds, and with their help to fish and
hunt in the neighbouring sea. During winter the Samoyeds drive their
herds to more southern regions, and the merchants carry their wares
to Pustosersk, Mesen, Archangel, and other places. Thus it has
probably gone on for centuries back, but it is only in comparatively
recent times that fixed dwellings have been erected, for they are
not mentioned in the accounts of the voyages of the Dutch in these
regions.

The village, or "Samoyed town" as the walrus-hunters grandiosely
call it, consists, like other great towns, of two portions, the town
of the rich--some cabins built of wood, with flat turf-covered
roofs--and the quarter of the common people, a collection of dirty
Samoyed tents. There is, besides, a little church, where, as at
several places along the shore, votive crosses have been erected.
The church is a wooden building, divided by a partition wall into
two parts, of which the inner, the church proper, is little more
than two and a half metres in height and about five metres square.
On the eastern wall during the time the region is inhabited, there
is a large number of sacred pictures placed there for the occasion
by the hunters. One of them, which represented St. Nicholas, was
very valuable, the material being embossed silver gilt. Before the
lamps hung large dinted old copper lamps or rather light-holders,
resembling inverted Byzantine cupolas, suspended by three chains.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF CHABAROVA. After a photograph by L. Palander. ]

They were set full of numerous small, and some few thick wax lights
which were lighted on the occasion of our visit. Right above our
landing-place there were lying a number of sledges laden with goods
which the Russian merchants had procured by barter, and which were
to be conveyed to Pustosersk the following autumn. The goods
consisted mainly of train oil and the skins of the mountain fox,
common fox, Polar bear, glutton, reindeer, and seal. The bears'
skins had often a very close, white winter coat, but they were
spoiled by the head and paws having been cut off. Some of the wolf
skins which they showed us were very close and fine. The merchants
had besides collected a considerable stock of goose quills,
feathers, down, and ptarmigans' wings. For what purpose these last
are used I could not learn. I was merely informed that they would be
sold in Archangel. Perhaps they go thence to the dealers in fashions
in Western Europe, to be afterwards used as ornaments on our ladies'
hats. Ptarmigans' wings were bought as long ago as 1611 at
Pustosersk by Englishmen.[53]

At the same time I saw, among the stocks of the merchants, walrus
tusks and lines of walrus hide. It is noteworthy that these wares
are already mentioned in Othere's narrative.

As I was not myself sufficiently master of the Russian language,
I requested Mr. Serebrenikoff to make inquiries on the spot, regarding
the mode of life and domestic economy of the Russians in the
neighbourhood, and I have received from him the following
communication on the subject:--

    "The village consists of several cabins and tents. In the
    cabins nine Russian householders live with their servants,
    who are Samoyeds.[54] The Russians bring hither neither
    their wives nor children. In the tents the Samoyeds live
    with their families. The Russians are from the village
    Pustosersk on the Petchora river, from which they set out
    immediately after Easter, arriving at Chabarova about the
    end of May, after having traversed a distance of between
    600 and 700 versts. During their stay at Chabarova they
    employ themselves in the management of reindeer, in
    catching whales, and in carrying on barter with the
    Samoyeds. They bring with them from home all their
    household articles and commercial wares on sledges drawn
    by reindeer, and as there is a poor ruinous chapel there,
    they bring also pictures of St. Nicholas and other saints.
    The holy Nicholas also figures as a shareholder in a
    company for the capture of whales. Part of their reindeer
    is left during summer on Vaygats, and after their arrival
    at Chabarova they still pass over on the ice to that
    island. Towards the close of August, when the cold
    commences, the reindeer are driven across Yugor Schar from
    Vaygats to the mainland. About the 1st October, old style,
    the Russians return with their reindeer to Pustosersk.
    Vaygats Island is considered by them to afford exceedingly
    good pasturage for reindeer; they therefore allow a number
    of them to winter on the island under the care of some
    Samoyed families, and this is considered the more
    advantageous, as the reindeer there are never stolen. Such
    thefts, on the contrary, are often committed by the
    Samoyeds on the mainland. For thirty years back the
    Siberian plague has raged severely among the reindeer. A
    Russian informed me that he now owned but two hundred,
    while some years ago he had a thousand; and this statement
    was confirmed by the other Russians. Men too are attacked
    by this disease. Two or three days before our arrival a
    Samoyed and his wife had eaten the flesh of a diseased
    animal, in consequence of which the woman died the
    following day, and the man still lay ill, and, as the
    people on the spot said, would not probably survive. Some
    of the Samoyeds are considered rich, for instance the
    'eldest' (starschina) of the tribe, who owns a thousand
    reindeer. The Samoyeds also employ themselves, like the
    Russians, in fishing. During winter some betake themselves
    to Western Siberia, where 'corn is cheap,' and some go to
    Pustosersk.

    "The nine Russians form a company (artell) for
    whale-fishing. There are twenty-two shares, two of which
    fall to the holy Nicholas, and the other twenty are
    divided among the shareholders. The company's profit for
    the fishing season commonly amounts to 1,500 or 2,000 pood
    train oil of the white whale (_Beluga_), but this season
    there had been no fishing on account of disagreements
    among the shareholders. For in the Russian 'artell' the
    rule is, 'equal liability, equal rights,' and as the rich
    will never comply with the first part of the rule, it was
    their arrogance and greed which caused contention here, as
    everywhere else in the world.

    "Neither the Russians nor the Samoyeds carry on any
    agriculture. The former buy meal for bread from Irbit.
    The price of meal varies; this season it costs one rouble
    ten copecks per pood in Pustosersk. Salt is now brought
    from Norway to Mesen, where it costs fifty to sixty
    copecks per pood. The Samoyeds buy nearly everything from
    the Russians. There were many inquiries for gunpowder,
    shot, cheap fowling-pieces, rum, bread, sugar, and
    culinary vessels (teacups, &c.). The Samoyed women wear
    clothes of different colours, chiefly red. In exchange for
    the goods enumerated above there may be obtained fish,
    train oil, reindeer skins, walrus tusks, and furs, viz,
    the skins of the red, white, and brown fox, wolf, Polar
    bear, and glutton.

    "The Russians in question are 'Old Believers,' but the
    difference between them and the orthodox consists merely
    in their not smoking tobacco, and in their making the sign
    of the cross with the thumb, the ring finger, and the
    little finger, while the orthodox Russians, on the other
    hand, make it with the thumb, the forefinger, and the
    middle finger. All Samoyeds are baptised into the orthodox
    faith, but they worship their old idols at the same time.
    They travel over a thousand versts as pilgrims to their
    sacrificial places. There are several such places on
    Vaygats, where their idols are to be found. The Russians
    call these idols 'bolvany.'[55] Both the Russians and
    Samoyeds are very tolerant in regard to matters of faith.
    The Russians, for instance, say that the Samoyeds
    attribute to their 'bolvans' the same importance which
    they themselves attach to their sacred pictures, and find
    in this nothing objectionable. The Samoyeds have songs and
    sagas, relating among other things to their migrations.

    "The Samoyed has one or more wives; even sisters may marry
    the same man. Marriage is entered upon without any
    solemnity. The wives are considered by the men as having
    equal rights with themselves, and are treated accordingly,
    which is very remarkable, as the Russians, like other
    Christian nations, consider the woman as in certain
    respects inferior to the man."

I visited the place for the first time in the beginning of August,
1875. It was a Russian holiday, and, while still a long way off at
sea, we could see a large number of Russians and Samoyeds standing
in groups on the beach. Coming nearer we found them engaged in
playing various different games, and though it was the first time in
the memory of man that European gentlemen had visited their "town,"
they scarcely allowed themselves to be more disturbed in their
occupation than if some stranger Samoyeds had suddenly joined their
company. Some stood in a circle and by turns threw a piece of iron,
shaped somewhat like a marlinspike, to the ground; the art
consisting in getting the sharp end to strike it just in front of
rings placed on the ground, in such a way that the piece of iron
remained standing. Others were engaged in playing a game resembling
our nine-pins; others, again, in wrestling, &c. The Russians and
Samoyeds played with each other without distinction. The Samoyeds,
small of stature, dirty, with matted, unkempt hair, were clad in
dirty summer clothes of skin, sometimes with a showy-coloured cotton
shirt drawn over them; the Russians (probably originally of the
Finnish race and descendants of the old Beormas) tall, well-grown,
with long hair shining with oil, ornamentally parted, combed, and
frizzled, and held together by a head band, or covered with a cap
resembling that shown in the accompanying woodcut, were clad in long
variegated blouses, or "mekkor," fastened at the waist with a belt.
Notwithstanding the feigned indifference shown at first, which was
evidently considered good manners, we were received in a friendly
way. We were first invited to try our luck and skill in the game in
turn with the rest, when it soon appeared, to the no small
gratification of our hosts, that we were quite incapable of entering
into competition either with Russian or Samoyed. Thereupon one of
the Russians invited us to enter his cabin, where we were
entertained with tea, Russian wheaten cakes of unfermented dough,
and brandy. Some small presents were given us with a naïve
notification of what would be welcome in their stead, a notification
which I with pleasure complied with as far as my resources
permitted. A complete unanimity at first prevailed between our
Russian and Samoyed hosts, but on the following day a sharp dispute
was like to arise because the former invited one of us to drive with
a reindeer team standing in the neighbourhood of a Russian hut. The
Samoyeds were much displeased on this account, but declared at the
same time, as well as they could by signs, that they themselves were
willing to drive us, if we so desired, and they showed that they
were serious in their declaration by there and then breaking off the
quarrel in order to take a short turn with their reindeer teams at a
rapid rate among the tents.

[Illustration: SAMOYED WOMAN'S HOOD. One-eighth of natural size. ]

[Illustration: SAMOYED SLEIGH. After a drawing by Hj Théel. ]

The Samoyed sleigh is intended both for winter travelling on the
snow, and for summer travelling on the mosses and water-drenched
bogs of the _tundra_. They are, therefore, constructed quite
differently from the "akja" of the Lapp. As the woodcut below shows,
it completely resembles a high sledge, the carriage consisting of a
low and short box, which, in convenience, style, and warmth, cannot
be compared to the well-known equipage of the Lapps. We have here
two quite different types of sleighs. The Lapp "akja" appears from
time immemorial to have been peculiar to the Scandinavian north; the
high sleigh, on the contrary, to northern Russia. Thus we find
"akjas" of the kind still in common use, delineated in Olaus Magnus
(Rome edition, 1555, page 598); Samoyed sleighs, again, in the first
works we have on those regions, for instance, in HUYGHEN VAN
LINSCHOTEN'S _Schip-vaert van by Noorden_, &c., Amsterdam, 1601, as a
side drawing on the principal map. Such high sleighs are also used
on the Kanin peninsula, on Yalmal, and in Western Siberia.
The sleighs of the Chukchis, on the other hand as will be seen by a
drawing given farther on, are lower, and thus more resemble our
"kaelkar," or work-sledges.

[Illustration: LAPP AKJA. After original in the Northern Museum,
Stockholm. ]

The neighbourhood of the tents swarmed with small black or white
long-haired dogs, with pointed nose and pointed ears They are used
exclusively for tending the herds of reindeer, and appear to be of
the same race as the "renvallhund," the reindeer dog. At several
places on the coast of the White Sea, however, dogs are also
employed as beasts of draught, but according to information which I
procured before my departure for Spitzbergen in 1872--it was then
under discussion whether dogs should be used during the projected
ice journey--these are of a different race, larger and stronger than
the Lapp or Samoyed dogs proper.

Immediately after the _Vega_ came to anchor, I went on land on this
occasion also; in the first place with a view to take some solar
altitudes, in order to ascertain the chronometer's rate of going;
for during the voyage of 1875 I had had an opportunity of
determining the position of this place as accurately as is possible
with the common reflecting circle and chronometer, with the
following result:--

  The Church at Chabarova (Latitude 69° 38' 50".
                          (Longitude 60° 19' 49" E. from Greenwich.

[Illustration: _Samoiedarum, trahis a rangiferis protractis infidentium
Nec non Idolorum ab ÿsdem cultorum effigies._ ]

[Illustration: SAMOYED SLEIGH AND IDOLS. After an old Dutch engraving. ]

When the observations were finished I hastened to renew my
acquaintance with my old friends on the spot. I also endeavoured to
purchase from the Samoyeds dresses and household articles; but as I
had not then with me goods for barter, and ready money appeared to
be of small account with them, prices were very high; for instance,
for a lady's beautiful "pesk," twenty roubles; for a cap with brass
ornaments, ten roubles; for a pair of boots of reindeer skin, two
roubles; for copper ornaments for hoods, two roubles each; and so
on.

[Illustration: SAMOYED IDOLS. One-third of natural size. ]

As I knew that the Samoyeds during their wanderings always carry
idols with them, I asked them whether they could not sell me some.
All at first answered in the negative. It was evident that they were
hindered from complying with my requests partly by superstition,
partly by being a little ashamed, before the West European, of the
nature of their gods. The metallic lustre of some rouble pieces
which I had procured in Stockholm, however, at last induced an old
woman to set aside all fears. She went to one of the loaded sledges,
which appeared to be used as magazines, and searched for a long time
till she got hold of an old useless skin boot, from which she drew a
fine skin stocking, out of which at last four idols appeared. After
further negotiations they were sold to me at a very high price. They
consisted of a miniature "pesk," with belt, without body; a skin
doll thirteen centimetres long, with face of brass; another doll,
with a bent piece of copper plate for a nose; and a stone, wrapped
round with rags and hung with brass plates, a corner of the stone
forming the countenance of the human figure it was intended to
resemble.

[Illustration: SAMOYED HAIR ORNAMENTS. One-third of natural size. ]

More finely-formed gods, dolls pretty well made, with bows forged of
iron, I have seen, but have not had the good fortune to get
possession of. In the case now in question the traffic was
facilitated by the circumstance that the old witch, Anna Petrovna,
who sold her gods, was baptised, which was naturally taken advantage
of by me to represent to her that it was wrong for her as a
Christian to worship such trash as "bolvans," and the necessity of
immediately getting rid of them. But my arguments, at once sophistic
and egoistic, met with disapproval, both from the Russians and
Samoyeds standing round, inasmuch as they declared that on the whole
there was no great difference between the "bolvan" of the Samoyed
and the sacred picture of the Christian. It would even appear as if
the Russians themselves considered the "bolvans" as representatives
of some sort of Samoyed saints in the other world.

When the traffic in gods was finished, though not to my full
satisfaction, because I thought I had got too little, we were
invited by one of the Russians, as in 1875, to drink tea in his
cabin. This consisted of a lobby, and a room about four metres
square, and scarcely two metres and a half high. One corner was
occupied by a large chimney, at the side of which was the very low
door, and right opposite the window opening, under which were placed
some chests, serving as tea-table for the occasion. Along the two
remaining sides of the room there were fastened to the wall sleeping
places of boards covered with reindeer skin. The window appeared to
have been formerly filled with panes of glass, but most of these
were now broken, and replaced by boards. It need scarcely surprise
us if glass is a scarce article of luxury here.

We had no sooner entered the cabin than preparations for tea
commenced. Sugar, biscuits, teacups and saucers, and a brandy flask
were produced from a common Russian travelling trunk. Fire was
lighted, water boiled, and tea made in the common way, a thick smoke
and strong fames from the burning fuel spreading in the upper part
of the low room, which for the time was packed full of curious
visitors. Excepting these trifling inconveniences the entertainment
passed off very agreeably, with constant conversation, which was
carried on with great liveliness, though the hosts and most of the
guests could only with difficulty make themselves mutually
intelligible.

Hence we betook ourselves to the skin tents of the Samoyeds which
stood apart from the wooden huts inhabited by the Russians. Here too
we met with a friendly reception. Several of the inhabitants of the
tents were now clad with somewhat greater care in a dress of
reindeer skin, resembling that of the Lapps. The women's holiday
dress was particularly showy. It consisted of a pretty long garment
of reindeer skin, fitting closely at the waist, so thin that it hung
from the middle in beautiful regular folds. The petticoat has two or
three differently coloured fringes of dogskin, between which stripes
of brightly coloured cloth are sewed on. The foot-covering consists
of boots of reindeer skin beautifully and tastefully embroidered.
During summer the men go bare-headed. The women then have their
black straight hair divided behind into two tresses, which are
braided with straps, variegated ribbons and beads, which are
continued beyond the point where the hair ends as an artificial
prolongation of the braids, so that, including the straps which form
this continuation, loaded as they are with beads, buttons, and metal
ornaments of all kinds, they nearly reach the ground. The whole is
so skilfully done, that at first one is inclined to believe that the
women here were gifted with a quite incredible growth of hair. A
mass of other bands of beads ornamented with buttons was besides
often intertwined with the hair in a very tasteful way, or fixed to
the perforated ears. All this hair ornamentation is naturally very
heavy, and the head is still more weighed down in winter, as it is
protected from the cold by a thick and very warm cap of reindeer
skin, bordered with dogskin, from the back part of which hang clown
two straps set full of heavy plates of brass or copper.

[Illustration: SAMOYED WOMAN'S DRESS. After a drawing by Hj Théel. ]

The young woman also, even here as everywhere else, bedecks herself
as best she can; but fair she certainly is not in our eyes. She
competes with the man in dirt. Like the man she is small of stature,
has black coarse hair resembling that of a horse's mane or tail,
face of a yellow colour, often concealed by dirt, small, oblique,
often running and sore eyes, a flat nose, broad projecting
cheekbones, slender legs and small feet and hands.

The dress of the man, which resembles that of the Lapps, consists of
a plain, full and long "pesk," confined at the waist with a belt
richly ornamented with buttons and brass mounting, from which the
knife is suspended. The boots of reindeer skin commonly go above the
knees, and the head covering consists of a closely fitting cap, also
of reindeer skin.

[Illustration: SAMOYED BELT WITH KNIFE. One-sixth of natural size. ]

The summer tents, the only ones we saw, are conical, with a hole in
the roof for carrying off the smoke from the fireplace, which is
placed in the middle of the floor. The sleeping places in many of
the tents are concealed by a curtain of variegated cotton cloth.
Such cloth is also used, when there is a supply of it, for the inner
parts of the dress. Skin, it would appear, is not a very comfortable
material for dress, for the first thing, after fire-water and iron,
which the skin-clad savage purchases from the European, is cotton,
linen, or woollen cloth.

Of the Polar races, whose acquaintance I have made, the reindeer Lapps
undoubtedly stand highest; next to them come the Eskimo of Danish
Greenland. Both these races are Christian and able to read, and have
learned to use and require a large number of the products of
agriculture, commerce, and the industrial arts of the present day, as
cotton and woollen cloth, tools of forged and cast iron, firearms,
coffee, sugar, bread, &c. They are still nomads and hunters, but cannot
be called savages; and the educated European who has lived among them
for a considerable time commonly acquires a liking for many points of
their natural disposition and mode of life. Next to them in civilisation
come the Eskimo of North-western America, on whose originally rough life
contact with the American whale-fishers appears to have had a very
beneficial influence. I form my judgment from the Eskimo tribe at Port
Clarence. The members of this tribe were still heathens, but a few of
them were far travelled, and had brought home from the Sandwich Islands
not only cocoa-nuts and palm mats, but also a trace of the South Sea
islander's greater love for ornament and order. Next come the Chukchis,
who have as yet come in contact with men of European race to a limited
extent, but whose resources appear to have seriously diminished in
recent times, in consequence of which the vigour and vitality of the
tribe have decreased to a noteworthy extent. Last of all come the
Samoyeds, or at least the Samoyeds who inhabit regions bordering on
countries inhabited by the Caucasian races; on them the influence of the
higher race, with its regulations and ordinances, its merchants, and,
above all, its fire-water, has had a distinctly deteriorating effect.

[Illustration: SACRIFICIAL EMINENCE ON VAYGATS ISLAND. After a drawing
by A. Hovgaard. ]

When I once asked an Eskimo in North-western Greenland, known for
his excessive self-esteem, whether he would not admit that the
Danish Inspector (Governor) was superior to him, I got for answer:
"That is not so certain: the Inspector has, it is true, more
property, and appears to have more power, but there are people in
Copenhagen whom he must obey. I receive orders from none." The same
haughty self-esteem one meets with in his host in the "gamma" of the
reindeer Lapp, and the skin tent of the Chukchi. In the Samoyed, on
the other hand, it appears to have been expelled by a feeling of
inferiority and timidity, which in that race has deprived the savage
of his most striking characteristics.

I knew from old travels and from my own experience on Yalmal, that
another sort of gods, and one perhaps inferior to those which Anna
Petrovna pulled out of her old boot, was to be found set up at
various places on eminences strewn with the bones of animals that
had been offered in sacrifice. Our Russian host informed us the
Samoyeds from far distant regions are accustomed to make pilgrimages
to these places in order to offer sacrifices and make vows. They eat
the flesh of the animals they sacrifice, the bones are scattered
over the sacrificial height, and the idols are besmeared with the
blood of the sacrificed animal. I immediately declared that I wished
to visit such a place. But for a long time none of the Russians who
were present was willing to act as guide. At last however a young
man offered to conduct me to a place on Vaygats Island, where I
could see what I wished. Accordingly the following day, accompanied
by Dr. Almquist, Lieutenant Hovgaard, Captain Nilsson, and my
Russian guide, I made an excursion in one of the steam launches to
the other shore of Yugor Straits.

The sacrificial eminence was situated on the highest point of the
south-western headland of Vaygats Island, and consisted of a natural
hillock which rose a couple of metres above the surrounding plain.
The plain terminated towards the sea with a steep escarpment. The
land was even, but rose gradually to a height of eighteen metres
above the sea. The country consisted of upright strata of Silurian
limestone running from east to west, and at certain places
containing fossils resembling those of Gotland. Here and there were
shallow depressions in the plain, covered with a very rich and
uniformly green growth of grass. The high-lying dry parts again made
a gorgeous show, covered as they were with an exceedingly luxuriant
carpet of yellow and white saxifrages, blue _Eritrichia_, _Polemonia_
and _Parryoe_ and yellow _Chrysosplenia_, &c. The last named,
commonly quite modest flowers, are here so luxuriant that they form
an important part of the flower covering. Trees are wholly wanting.
Even bushes are scarcely two feet high, and that only at sheltered
places, in hollows and at the foot of steep slopes looking towards
the south. The sacrificial mound consisted of a cairn of stones some
few metres square, situated on a special elevation of the plain.
Among the stones there were found:--

1. Reindeer skulls, broken in pieces for the purpose of extracting
the brains, but with the horns still fast to the coronal bone; these
were now so arranged among the stones that they formed a close
thicket of reindeer horns, which, gave to the sacrificial mound its
peculiar character.

2. Reindeer skulls with the coronal bone bored through, set up on
sticks which were stuck in the mound. Sometimes there was carved on
these sticks a number of faces, the one over the other.

3. A large number of other bones of reindeer, among them marrow
bones, broken for the purpose of extracting the marrow.

4. Bones of the bear, among which were observed the paws and the
head, only half flayed, of a bear which had been shot so recently
that the flesh had not begun to decompose; alongside of this bear's
head there were found two lead bullets placed on a stone.

5. A quantity of pieces of iron, for instance, broken axes,
fragments of iron pots, metal parts of a broken barmonicon, &c.; and
finally,

6. The mighty beings to which all this splendour was offered.

They consisted of hundreds of small wooden sticks, the upper
portions of which were carved very clumsily in the form of the human
countenance, most of them from fifteen to twenty, but some of them
370 centimetres in length. They were all stuck in the ground on the
south-east part of the eminence. Near the place of sacrifice there
were to be seen pieces of driftwood and remains of the fireplace at
which the sacrificial meal was prepared. Our guide told us that at
these meals the mouths of the idols were besmeared with blood and
wetted with brandy, and the former statement was confirmed by the
large spots of blood which were found on most of the large idols
below the holes intended to represent the mouth.

[Illustration: IDOLS FROM THE SACRIFICIAL CAIRN. One-twelfth of
natural size. ]

After a drawing had been made of the mound, we robbed it discreetly,
and put some of the idols and the bones of the animals offered in
sacrifice into a bag which I ordered to be carried down to the boat.
My guide now became evidently uncomfortable, and said that I ought
to propitiate the wrath of the "bolvans" by myself offering
something. I immediately said that I was ready to do that, if he
would only show me how to go to work. A little at a loss, and
doubting whether he ought to be more afraid of the wrath of the
"bolvans" or of the punishment which in another world would befal
those who had sacrificed to false gods, he replied that it was only
necessary to place some small coins among the stones. With a solemn
countenance I now laid my gift upon the cairn. It was certainly the
most precious thing that had ever been offered there, consisting as
it did of two silver pieces. The Russian was now satisfied, but
declared that I was too lavish, "a couple of copper coins had been
quite enough."

The following day the Samoyeds came to know that I had been shown their
sacrificial mound. For their own part they appeared to attach little
importance to this, but they declared that the guide would be punished
by the offended "bolvans." He would perhaps come to repent of his deed
by the following autumn, when his reindeer should return from Vaygats
Island, where they for the present were tended by Samoyeds; indeed if
punishment did not befall him now, it would reach him in the future and
visit his children and grandchildren--certain it was that the gods would
not leave him unpunished. In respect to God's wrath their religious
ideas were thus in full accordance with the teaching of the Old
Testament.

This place of sacrifice was besides not particularly old, for there
had been an older place situated 600 metres nearer the shore, beside
a grotto which was regarded by the Samoyeds with superstitious
veneration. A larger number of wooden idols had been set up there,
but about thirty years ago a zealous, newly-appointed, and therefore
clean-sweeping archimandrite visited the place, set fire to the
sacrificial mound, and in its place erected a cross, which is still
standing. The Samoyeds had not sought to retaliate by destroying in
their turn the symbol of Christian worship. They left revenge to the
gods themselves, certain that in a short time they would destroy all
the archimandrite's reindeer, and merely removed their own place of
sacrifice a little farther into the land. There no injudicious
religious zeal has since attacked their worship of the "bolvans."

[Illustration: SACRIFICIAL CAVITY ON VANGATA ISLAND. After a drawing
by A. Hovgaard. ]

The old place of sacrifice was still recognisable by the number of
fragments of bones and rusted pieces of iron which lay strewed about
on the ground, over a very extensive area, by the side of the
Russian cross. Remains of the fireplace, on which the Schaman gods
had been burned, were also visible. These had been much larger and
finer than the gods on the present eminence, which is also confirmed
by a comparison of the drawings here given of the latter with those
from the time of the Dutch explorers. The race of the Schaman gods
has evidently deteriorated in the course of the last three hundred
years.

After I had completed my examination and collected some
contributions from the old sacrificial mound I ordered a little
boat, which the steam-launch had taken in tow, to be carried over
the sandy neck of land which separates the lake shown on the map
from the sea, and rowed with Captain Nilsson and my Russian guide to
a Samoyed burying-place farther inland by the shore of the lake.

Only one person was found buried at the place. The grave was
beautifully situated on the sloping beach of the lake, now gay with
numberless Polar flowers. It consisted of a box carefully
constructed of broad stout planks, fixed to the ground with
earthfast stakes and cross-bars, so that neither beasts of prey nor
lemmings could get through. The planks appeared not to have been
hewn out of drift-wood, but were probably brought from the south,
like the birch bark with which the bottom of the coffin was covered.
As a "pesk," now fallen in pieces, lying round the skeleton, and
various rotten rags showed, the dead body had been wrapped in the
common Samoyed dress. In the grave were found besides the remains of
an iron pot, an axe, knife, boring tool, bow, wooden arrow, some
copper ornaments, &c. Rolled-up pieces of bark also lay in the
coffin, which were doubtless intended to be used in lighting fires
in another world. Beside the grave lay a sleigh turned upside down,
evidently placed there in order that the dead man should not, away
there, want a means of transport, and it is probable that reindeer
for drawing it were slaughtered at the funeral banquet.

[Illustration: SAMOYED GRAVE ON VAYGATS ISLAND. ]

As it may be of interest to ascertain to what extent the Samoyeds
have undergone any considerable changes in their mode of life since
they first became known to West-Europeans, I shall here quote some
of the sketches of them which we find in the accounts of the voyages
of the English and Dutch travellers to the North-East.

[Illustration: SAMOYED-ARCHERS. After Linschoten. ]

That changes have taken place in their weapons, in other words, that
the Samoyeds have made progress in the art of war or the chase, is
shown by the old drawings, some of which are here reproduced. For in
these they are nearly always delineated with bows and arrows. Now
the bow appears to have almost completely gone out of use, for we
saw not a single Samoyed archer. They had, on the other hand, the
wretched old flint firelocks, in which lost pieces of the lock were
often replaced in a very ingenious way with pieces of bone and
thongs. They also inquired eagerly for percussion guns, but
breechloaders were still unknown to them. In this respect they had
not kept abreast of the times so well as the Eskimo at Port
Clarence.

One of the oldest accounts of the Samoyeds which I know is that of
Stephen Burrough from 1556. It is given in Hakluyt (1st edition,
page 318). In the narrative of the voyage of the _Searchthrift_ we
read:--

    "On Saturday the 1st August 1556 I went ashore,[56] and
    there saw three morses that they (Russian hunters) had
    killed: they held one tooth of a morse, which was not
    great, at a roble, and one white beare skin at three
    robles and two robles: they further told me, that there
    were people called Samoeds on the great Island, and that
    they would not abide them nor us, who have no houses, but
    only coverings made of Deerskins, set ouer them with
    stakes: they are men expert in shooting, and have great
    plenty of Deere. On Monday the 3rd we weyed and went roome
    with another Island, which was five leagues (15')
    East-north-east from us: and there I met againe with
    Loshak,[57] and went on shore with him, and he brought me
    to a heap of Samoeds idols, which were in number above
    300, the worst and the most unartificiall worke that ever
    I saw: the eyes and mouthes of sundrie of them were
    bloodie, they had the shape of men, women, and children,
    very grosly wrought, and that which they had made for
    other parts, was also sprinkled with blood. Some of their
    idols were an olde sticke with two or three notches, made
    with a knife in it. There was one of their sleds broken
    and lay by the heape of idols, and there I saw a deers
    skinne which the foules had spoyled: and before certaine
    of their idols blocks were made as high as their mouthes,
    being all bloody, I thought that to be the table whereon
    they offered their sacrifice: I saw also the instruments
    whereupon they had roasted flesh, and as farre as I could
    perceiue, they make the fire directly under the spit.
    Their boates are made of Deers skins, and when they come
    on shoare they cary their boates with them upon their
    backs: for their cariages they haue no other beastes to
    serve them but Deere only. As for bread and corne they
    have none, except the Russes bring it to them: their
    knowledge is very base for they know no letter."

Giles Fletcher, who in 1588 was Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to the
Czar, writes in his account of Russia of the Samoyeds in the
following way:--[58]

    "The _Samoyt_ hath his name (as the _Russe_ saith) of
    eating himselfe: as if in times past they lived as the
    _Cannibals_, eating one another. Which they make more
    probable, because at this time they eate all kind of raw
    flesh, whatsoeuer it bee, euen the very carrion that lyeth
    in the ditch. But as the _Samoits_ themselves will say,
    they were called _Samoie_, that is, _of themselves_, as
    though they were _Indigenæ_, or people bred upon that
    very soyle that never changed their seate from one place
    to another, as most Nations have done. They are clad in
    Seale-skinnes, with the hayrie side outwards downe as low
    as the knees, with their Breeches and Netherstocks of the
    same, both men and women. They are all Blacke hayred,
    naturally beardless. And therefore the Men are hardly
    discerned from the Women by their lookes: saue that the
    Women weare a locke of hayre down along both their eares."

In nearly the same way the Samoyeds are described by G. DE VEER in
his account of Barents' second voyage in 1595. Barents got good
information from the Samoyeds as to the navigable water to the
eastward, and always stood on a good footing with them, excepting on
one occasion when the Samoyeds went down to the Dutchmen's boats and
took back an idol which had been carried off from a large
sacrificial mound.

[Illustration: SAMOYEDS. From Schleissing's Neu-entdecktes Sieweria,
worinnen die Zobeln gefangen werden. Zittau 1693.[59] ]

The Samoyeds have since formed the subject of a very extensive
literature, of which however it is impossible for me to give any
account here. Among other points their relations to other races have
been much discussed. On this subject I have received from my learned
friend, the renowned philologist Professor AHLQUIST of Helsingfors
the following communication:--

    The Samoyeds are reckoned, along with the Tungoose, the
    Mongolian, the Turkish and the Finnish-Ugrian races, to
    belong to the so-called Altaic or Ural-Altaic stem. What
    is mainly characteristic of this stem, is that all the
    languages occurring within it belong to the so-called
    agglutinating type. For in these languages the relations
    of ideas are expressed exclusively by terminations or
    suffixes--inflections, prefixes and prepositions, as
    expressive of relations, being completely unknown to them.
    Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages
    are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the
    inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning
    of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar
    affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural
    as in the singular. The affinity between the different
    branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on
    analogy or resemblance in the construction of the
    languages, while the different tongues in the material of
    language (both in the words themselves and in the
    expression of relations) show a very limited affinity or
    none at all. The circumstance that the Samoyeds for the
    present have as their nearest neighbours several
    Finnish-Ugrian races (Lapps, Syrjaeni, Ostjaks, and
    Voguls), and that these to a great extent carry on the
    same modes of life as themselves, has led some authors to
    assume a close affinity between the Samoyeds and the Fins
    and the Finnish races in general. The speech of the two
    neighbouring tribes however affords no ground for such a
    supposition. Even the language of the Ostjak, which is the
    most closely related to that of the Samoyeds, is separated
    heaven-wide from it and has nothing in common with it,
    except a small number of borrowed words (chiefly names of
    articles from the Polar nomad's life), which the Ostjak
    has taken from the language of his northern neighbour.
    With respect to their language, however, the Samoyeds are
    said to stand at a like distance from the other branches
    of the stem in question. To what extent craniology or the
    modern anthropology can more accurately determine the
    affinity-relationship of the Samoyed to other tribes, is
    still a question of the future.

[Illustration: BREEDING-PLACE FOR LITTLE AUKS. Foul Bay, on the West
Coast of Spitzbergen, after a photograph taken by A. Envall on the
30th August, 1872. ]


[Footnote 53: "Letter of Richard Finch to Sir Thomas Smith,
Governor; and to the rest of the Worshipful Companie of English
Merchants, trading into Russia." _Purchas_, iii. p. 534. ]

[Footnote 54: Mr. Serebrenikoff writes _Samodin_ instead of
_Samoyed_, considering the latter name incorrect. For _Samoyed_
means "self-eater," while _Samodin_ denotes "an individual," "one
who cannot be mistaken for any other," and, as the Samoyeds never
were cannibals, Mr. Serebrenikoff gives a preference to the latter
name, which is used by the Russians at Chabarova, and appears to be
a literal translation of the name which the Samoyeds give
themselves. I consider it probable, however, that the old tradition
of man-eaters (_androphagi_) living in the north, which originated
with Herodotus, and was afterwards universally adopted in the
geographical literature of the middle ages, reappears in a
Russianised form in the name "Samoyed." (Compare what is quoted
further on from Giles Fletcher's narrative). ]

[Footnote 55: This name, which properly denotes a coarse likeness,
has passed into the Swedish, the word _bulvan_ being one of the few
which that language has borrowed from the Russian. ]

[Footnote 56: Probably on one of the small islands near Vaygats. ]

[Footnote 57: A Russian hunter who had been serviceable to Stephen
Burrough in many ways. ]

[Footnote 58: _Treatise of Russia and the adjoining Regions_,
written by Doctor Giles Fletcher, Lord Ambassador from the late
Queen, Everglorious Elizabeth, to Theodore, then Emperor of Russia.
A.D. 1588. _Purchas_, iii. p. 413. ]

[Footnote 59: A still more extraordinary idea of the Samoyeds, than
that which this woodcut gives us, we get from the way in which they
are mentioned in the account of the journey which the Italian
Minorite, Joannes de Plano Carpini, undertook in High Asia in the
years 1245-47 as ambassador from the Pope to the mighty conqueror of
the Mongolian hordes. In this book of travels it is said that
Occodai Khan, Chingis Khan's son, after having been defeated by the
Hungarians and Poles, turned towards the north, conquered the
Bascarti, _i.e._ the Great Hungarians, then came into collision with
the Parositi--who had wonderfully small stomachs and mouths, and did
not eat flesh, but only boiled it and nourished themselves by
inhaling the steam--and finally came to the _Samogedi_, who lived
only by the chase and had houses and clothes of skin, and to a land
by the ocean, where there were monsters with the bodies of men, the
feet of oxen and the faces of dogs (_Relation des Mongols ou
Tartares_, par le frère Jean du Plan de Carpin, publ. par M.
d'Avezac, Paris 1838, p. 281. Compare Ramusio, _Delle navigationi e
viaggi_, ii. 1583, leaf 236). At another place in the same work it
is said that "the land Comania has on the north immediately after
Russia, the Mordvini and Bileri, _i.e._ the Great Bulgarians, the
Bascarti, _i.e._ the Great Hungarians, then the Parositi and
_Samogedi_, who are said to have the faces of dogs" (_Relation des
Mongols_, p. 351. Ramusio, ii., leaf 239). ]



CHAPTER III.

    From the Animal World of Novaya Zemlya--The Fulmar Petrel--
    The Rotge or Little Auk--Brünnich's Guillemot--The Black
    Guillemot--The Arctic Puffin--The Gulls--Richardson's Skua--
    the Tern--Ducks and Geese--The Swan--Waders--The Snow
    Bunting--The Ptarmigan--The Snowy Owl--The Reindeer--The
    Polar Bear--The Mountain Fox--The Lemming--Insects--
    The Walrus--The Seal--Whales.


If we do not take into account the few Samoyeds who of recent years
have settled on Novaya Zemlya or wander about during summer on the
plains of Vaygats Island, all the lands which in the old world have
formed the field of research of the Polar explorer--Spitzbergen,
Franz-Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Vaygats Island, the Taimur
Peninsula, the New Siberian Islands, and perhaps Wrangel's Land
also--are uninhabited. The pictures of life and variety, which the
native, with his peculiar manners and customs, commonly offers to
the foreigner in distant foreign lands, are not to be met with here.
But, instead, the animal life, which he finds there in summer--for
during winter almost all beings who live above the surface of the
sea disappear from the highest North--is more vigorous and perhaps
even more abundant, or, to speak more correctly, less concealed by
the luxuriance of vegetation than in the south.

It is not, however, the larger mammalia--whales, walruses, seals,
bears and reindeer--that attract attention in the first place, but
the innumerable flocks of birds that swarm around the Polar
traveller during the long summer day of the North.

Long before one enters the region of the Polar Sea proper, the
vessel is surrounded by flocks of large grey birds which fly, or
rather hover without moving their wings, close to the surface of the
sea, rising and sinking with the swelling of the billows, eagerly
searching for some eatable object on the surface of the water, or
swim in the wake of the vessel in order to snap up any scraps that
may be thrown overboard. It is the Arctic _stormfogel_[60] (Fulmar,
"Mallemuck," "Hafhaest," _Procellaria glacialis_, L.). The fulmar is
bold and voracious, and smells villanously, on which account it is
only eaten in cases of necessity, although its flesh, if the bird
has not recently devoured too much rotten blubber, is by no means
without relish, at least for those who have become accustomed to the
flavour of train oil, when not too strong. It is more common on Bear
Island and Spitzbergen than on Novaya Zemlya, and scarcely appears
to breed in any considerable numbers on the last-named place. I know
three places north of Scandinavia where the fulmar breeds in large
numbers: the first on Bear Island, on the slopes of some not very
steep cliffs near the so-called south harbour of the island,[61] the
second on the southern shore of Brandywine Bay on North-East Land,
the third on ledges of the perpendicular rock-walls in the interior
of Ice Fjord. At the two latter places the nests are inaccessible.
On Bear Island, on the other hand, one can without very great
difficulty plunder the whole colony of the dirty grey, short eggs,
which are equally rounded at both ends. The eggs taste exceedingly
well. The nest is very inconsiderable, smelling badly like the bird
itself.

When the navigator has gone a little further north and come to an
ice-bestrewed sea, the swell ceases at once, the wind is hushed and
the sea becomes bright as a mirror, rising and sinking with a slow
gentle heaving. Flocks of little auks (_Mergulus alle_, L.)
Brünnich's guillemots (_Uria Brünnichii_, Sabine), and black
guillemots (_Uria grylle_, L.) now swarm in the air and swim among
the ice floes. The _alke-kung_ (little auk), also called the "sea
king," or rotge, occurs only sparingly off the southern part of
Novaya Zemlya, and does not, so far as I know, breed there. The
situation of the land is too southerly, the accumulations of stones
along the sides of the mountains too inconsiderable, for the
thriving of this little bird. But on Spitzbergen it occurs in
incredible numbers, and breeds in the talus, 100 to 200 metres high,
which frost and weathering have formed at several places on the
steep slopes of the coast mountain sides; for instance, at Horn
Sound, at Magdalena Bay, on the Norways (near 80° N.L.), and
other places. These stone heaps form the palace of the rotge, richer
in rooms and halls than any other in the wide round world. If one
climbs up among the stones, he sees at intervals actual clouds of
fowl suddenly emerge from the ground either to swarm round in the
air or else to fly out to sea, and at the same time those that
remain make their presence underground known by an unceasing
cackling and din, resembling, according to Friedrich Martens, the
noise of a crowd of quarrelling women. Should this sound be
stilled for a few moments, one need only attempt in some opening
among the stones to imitate their cry (according to Martens:
_rott-tet-tet-tet-tet_) to get immediately eager and sustained
replies from all sides. The fowl circling in the air soon settle
again on the stones of the mountain slopes, where, squabbling and
fighting, they pack themselves so close together that from fifteen
to thirty of them may be killed by a single shot. A portion of the
flock now flies up again, others seek their safety like rats in
concealment among the blocks of stone. But they soon creep out
again, in order, as if by agreement, to fly out to sea and search
for their food, which consists of crustacea and vermes. The rotge
dives with ease. Its single blueish-white egg is laid on the bare
ground without a nest, so deep down among the stones that it is only
with difficulty that it can be got at. In the talus of the mountains
north of Horn Sound I found on the 18th June, 1858, two eggs of this
bird lying directly on the layer of ice between the stones. Probably
the hatching season had not then begun. Where the main body of these
flocks of birds passes the winter, is unknown,[62] but they return
to the north early--sometimes too early. Thus in 1873 at the end of
April I saw a large number of rotges frozen to death on the ice in
the north part of Hinloopen Strait. When cooked the rotge tastes
exceedingly well, and in consequence of the great development of the
breast muscles it affords more food than could be expected from its
small size.

[Illustration: THE LITTLE AUK, OR ROTGE. Swedish, Alkekung. (_Mergulus
Alle_, L.) ]

Along with the rotge we find among the ice far out at sea flocks of
_alkor_ (looms, or Brünnich's guillemots), and the nearer we come to
the coast, the more do these increase in number, especially if the
cliffs along the shore offer to this species of sea-fowl--the most
common of the Polar lands--convenient hatching places. For this
purpose are chosen the faces of cliffs which rise perpendicularly
out of the sea, but yet by ledges and uneven places afford room for
the hatching fowl. On the guillemot-fells proper, eggs lie beside
eggs in close rows from the crown of the cliff to near the sea
level, and the whole fell is also closely covered with seafowl,
which besides in flocks of thousands and thousands fly to and from
the cliffs, filling the air with their exceedingly unpleasant
scream. The eggs are laid, without trace of a nest, on the rock,
which is either bare or only covered with old birds' dung, so
closely packed together, that in 1858 from a ledge of small extent,
which I reached by means of a rope from the top of the fell, I
collected more than half a barrel-full of eggs. Each bird has but
one very large egg, grey pricked with brown, of very variable size
and form. After it has been sat upon for some time, it is covered
with a thick layer of birds' dung, and in this way the hunters are
accustomed to distinguish uneatable eggs from fresh.

[Illustration: THE LOOM OR BRÜNNICH'S GUILLEMOT. Swedish, Alka
(_Uria Brünnichii_, Sabine). ]

If a shot be fired at a "loomery," the fowl fly away in thousands
from their hatching places, without the number of those that are not
frightened away being apparently diminished. The clumsy and
short-winged birds, when they cast themselves out of their places,
fall down at first a good way before they get "sufficient air" under
their wings to be able to fly. Before this takes place, many plump
down into the water, sometimes even into the boat which may be rowed
along the foot of the fell.

An unceasing, unpleasant cackling noise indicates that a continual
gossip goes on in the "loomery"; and that the unanimity there is not
great, is proved by the passionate screams which are heard now and
then. A bird squeezes forward in order to get a place on a ledge of
rock already packed full, a couple of others quarrel about the
ownership of an egg which has been laid on a corner of the rock only
a few inches broad, and which now during the dispute is precipitated
into the abyss. By the beginning of July most of the eggs are
uneatable. I have seen the young of the size of a rotge accompany
their mothers in the middle of August. The loom breeds on Walden
Island and the north coast of North-East land, accordingly far north
of 80°. I found the largest "loomeries" on Spitzbergen south
of Lomme Bay in Hinloopen Strait, at the southern entrance to Van
Meyen Bay in Bell Sound, and at Alkornet in Ice Fjord. In respect to
the large number of fowl, however, only the first of these can
compete with the south shore of Besimannaja Bay (72° 54' N.L.)
and with the part of Novaya Zemlya that lies immediately to the
south of this bay. The eggs of the loom are palatable, and the flesh
is excellent, though not quite free from the flavour of train oil.
In any case it tastes much better than that of the eider.

Along with the rotge and the loom two nearly allied species of
birds, _lunnefogeln_, the Arctic puffin (_Mormon arcticus_, L.)
and _tejsten_ or _tobis-grisslan_, the black guillemot (_Uria
grylle_, L.) are to be seen among the drift-ice. I do not know any
puffin-fells on Spitzbergen. The bird appears to breed there only in
small numbers, though it is still found on the most northerly part
of the island. On Novaya Zemlya, too, it occurs rather sparingly.
The black guillemot, on the other hand, is found everywhere, though
never collected in large flocks, along the shores of Spitzbergen,
and Novaya Zemlya, even as far north as Parry Island in 80°
40' N.L., where in 1861 I saw several of their nests. These are
placed near the summits of steep cliffs along the shore. The black
guillemots often swim out together in pairs in the fjords. Their
flesh has about the same taste as Brünnich's guillemot, but is
tougher and of inferior quality; the eggs, on the other hand, are
excellent.

[Illustration: THE ARCTIC PUFFIN. Swedish, Lunnefogel. (Mormon Arcticus,
L.) THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. Swedish, Tejst. (Uria Grylle, L.) ]

The sea fowl mentioned above are never met with inland.
They never settle on a grassy sward or on a level sandy beach. The
steep fowl-fell sides, the sea, ground-ice, pieces of drift-ice and
small stones rising above the water, form their habitat. They swim
with great skill both on, and under the water. The black guillemots
and rotges fly swiftly and well; Brünnich's guillemots, on the
contrary, heavily and ill. The latter therefore do not perhaps
remove in winter farther from their hatching places than to the
nearest open water, and it is probable that colonies of Brünnich's
guillemots are not located at places where the sea freezes
completely even far out from the coast. On this perhaps depends the
scarcity of Brünnich's guillemot in the Kara Sea.

While sailing in the Arctic Ocean, vessels are nearly always
attended by two kinds of gulls, the greedy _stormaosen_ or
_borgmaesteren_, glaucous gull (_Larus glaucus_, Brünn.), and the
gracefully formed, swiftly flying _kryckian_ or _tretaoiga maosen_,
kittiwake (_Larus tridactylus_, L.), and if the hunter lies to at an
ice-floe to flense upon it a seal which has been shot, it is not
long till a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue bills
and black legs settle down in the neighbourhood in order that they
may get a portion of the spoil. They belong to the third kind of
gull common in the north, _ismaosen_, the ivory gull (_Larus
eburneus_, Gmel.).

[Illustration: BREEDING-PLACE FOR GLAUCOUS GULLS. Borgmaestareport
on Bear Island, after a midnight photograph taken by the Author
on the 18th-19th June, 1864. ]

In disposition and mode of life these gulls differ much from each
other. The glaucous gull is sufficiently strong to be able to defend
its eggs and young against the attack of the mountain fox. It
therefore breeds commonly on the summits of easily accessible small
cliffs, hillocks or heaps of stones, preferably in the neighbourhood
of "loomeries" or on fowl-islands, where the young of the
neighbouring birds offer an opportunity for prey and hunting during
the season when its own young are being fed. Sometimes, as for
instance at Brandywine Bay on Spitzbergen, the glaucous gull breeds
in great flocks on the ledges of steep fell-sides, right in the
midst of Brünnich's guillemots. On Bear Island I have seen it hatch
on the very beach, at a place, for instance, under the arch of a
waterfall leaping down from a precipitous cliff. The nests, which,
to judge from the quantity of birds' dung in their neighbourhood,
are used for a long succession of years, are placed in a depression
in the rock or the ground, and lined with a little straw or a
feather or two. The number of the eggs is three or four. After
boiling they show a jellylike, half transparent white, and a reddish
yellow, and are exceedingly delicious. The young birds have white
flesh, resembling chicken. The burgomaster is common everywhere
along the coasts of Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen. Yet I have not
seen the nest of this gull on the north coast of North East Land or
on the Seven Islands.

[Illustration: A. THE KITTIWAKE B. THE IVORY GULL. Swedish, Kryckia.
(Larus tridactylus, L.) Swedish, Ismaos (Larus eburneus, L.) ]

Still more common than the glaucous gull in the lands of the High
North is _kryckian_, the kittiwake. It is met with far out at sea,
where it accompanies the vessel whole days, circling round the tops
of the masts, and sometimes--according to the statements of the
walrus-hunters, when a storm is approaching--pecking at the points
of the pendant. When the vessel is in harbour, the kittiwakes
commonly gather round it to pick out anything eatable in the refuse
that may be thrown away. They breed in great flocks on the steep
escarpments in some separate part of the fowl-fells, in connection
with which, it is evident that the kittiwakes always endeavour to
choose the best places of the fell--those that are most inaccessible
to the fox and are best protected against bad weather. Among the
birds of the north the kittiwake is the best builder; for its nest
is walled with straw and mud, and is very firm. It juts out like a
great swallow's nest from the little ledge to which it is fixed.
Projecting ends of straw are mostly bent in, so that the nest, with
its regularly rounded form, has a very tidy appearance. The interior
is further lined with a soft, carefully arranged layer of moss,
grass and seaweed, on which the bird lays three to four
well-flavoured eggs. The soft warm underlayer is, however, not
without its inconvenience; for Dr. Stuxberg during the voyage of
1875 found in such a nest no fewer than twelve kinds of insects,
among them _Pulex vagabundus_, Bohem. in nine specimens, a beetle,
a fly, &c.

The ivory gull, called by Fr. Martens "Rathsherr," the Councillor,
is found, as its Swedish name indicates, principally out at sea in
the _pack_, or in fjords filled with drift-ice. It is a true
ice-bird, and, it may almost be said, scarcely a water-bird at all,
for it is seldom seen swimming on the surface, and it can dive as
little as its relatives, the glaucous gull and the kittiwake. In
greed it competes with the fulmar. When any large animal has been
killed among the drift-ice, the ivory gull seldom fails to put in an
appearance in order to quench its hunger with flesh and blubber. It
consumes at the same time the excrements of the seal and the walrus,
on which account from three to five ivory gulls may often be seen
sitting for a long time round a seal-hole, quiet and motionless,
waiting patiently the arrival of the seal (Malmgren).

[Illustration: RARE NORTHERN GULLS. A. Sabine's Gull
(Larus Sabinii, Sabine) B. Ross's Gull. (Larus Rossii, Richaids.) ]

The proper breeding places of this bird scarcely appear to be yet
known. So common as it is both on the coasts of Spitzbergen from the
Seven Islands to South Cape and on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya
and America, its nest has only been found twice, once in 1853 by
McClintock at Cape Krabbe in North America in 77° 25' N.L.,
the second time by Dr. Malmgren at Murchison Bay, in 82° 2'
N.L. The two nests that Malmgren found consisted of depressions,
twenty-three to twenty-six centimetres in diameter, in a heap of
loose gravel, on a ledge of a steeply-sloping limestone-rock wall.
In each nest was found only one egg, which, on the 30th July,
already contained a down-covered young bird. For all the ivory gulls
which have their home on Spitzbergen there were doubtless required
several hundred such breeding-places as that at Murchison Bay. When
to this is added the fact that we never in autumn saw on Spitzbergen
any full-grown young of this kind of gull, I assume that its proper
breeding-place must be found farther north, on the shores of some
still unknown Polar land, perhaps continually surrounded by ice. It
deserves to be mentioned with reference to this, that Murchison Bay
was covered with ice when Malmgren found the nests referred to
above.

Besides these varieties of the gull, two other species have been
found, though very rarely, in the Polar regions, viz., _Larus
Sabinii_, Sabine, and _Larus Rossii_, Richards. Although I have
myself only seen the latter, and that but once (on the Chukchi
Peninsula), I here give drawings of them both for the use of future
Polar explorers. They are perhaps, if they be properly observed, not
so rare as is commonly supposed.

Often during summer in the Arctic regions one hears a penetrating
shriek in the air. When one inquires into the reason of this, it is
found to proceed from a kittiwake, more rarely from a glaucous gull,
eagerly pursued by a bird as large as a crow, dark-brown, with white
breast and long tail-feathers. It is _labben_, the common skua
(_Lestris parasitica_, L.), known by the Norwegian walrus-hunters
under the name of _tjufjo_, derived from the bird's cry, "_I-o
i-o_," and its shameless thief-nature. When the "tjufjo" sees a
kittiwake or a glaucous gull fly off with a shrimp, a fish, or a
piece of blubber, it instantly attacks it. It flies with great
swiftness backwards and forwards around its victim, striking it with
its bill, until the attacked bird either drops what it has caught,
which is then immediately snapped up by the skua, or else settles
down upon the surface of the water, where it is protected against
attack. The skua besides eats eggs of other birds, especially of
eiders and geese. If the eggs are left but for a few moments
unprotected in the nest, it is immediately to the front and shows
itself so voracious that it is not afraid to attack nests from which
the hatching birds have been frightened away by men engaged in
gathering eggs only a few yards off. With incredible dexterity it
pecks a hole in the eggs and sucks their contents. If speed is
necessary, this takes place so quickly and out of so many eggs in
succession that it sometimes has to stand without moving, unable to
fly further until it has thrown up what it had swallowed. The skua
in this way commonly takes part in the plundering of every eider
island. The walrus-hunters are very much embittered against the bird
on account of this intrusion on their industry, and kill it whenever
they can. The whalers called it "struntjaeger"--refuse-hunter--because
they believed that it hunted gulls in order to make them void their
excrements which "struntjaegeren" was said to devour as a luxury.

[Illustration:
A. THE COMMON SKUA. Swedish, Labben, (Lestris parasitica, L.)
B. BUFFON'S SKUA. Swedish, Fjellabben. (Lestris Buffonii, Boie.)
C. THE POMARINE SKUA. Swedish, Bredstjertade Labben
(Lestris pomarina. Tem.) ]

The skua breeds upon low, unsheltered, often water-drenched
headlands and islands, where it lays one or two eggs on the bare
ground, often without trace of a nest. The eggs are so like the
ground that it is only with difficulty that they can be found. The
male remains in the neighbourhood of the nest during the hatching
season. If a man, or an animal which the bird considers dangerous,
approaches the eggs, the pair endeavour to draw attention from them
by removing from the nest, creeping on the ground and flapping their
wings in the most pitiful way. The bird thus acts with great skill a
veritable comedy, but takes good care that it is not caught.

As is well known, we know only two varieties of colour in this bird,
a self-coloured brown, and a brown on the upper part of the body
with white below. Of these I have only once in the Arctic regions
seen the self-coloured variety, viz. at Bell Sound in 1858. All the
hundreds of skuas which I have seen, besides, have had the throat
and lower part of the body coloured white.

This bird is very common on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Yet
perhaps it scarcely breeds on the north part of North-East Land.
Along with the bird now described there occur, though sparingly, two
others:--_bredstjertade labben_, the Pomarine skua (_Lestris
pomarina_, Tem.) and _fjellalbben_, Buffon's skua (_Lestris
Buffonii_, Boie). The latter is distinguished by its more slender
build and two very long tail-feathers, and it is much more common
farther to the east than on Spitzbergen. I have not had an
opportunity of making any observations on the mode of life of these
birds.

As the skua pursues the kittiwake and the glaucous gull, it is in
its turn pursued with extraordinary fierceness by the little
swiftly-flying and daring bird _taernan_, the Arctic tern (_Sterna
macroura_, Naum.). This beautiful bird is common everywhere on the
coasts of Spitzbergen, but rather rare on Novaya Zemlya. It breeds
in considerable flocks on low grass-free headlands or islands,
covered with sand or pebbles. The eggs, which are laid on the bare
ground without any trace of a nest, are so like lichen-covered
pebbles in colour, that it is only with difficulty one can get eyes
upon them; and this is the case in a yet higher degree with the
newly-hatched young, which notwithstanding their thin dress of down
have to lie without anything below them among the bare stones. From
the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings it is only
with difficulty that the tern can go on the ground. It is therefore
impossible for it to protect its nest in the same way as the
"tjufjo." Instead, this least of all the swimming birds of the Polar
lands does not hesitate to attack any one, whoever he may be, that
dares to approach its nest. The bird circles round the disturber of
the peace with evident exasperation, and now and then goes whizzing
past his head at such a furious rate that he must every moment fear
that he will be wounded with its sharp beak.

Along with the swimmers enumerated above, we find everywhere along
these shores two species of eider, the _vanliga eidern_, common
eider (_Somateria mollissima_, L.) and _praktejdern_, king-duck
(_Somateria spectabilis_, L.). The former prefers to breed on low
islands, which, at the season for laying eggs, are already
surrounded by open water and are thus rendered inaccessible to the
mountain foxes that wander about on the mainland. The richest eider
islands I have seen in Spitzbergen are the Down Islands at Horn
Sound. When I visited the place in 1858 the whole islands were so
thickly covered with nests that it was necessary to proceed with
great caution in order not to trample on eggs. Their number in every
nest was five to six, sometimes larger, the latter case, according
to the walrus-hunters, being accounted for by the female when she
sits stealing eggs from her neighbours. I have myself seen an egg of
_Anser bernicla_ in an eider's nest. The eggs are hatched by the
female, but the beautifully coloured male watches in her
neighbourhood and gives the signal of flight when danger approaches.
The nest consists of a rich, soft, down bed. The best down is got by
robbing the down-covered nest, an inferior kind by plucking the dead
birds. When the female is driven from the nest she seeks in haste to
scrape down over the eggs in order that they may not be visible. She
besides squirts over them a very stinking fluid, whose disgusting
smell adheres to the collected eggs and down. The stinking substance
is however so volatile or so easily decomposed in the air that the
smell completely disappears in a few hours. The eider, which some
years ago was very numerous on Spitzbergen,[63] has of late years
considerably diminished in numbers, and perhaps will soon be
completely driven thence, if some restraint be not laid on the
heedless way in which not only the Eider Islands are now plundered,
but the birds too killed, often for the mere pleasure of slaughter.
On Novaya Zemlya, too, the eider is common. It breeds, for instance,
in not inconsiderable numbers on the high islands in Karmakul Bay.
The eider's flesh has, it is true, but a slight flavour of train
oil, but it is coarse and far inferior to that of Brünnich's
guillemot. In particular, the flesh of the female while hatching is
almost uneatable.

[Illustration: HEADS OF THE
 A. EIDER;
 B. KING DUCK;
 C. BARNACLE GOOSE;
 D. WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. ]

The king-duck occurs more sparingly than the common eider. On
Spitzbergen it is called the "Greenland eider," on Greenland the
"Spitzbergen eider," which appears to indicate that in neither place
is it quite at home. On Novaya Zemlya, on the other hand, it occurs
in larger numbers. Only once have I seen the nest of this bird,
namely, in 1873 on Axel's Islands in Bell Sound, where it bred in
limited numbers together with the common eider. In the years 1858
and 1864, when I visited the same place, it did not breed there.
Possibly its proper breeding place is on Novaya Zemlya at the inland
lakes a little way from the coast. The walrus-hunters say that its
eggs taste better than those of the common eider. They are somewhat
smaller and have a darker green colour.

On the Down Islands hatches, along with the eiders, the long-necked
_prutgaessen_, barnacle goose (_Anser bernicla_, L.) marked on the
upper part of the body in black and brownish grey. It lays four to
five white eggs in an artless nest without down, scattered here and
there among the eiders' nests rich in down. This variety of goose is
found in greatest numbers during the moulting season at small inland
lakes along the coast, for instance on the line of coast between
Bell Sound and Ice Fjord and on Gooseland. The walrus-hunters
sometimes call them "rapphoens"--partridges--a misleading name,
which in 1873 induced me to land on the open coast south of Ice
Fjord, where "rapphoens" were to be found in great numbers. On
landing I found only moulting barnacle geese. The barnacle goose
finds its food more on land and inland lakes than in the sea. Its
flesh accordingly is free from the flavour of train oil and tastes
well, except that of the female during the hatching season, when it
is poor and tough. The eggs are better than the eider's.

On Spitzbergen besides the barnacle goose we meet with the closely
allied species _Anser leucopsis_, Bechst. It is rather rare, but
more common on Novaya Zemlya. Further there occurs at the last-named
place a third species of goose, _vildgaosen_, the "grey goose" or
"great goose" of the walrus-hunters; the bean goose (_Anser
segetum_, Gmel.), which is replaced on Spitzbergen by a nearly allied
type, the pink-footed goose (_Anser brachyrhynchus_, Baillon). These
geese are much larger than both the eider and the barnacle goose,
and appear to be sufficiently strong to defend themselves against
the fox. They commonly breed high up on some mossy or grassy oasis,
among the stone mounds of the coast mountains, or on the summit of a
steep strand escarpment in the interior of the fjords. During the
moulting season the grey geese collect in flocks at the small
fresh-water lakes along the coast. The flesh of this species of
goose is finer than that of the common tame goose and has no trace
of any train flavour.

Among the swimming birds that give the summer life on Novaya Zemlya
its peculiar character, we may further reckon the scaup-duck and the
swan. _Alfogel_ or _allan_, the long-tailed duck (_Fuligula
glacialis_, L.) is rare on Spitzbergen, but occurs very generally on
Novaya Zemlya, and especially in the Kara Sea, on whose coasts it is
seen in summer collected in large flocks. _Mindre saongsvanen_,
Bewick's swan (_Cygnus Bewickii_, Yarr.), is the most nobly formed
and coloured bird of the north. I have already described its nest,
which is found in considerable numbers in Gooseland. The bird is
blinding white, resembling the common swan, but somewhat smaller and
with a considerable difference in the formation of the windpipe and
the "keel" of the breastbone. The flesh is said to be coarse and of
inferior flavour.

[Illustration: BEWICK'S SWAN. Swedish, Mindre Saongsvanen.
(Cygnus Bewickii, Yarr) BREASTBONE of Cygnus Bewickii, showing the
peculiar position of the windpipe. After Yarrell. ]

The land-birds in the Arctic regions are less numerous both in
species and individuals than the sea-birds. Some of them, however,
also occur in large numbers. Almost wherever one lands, some small
greyish brown waders are seen running quickly to and fro, sometimes
in pairs, sometimes in flocks of ten to twenty. It is the most
common wader of the north, the _fjaerplyt_ of the walrus-hunters,
the purple sandpiper (_Tringa maritima_, Brünn.). It lives on flies,
gnats, and other land insects. Its well-filled crop shows how well
the bird knows how to collect its food even in regions where the
entomologist can only with difficulty get hold of a few of the
animal forms belonging to his field of research. The purple
sandpiper lays its four or five eggs in a pretty little nest of dry
straw on open grassy or mossy plains a little distance from the sea.
It also endeavours to protect its nest by acting a comedy like that
of the _tjufjo_. Its flesh is delicious.

In the company of the purple sandpiper there is often seen a
somewhat larger wader, or, more correctly, a bird intermediate
between the waders and the swimming birds. This is the beautiful
_brednaebbade simsnaeppan_, the grey (or red) phalarope (_Phalaropus
fulicarius_, Bonap.). It is not rare on Spitzbergen, and it is
exceedingly common, perhaps even the commonest bird on the north
coast of Asia. I imagine therefore that it is not absent from Novaya
Zemlya, though there has hitherto been observed there only the
nearly allied _smalnaebbade simsnaeppan_, the red-necked phalarope
(_Phalaropus hyperboreus_, Lath.). This bird might be taken as the
symbol of married love, so faithful are the male and female, being
continually to be seen in each other's company. While they search
for their food in pools of water along the coast, they nearly always
bear each other company, swimming in zigzag, so that every now and
then they brush past each other. If one of them is shot, the other
flies away only for a short time until it observes that its mate is
left behind. It then flies back, swims with evident distress round
its dead friend, and pushes it with its bill to get it to rise. It
does not, however, spend any special care on its nest or the rearing
of its young, at least to judge by the nest which Dunér found at
Bell Sound in 1864. The position of the nest was indicated by three
eggs laid without anything below them on the bare ground, consisting
of stone splinters. The flesh of the phalarope is a great delicacy,
like that of other waders which occur in the regions in question,
but which I cannot now stay to describe.

During excursions in the interior of the land along the coast, one
often hears, near heaps of stones or shattered cliffs, a merry
twitter. It comes from an old acquaintance from the home land, the
_snoesparfven_ or _snoelaerkan_, the snow-bunting (_Emberiza
nivalis_, L.). The name is well chosen, for in winter this pretty
bird lives as far south as the snow goes on the Scandinavian
peninsula, and in summer betakes itself to the snow limit in
Lapland, the _tundra_ of North Siberia, or the coasts of Spitzbergen
and Novaya Zemlya. It there builds its carefully-constructed nest of
grass, feathers and down, deep in a stone heap, preferably
surrounded by a grassy plain. The air resounds with the twitter of
the little gay warbler, which makes the deeper impression because it
is the only true bird's song one hears in the highest north.[64]

On Spitzbergen there is sometimes to be met with in the interior of
the country, on the mountain slopes, a game bird, _spetsbergsripan_,
the rock ptarmigan (_Lagopus hyperboreus_, Sund.). A nearly allied
type occurs on the Taimur peninsula, and along the whole north coast
of Asia. It perhaps therefore can scarcely be doubted that it is
also to be found on Novaya Zemlya, though we have not hitherto seen
it there. On Spitzbergen this bird had only been found before 1872
in single specimens, but in that year, to our glad surprise, we
discovered an actual ptarmigan-fell in the neighbourhood of our
winter colony, immediately south of the 80th degree of latitude. It
formed the haunt of probably a thousand birds; at least a couple of
hundred were shot there in the course of the winter. They probably
breed there under stones in summer, and creeping in among the stones
pass the winter there, at certain seasons doubtless in a kind of
torpid state.

[Illustration: PTARMIGAN FELL. Mussel Bay on Spitzbergen,
after a photograph taken by A. Envall on the 21st June, 1872. ]

The mode of life of the Spitzbergen ptarmigan is thus widely
different from that of the Scandinavian ptarmigan, and its flesh
also tastes differently. For the bird is exceedingly fat, and its
flesh, as regards flavour, is intermediate between black-cock and
fat goose.[65] We may infer from this that it is a great delicacy.

[Illustration: THE SNOWY OWL. Swedish, Fjelluggla (Strix nyctea L.) ]

When I was returning, in the autumn of 1872, from an excursion of
some length along the shore of Wijde Bay, I fell in with one of our
sportsmen, who had in his hand a white bird marked with black spots,
which he showed me as a "very large ptarmigan." In doing so,
however, he fell into a great ornithological mistake, for it was not
a ptarmigan at all, but another kind of bird, similarly marked in
winter, namely, _fjellugglan_, the walrus-hunter's _isoern_, the
snowy owl (_Strix nyctea_, L.). It evidently breeds and winters at
the ptarmigan-fell, which it appears to consider as its own
poultry-yard. In fact, the marking of this bird of prey is so
similar to that of its victim that the latter can scarcely perhaps
know how to take care of itself. On Spitzbergen the snowy owl is
very rare; but on Novaya Zemlya and the North coast of Asia--where
the lemming, which is wanting on Spitzbergen, occurs in great
crowds--it is common. It commonly sits immoveable on an open mountain
slope, visible at a great distance, from the strong contrast of its
white colour with the greyish-green ground. Even, in the brightest
sunshine, unlike other owls, it sees exceedingly well. It is very
shy, and therefore difficult to shoot. The snow ptarmigan and the
snowy owl are the only birds of which we know with certainty that
they winter on Spitzbergen, and both are, according to Hedenström,
native to the New Siberian Islands (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 112).


In the cultivated regions of Europe the larger mammalia are so rare
that most men in their whole lifetime have never seen a wild mammal
so large as a dog. This is not the case in the high north. The
number of the larger mammalia here is indeed no longer so large as
in the seventeenth century, when their capture yielded an abundant
living to from twenty to thirty thousand men; but sport on Novaya
Zemlya and Spitzbergen still supports several hundred hunters, and
during summer scarcely a day passes without a visitor of the coasts
of these islands seeing a seal or a walrus, a reindeer or a Polar
bear. In order to present a true picture of the Polar traveller's
surroundings and mode of life, it is absolutely necessary to give a
sketch of the occurrence and mode of life of the wild mammalia in
the Polar lands.

I shall make a beginning with the reindeer. This graminivorous
animal goes nearly as far to the north as the land in the old world.
It was not, indeed, observed by Payer on Franz Josef Land, but
traces of the reindeer were seen by us on the clay beds at Cape
Chelyuskin; remnants of reindeer were observed at Barents' winter
harbour on the northernmost part of Novaya Zemlya; some very fat
animals were killed by Norwegian walrus-hunters on King Karl's Land
east of Spitzbergen, and for some years back the reindeer was very
numerous even on the north coast of North East Land, and on
Castrén's, Parry's, Marten's, and Phipps' Islands, lying still
farther to the north. Although these regions are situated between
80° and 81° N.L., the reindeer evidently thrives there very
well, and finds, even in winter, abundant food on the mountain
slopes swept clear of snow by storms, as is shown by the good
condition in which several of the animals shot by us were, and by
the numerous reindeer traces and tracks which we saw on Castrén's
Island in the month of May, 1873. Nor does a winter temperature of
-40° to -50° appear to agree particularly ill with these
relatives of the deer of the south. Even the Norwegian reindeer can
bear the climate of Spitzbergen, for some of the selected draught
reindeer which I took with me to Spitzbergen in 1872, and which made
their escape soon after they were landed, were shot by hunters in
1875. They then pastured in company with wild reindeer, and were,
like them, very fat. It is remarkable that the reindeer,
notwithstanding the devastating pursuit to which it is exposed on
Spitzbergen,[66] is found there in much larger numbers than on North
Novaya Zemlya or the Taimur peninsula, where it is almost protected
from the attacks of the hunter. Even on the low-lying part of South
Novaya Zemlya, the reindeer, notwithstanding the abundance of the
summer pasture, is so rare that, when one lands there, any
reindeer-hunting is scarcely to be counted on. It first occurs in
any considerable numbers farther to the north, on both sides of
Matotschkin Schar.

It deserves to be mentioned here that three hundred years ago, when
the north part of Novaya Zemlya was for the first time visited by
man, reindeer do not appear to have been more numerous there than
now. In the narrative of Barents' third voyage (De Veer, _Diarium
Nauticum_, 21st June, 1506) it is expressly stated: "Here it may be
remarked that; although the land, which we consider as Groenland
(the present Spitzbergen), lies under and over the 80th degree of
latitude, there grow there abundant leaves and grass, and there are
found there such animals as eat grass, as _reindeer_, while on the
other hand, on Novaya Zemlya, under the 76th degree of latitude,
there are neither leaves nor grass nor any grass-eating animal."
After this, however, traces of reins were found even at the winter
station; a bear, for instance, was killed that had devoured a
reindeer.

On Spitzbergen the reindeer have been considerably diminished in numbers
by the hunting, first of the Dutch and English, and afterwards of the
Russians and Norwegians. In the northwestern part of the island, where
the Dutch had their train-boiling establishments, the animal has been
completely extirpated.[67] It still, however, occurs on Ice Fjord in
very great numbers, which, were the animal protected, would speedily
increase.

That so devastating a pursuit as that which goes on year after year
on Spitzbergen can be carried on without the animal being
extirpated, has even given rise to the hypothesis of an immigration
from Novaya Zemlya. But since I have become better acquainted with
the occurrence of the reindeer in the latter place, this mode of
explanation does not appear to me to be correct. If, therefore, as
several circumstances in fact indicate, an immigration of reindeer
to Spitzbergen does take place, it must be from some still unknown
Polar land situated to the north-north-east. In the opinion of some
of the walrus-hunters there are indications that this unknown land
is inhabited, for it has repeatedly been stated that _marked_
reindeer have been taken on Spitzbergen. The first statement on this
point is to be found in Witsen (_Noort ooster gedeelte van Asia en
Europa_, 1705, ii. page 904), where the reins are said to have been
marked on the horns and the ears; and I have myself heard hunters,
who in Norway were well acquainted with the care of reindeer, state
positively that the ears of some of the Spitzbergen reindeer they
shot were clipped--probably, however, the whole has originated from
the ears having been marked by frost. That no immigration to
Spitzbergen of reindeer from Novaya Zemlya takes place, is shown
besides by the fact that the Spitzbergen reindeer appears to belong
to a race differing from the Novaya Zemlya reindeer, and
distinguished by its smaller size, shorter head and legs, and
plumper and fatter body.

[Illustration: REINDEER PASTURE. Green Harbour on Spitzbergen,
after a photograph taken by A. Envall on the 20th July, 1873. ]

The life of the wild reindeer is best known from Spitzbergen. During
summer it betakes itself to the grassy plains in the ice-free
valleys of the island, in late autumn it withdraws--according to the
walrus-hunters' statements--to the sea-coast, in order to eat the
seaweed that is thrown up on the beach, and in winter it goes back
to the lichen-clad mountain heights in the interior of the country,
where it appears to thrive exceedingly well, though the cold during
winter must be excessively severe; for when the reindeer in spring
return to the coast they are still very fat, but some weeks
afterwards, when the snow has frozen, on the surface, and a crust of
ice makes it difficult for them to get at the mountain sides, they
become so poor as scarcely to be eatable. In summer, however, they
speedily eat themselves back into condition, and in autumn they are
so fat that they would certainly take prizes at an exhibition of fat
cattle. In the museum at Tromsoe there is preserved the backbone of
a reindeer, shot on King Karl's Land, which had a layer of fat seven
to eight centimetres in thickness on the loin.

The reindeer, in regions where it has been much hunted, is very shy,
but, if the ground is not quite even, one can creep within range, if
the precaution be taken not to approach it from the windward. During
the rutting season, which falls in late autumn, it sometimes happens
that the reindeer attacks the hunter.

The Spitzbergen reindeer is not tormented, like the reindeer in
Lapland and on Novaya Zemlya, by "gorm" (inch-long larvæ of a fly,
which are developed under the animal's skin). Its flesh is also
better than that of the Lapp reindeer. None of the contagious
diseases which of late years have raged so dreadfully among the
reindeer in northern Europe has ever, at least during the last fifty
years, been common on Spitzbergen.

The Polar bear occurs principally on coasts and islands which are
surrounded by drift-ice, often even upon ice-fields far out at sea,
for his best hunting is among the ice-floes. Now he is rather rare
on the south-western coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya which
are almost free of ice during summer, but more common on the
northern parts of these islands, which are almost always surrounded
by ice. Thus for instance during my many landings at Horn Sound,
Bell Sound, Ice Fjord, Foreland Sound, and King's Bay, on the west
coast of Spitzbergen, I have never seen a single bear. On the other
hand, bears were seen at nearly every resting-place during the boat
voyage I made in 1861 with Torell in Hinloopen Strait and along the
shores of the most northerly islands on Spitzbergen, also during the
sledge journey which Palander and I made in the spring of 1873
round North East Land. The Polar bear is besides found everywhere
along the north coast of Asia and America, apparently in greater
numbers the farther north we go. Sometimes too, first on ice
and then swimming, he has reached the north coast of Norway, for
instance, in March 1853, when, according to a statement in _Tromsoe
Stiftstidende_ (No. 4 for 1869), a Polar bear was killed in
Kjoellefjord in East Einmark.

The bear is not difficult to kill. When he observes a man he
commonly approaches in hope of prey, with supple movements, and in a
hundred zigzag bends, in order to conceal the direction he intends
to take, and thus keep his prey from being frightened. During his
approach he often climbs up on blocks of ice, or raises himself on
his hind legs, in order to get a more extensive view, or else stands
snuffing up the air with evident care in all directions, in order,
by the aid of smell, which he seems to rely upon more than sight, to
ascertain the true kind and nature of the surrounding objects. If he
thinks he has to do with a seal, he creeps or trails himself forward
along the ice, and is said then to conceal with the fore-paws the
only part of his body that contrasts with the white colour of the
snow--his large black nose. If one keeps quite still, the bear comes
in this way so near that one can shoot him at the distance of two
gun-lengths, or, what the hunters consider safer, kill him with the
lance. If an unarmed man falls in with a Polar bear, some rapid
movements and loud cries are generally sufficient to put him to
flight, but if the man himself flies, he is certain to have the bear
after him at full speed. If the bear is wounded, he always takes to
flight. He often lays snow upon the wound with his fore-paws;
sometimes in his death struggles he scrapes with his fore-feet a
hole in the snow, in which he buries his head.

When a vessel lies at anchor, the bear sometimes swims out to it,
and if one encamps in distant regions one often finds on getting up
in the morning a Polar bear in the neighbourhood, who during the
night has gone and nosed round the tent, without daring to attack
it. I remember only one case of a bear venturing to look into an
inhabited tent; it was during Kane's journey. He was frightened on
that occasion by the lighting of some lucifers. I have myself with
my comrades encamped without a watch in regions where we were
certain that our encampment would be visited, while we lay in deep
sleep, by some bear, that seldom, when the cook rose to make coffee,
failed to come within range of shot.

[Illustration: POLAR BEARS. Drawn by G Mützel of Berlin. ]

The bear on the other hand has a special fancy for taking an
inventory of depôts of provisions, of abandoned vessels, or of boats
that have been left drawn up on the beach. Most Arctic travellers
have remarkable adventures to relate, which both men and bears have
gone through on such occasions. During our expedition in 1864, for
instance, a large bear came and closely examined the contents of a
boat covered with a tent, which we had left unwatched for a few
hours at the bottom of Stor Fjord. He ate up a carefully-cooked
reindeer roast, tore the reserve clothes, scattered about the
ship-biscuit, &c.; and after we had returned in the evening,
gathered our things together in a heap, closed the tent and lain
down to sleep, the same bear returned, and, while we slept,
appropriated all the reindeer beef we had cooked to be used, in
place of the roast we had lost, during the following day's journey.
During one of the English expeditions in search of Franklin, there
was killed on one occasion, a bear in whose stomach there was found,
among many other articles, the stock of sticking-plaster from a
neighbouring depôt. The bear can also roll away very large stones,
but a layer of frozen sand is too much for him.

The Polar bear swims exceedingly well, but not so fast as that he
can escape in this way, if he be pursued in a boat; if a boat and
stout rowers are at hand he is accordingly done for, if, as often
happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance in the
sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, "as easy to kill as a sheep,"
but one has to make haste to get hold of the killed animal with a
harpoon or in some other way, for it speedily sinks, unless it is
very fat.

The walrus-hunting vessels from Tromsoe brought home in 1868 twenty,
in 1869 fifty-three, in 1870 ninety-eight, in 1871 seventy-four, and
in 1872 thirty-three bears. It may be inferred from this that the
Norwegian walrus-hunters kill yearly on an average at least a
hundred bears. It is remarkable that in this large number a pregnant
female or one with newly-born young is never found.[68] The female
bear appears to keep herself well concealed during the time she is
pregnant; perhaps in some ice-hole in the interior of the country.

Whether the Polar bear hibernates during winter is not quite
settled; various facts, however, point in this direction. For
instance, he disappears almost completely from wintering stations
during the dark time, and holes have sometimes been met with in
which bears were concealed. Thus it once happened to Tobiesen that
he went down with one foot into such a hole, to the no small dismay
not only of the experienced walrus-hunter, but also of the bear.

It is also stated that the bear during the dark time goes to the
edge of the ice to seek his food. I cannot say positively whether
this is the case or not; but the fact points in an opposite
direction, that while only a single bear was seen in the course of
the winter in the open water in the neighbourhood of our winter
station at Mussel Bay in 1872-73, Palander and I almost daily saw
bears on the hard frozen sea north of North East Land. Tracks of
bears were visible there in all directions on the ice, and along
with them light, sinuous traces of the fox. There were, on the other
hand, no seal holes to be found, and it was accordingly difficult to
understand wherefore the bears had chosen just this desolate stretch
of ice as their haunt. The bears that were killed were besides
uncommonly lean, the fat which they yielded being scarcely available
as fuel for the sledge-party's cooking apparatus.

During their extended excursions after prey the male and the female,
the latter generally attended by one or two large young ones, keep
each other company. Larger numbers are seldom seen together, unless
at places where a good many carcases of walruses, seals, or white
fish are lying.

In former times the sight of a bear created great dismay in Polar
travellers, but now the walrus-hunters do not hesitate a moment to
attack, lance in hand, a large number of bears. They have sometimes
in this way killed as many as twelve within a short time. They
depend less on the gun. During the expedition of 1861 Carl Chydenius
shot three in a few minutes, close to his tent-covered boat.

I do not know a single case in which any Norwegian walrus-hunter has
been seriously wounded by a bear. It appears, however, as if this
animal were bolder and more dangerous in regions where he has not
made acquaintance with man's dangerous hunting implements. During
the first English and Dutch voyages to Novaya Zemlya, bears were met
with at nearly every place where a landing was effected, in regions
where the Polar bear is now wholly absent, and the travellers were
compelled to undertake actual combats--combats which cost several
human lives. During Barents' second voyage some men on the 26th/16th
September, 1593, landed on the mainland near the eastern mouth of
Yugor Schar, in order to collect "a sort of diamonds occurring
there" (valueless rock crystals), when a large white bear, according
to De Veer, rushed forward and caught one of the stone collectors by
the neck. On the man screaming "Who seizes me by the neck?" a
comrade standing beside answered, "A bear," and ran off. The bear
immediately bit asunder the head of his prey, and sucked the blood.
The rest of the men who were on land now came to his relief,
attacking the bear with levelled guns and lances. But the bear was
not frightened, but rushed forward and laid hold of a man in the
rank of the attacking party, and killed him too, whereupon all the
rest took to flight. Assistance now came from the vessel, and the
bear was surrounded by thirty men, but against their will, because
they had to do with a "grim, undaunted, and greedy beast." Of these
thirty men only three ventured to attack the bear, whom these
"courageous" men finally killed, after a rather severe struggle.

A large number of occurrences of a similar nature, though commonly
attended with fortunate results, are to be found recorded in most of
the narratives of Arctic travel. Thus a sailor was once carried off
from a whaler caught in the ice in Davis' Straits, and in 1820,
among the drift-ice in the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen,
the same fate was like to befall one of the crew of a Hull whaler;
but he succeeded in effecting his escape by taking to flight, and
throwing to the bear, first his only weapon of defence, a lance, and
then his articles of clothing, one after the other.[69] On the 6th
of March 1870, Dr. Boergen was attacked by a bear, and dragged a
considerable distance.[70] It is remarkable that the bear did not
this time either kill his prey, but that he had time to cry out, "A
bear is dragging me away;" and that, after the bear had dragged him
several hundred yards and he had got free, he could, though very
badly scalped, himself make his way back to the vessel. The scalping
had been done by the bear attempting to crush the skull in its
mouth, as it is accustomed to do to the seals it catches. Scoresby
considers it dangerous to hunt the Polar bear in deep snow. The
well-known Dane, C. Petersen, guide to McClintock, Kane and others,
on the other hand, considered it as little dangerous to attack a
bear as to slaughter a sheep. The Siberian traveller, Hedenström,
says that a man may venture to do so with a knife tied to a
walking-stick, and the Norwegian hunters, or at least the
Norwegian-Finnish harpooners, express themselves in much the same
way regarding "this noble and dangerous" sport.

The bear's principal food consists of the seal and walrus. It is
said that with a single stroke of his powerful paw he can cast a
walrus up on the ice. On the other hand he seldom succeeds in
catching the reindeer, because it is fleeter than the bear. I have,
however, in North East Land, on two occasions, seen blood and hair
of reindeer which had been caught by bears. There is not the least
doubt that, along with flesh, the bear also eats vegetable
substances, as seaweed, grass, and lichens. I have several times, on
examining the stomach of a bear that had been shot, found in it only
remains of vegetable substances; and the walrus-hunters know this so
well that they called a large old Polar bear, which Dr. Théel shot
at Port Dickson in 1875, "an old Land-king" that was too fat to go a
hunting, and therefore ate grass on land. He makes use besides of
food of many different kinds; a bear, for instance, in the winter
1865-66 consumed for Tobiesen the contents of two barrels of salt
fish, which he had left behind in a deserted hut.

The flesh of the bear, if he is not too old or has not recently
eaten rotten seal-flesh, is very eatable, being intermediate in
taste between pork and beef. The flesh of the young bear is white
and resembles veal. The eating of the liver causes sudden illness.

Although, as already mentioned, the Polar bear sometimes drifts to
land and is killed in the northernmost part of Norway, his skin is
not enumerated by Othere among the products of Finmark. It thus
appears to have become known in Europe first after the Norwegians'
discovery of Iceland and Greenland, and was at first considered an
extraordinary rarity. A Norwegian of importance, who had emigrated
to Iceland, and there succeeded in getting hold of a female bear
with two young, sent them in 880 to the King of Norway, and got in
return a small vessel laden with wood. This animal had not then been
seen in Norway before. The old sagas of the north are said to relate
further that the priest Isleif, in order to be nominated bishop of
Iceland, in the year 1056 presented a white bear to Kejsar Henrik.
In the year 1064 the King of Denmark gave in exchange for a white
bear from Greenland a well-equipped, full rigged, trading vessel, a
considerable sum of money, and a valuable gold ring.[71]

[Illustration: POLAR BEARS. After Olaus Magnus (1555). ]

Marco Polo also says in his account of the country of the
peace-loving nomad Tatar tribes living in the north, that there are
to be found there white bears most of them twenty hands long, large
black foxes, wild asses (reindeer), and a little animal called
"rondes," from which we get the sable fur.[72] As the Polar bear is
only to be found on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, these statements
prove that in the thirteenth century the northernmost part of Asia
was inhabited or at least visited by hunters. Olaus Magnus even
describes the bear's mode of life not incorrectly, with the addition
that it was customary to present their skins to the altars of
cathedrals and parish churches in order that the feet of the priest
might not freeze during mass.[73] The Polar bear however first
became more generally known in Western Europe by the Arctic voyages
of the English and Dutch, and its price has now sunk so much that
its skin, which was once considered an article of extraordinary
value, is now, in adjusting accounts between the owners of a vessel
and the walrus-hunters, reckoned at from twenty-five to fifty
Scandinavian crowns (say twenty-eight to fifty-six shillings).

In 1609 Stephen Bennet, during his seventh voyage to Bear Island,
captured two young Polar bears, which were brought to England and
kept at Paris Garden (Purchas, iii. p. 562). Now such animals are
very frequently brought to Norway in order to be sent from thence to
the zoological gardens of Europe, in which the Polar bear is seldom
wanting. The capture is facilitated by the circumstance that the
young bears seldom leave their mother when she is killed.

Along with the reindeer and the bear there are found in the regions
now in question only two other land-mammalia, the mountain fox
(_Vulpes lagopus_ L.) and the lemming (_Myodes obensis_ Brants).[74]
The fox is rather common both on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its
abode sometimes consists of a number of passages excavated in the
ground and connected together, with several openings. Such a nest I
saw on Wahlberg's Island in Hinloopen Strait on the summit of a
fowl-fell; it was abundantly provided with a stock of half-rotten
guillemots, concealed in the passages. The old foxes were not
visible while we were there, but several young ones, some black,
some variegated red and white, ran hither and thither from out the
openings and played with supple movements in the neighbourhood of
the nest. A similar nest also, with young that ran between its
openings, played and hunted each other, I have seen on the north
shore of Matotschkin Schar, and uninhabited fox-holes and passages
at several places on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, commonly in
the tops of dry sandy knolls.

The lemming is not found on Spitzbergen, but must at certain seasons
occur in incredible numbers on Novaya Zemlya. For at the
commencement of summer, when the snow has recently melted away,
there are to be seen, everywhere in the level fertile places in the
very close grass of the meadows, footpaths about an inch and a half
deep, which have been formed during winter by the trampling of these
small animals, under the snow, in the bed of grass or lichens which
lies immediately above the frozen ground. They have in this way
united with each other the dwellings they had excavated in the
ground, and constructed for themselves convenient ways, well
protected against the severe cold of winter, to their fodder-places.
Thousands and thousands of animals must be required in order to
carry out this work even over a small area, and wonderfully keen
must their sense of locality be, if, as seems probable, they can
find their way with certainty in the endless labyrinth they have
thus formed. During the snow-melting season these passages form
channels for running off the water, small indeed, but everywhere to
be met with, and contributing in a considerable degree to the drying
of the ground. The ground besides is at certain places so thickly
strewed with lemming dung, that it must have a considerable
influence on the condition of the soil.


In the Arctic regions proper one is not tormented by the
mosquito,[75] and viewed as a whole the insect fauna of the entire
Polar area is exceedingly scanty, although richer than was before
supposed. Arachnids, acarids, and podurids occur most plentifully,
Dr. Stuxberg having been able during the Yenisej expedition of 1875
to collect a very large number of them, which were worked out after
his return--the podurids by Dr. T. TULLBERG of Upsala, the arachnids
by Dr. T. KOCH of Nurnberg. These small animals are found in very
numerous individual specimens, among mouldering vegetable remains,
under stones and pieces of wood on the beach, creeping about on
grass, straws, &c.

Of the insects proper there were brought home from Novaya Zemlya,
during the same expedition, nine species of coleoptera, which were
determined by Professor F.W. MÄKLIN, of Helsingfors.[76] Some few
hemiptera and lepidoptera and orthoptera, and a large number of
hymenoptera and diptera from the same expedition have been examined
by Lector A.E. HOLMGREN of Stockholm. Dr. Stuxberg also collected a
large number of land-worms, which have been described by our
countryman Dr. G. EISEN, now settled in California. The occurrence
of this animal group in a region where the ground at the depth of a
few inches is continually frozen, appears to me exceedingly
remarkable--and from a general point of view the occurrence of
insects in a land which is exposed to a winter cold below the
freezing-point of mercury, and where the animal cannot seek
protection from it by creeping down to a stratum of earth which
never freezes, presupposes that either the insect itself, its egg,
larva, or pupa, may be frozen stiff without being killed. Only very
few species of these small animals, however, appear to survive such
a freezing test, and the actual land-evertebrate-fauna of the Polar
countries is therefore exceedingly scanty in comparison with that of
more southerly regions.

[Illustration: WALRUSES. After a drawing by G von Yhlen (1861). ]

It is quite otherwise as regards the sea. Here animal life is
exceedingly abundant as far as man has succeeded in making his way to
the farthest north. At nearly every sweep the dredge brings up from the
sea-bottom masses of decapods, crustacea, mussels, asterids, echini,[77]
&c., in varying forms, and the surface of the sea on a sunny day swarms
with pteropods, beroids, surface-crustacea, &c. Dr. Stuxberg will give,
farther on, a sketch of this department of animal life, which in the
high north is so rich in variety. In the meantime I can but refer to the
large number of papers on this subject which have been issued in the
publications of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.


Of the higher animal types a greater number within the Polar
territory occur in the sea than on the land. Thus by far the greater
number of the birds I have enumerated above belong to the sea, not
to the land, and this is the case with nearly all the animals which
for three or four hundred years back have been the objects of
capture in the Arctic regions. This industry, which during the
whale-fishing period yielded a return perhaps equal to that of the
American oil-wells in our time, has not now in the most limited
degree the importance it formerly had. For the animal whose capture
yielded this rich return, the right whale (_Balæna mysticetus_ L.),
is now so extirpated in these navigable waters, that the whalers
were long ago compelled to seek new fishing-places in other parts of
the Polar seas. It is therefore no longer the whale, but other
species of animals which attract the hunter to the coasts of
Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

Of these animals the most important for the last fifty years has
been the walrus, but it too is in course of being extirpated. It is
now seldom found during summer on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya
south of Matotschkin Schar. During our visits to that island in
1875, 1876, and 1878 we did not see one of these animals. But in the
Kara Gate, on the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, and at certain places
in the Kara Sea, abundant hunting is still to be had. Earlier in the
year the walrus is also to be met with among the drift-ice on the
west coast, and to the south, off the mouth of the Petchora,
although the number of the animals that are captured by the Samoyeds
at Chabarova appears to be exceedingly small. On the other hand the
Dutch, in their first voyages hither, saw a considerable number of
these gregarious animals. The walrus, however, did not then occur
here in such abundance as they did at the same time on Spitzbergen
and Bear Island, which evidently formed their principal haunts.

During Stephen Bennet's third voyage to Bear Island in 1606, 700 to
800 walruses were killed there in six hours, and in 1608 nearly
1,000 in seven hours. The carcases left lying on the beach attracted
bears thither in such numbers that, for instance, in 1609 nearly
fifty of them were killed by the crew of a single vessel. At one
place eighteen bears were seen at once (Purchas, iii. p. 560). A
Norwegian skipper was still able during a wintering in 1824-25 to
kill 677 walruses. But when Tobiesen wintered there in 1865-66 he
killed only a single walrus, and on the two occasions of my landing
there I did not see one. Formerly the hunters almost every year,
during late autumn when the drift-ice had disappeared, found "walrus
on land," _i.e._ herds of several hundred walruses which had crept
up on some low, even, sandy beach, to pass days and weeks there in
an almost motionless state. During this period of rest most of them
appear to be sunk in deep sleep, yet not all, for--according to the
concurrent statements of all the walrus-hunters with whom I have
conversed on this subject--they keep a watch to warn their comrades
when danger is near. If necessary precautions are observed, _i.e._
if the hunters approach the beach where the animals are assembled
when the wind blows from the land, and kill with the lance those
that lie nearest the water, the rest are slaughtered without
difficulty, being prevented by the carcases of their dead comrades
from reaching the sea. Now such an opportunity for the hunter
happens exceedingly seldom; there are famous headlands on which in
former times the walrus was found by hundreds, in whose
neighbourhood now not a single one is to be seen.

In the sea too there are certain places which the walrus principally
haunts, and which are therefore known by the hunters as
walrus-banks. Such a bank is to be found in the neighbourhood of
Muffin Island, situated on the north coast of Spitzbergen in 80°
north latitude, and the animals that have been killed here
must be reckoned by thousands. Another bank of the same kind is to
be met with in 72° 15' north latitude, on the coast of Yalmal.
The reason why the walruses delight to haunt these places is
doubtless that they find there abundant food, which does not
consist, as has often been stated, of seaweed, but of various living
mussels from the bottom of the sea, principally _Mya truncata_ and
_Saxicava rugosa_. Their fleshy parts are freed, before they are
swallowed, so remarkably well from the shells, and cleaned so
thoroughly, that the contents of the stomach have the appearance of
a dish of carefully-shelled oysters. In collecting its food the
walrus probably uses its long tusks to dig up the mussels and worms
which are deeply concealed in the clay.[78] Scoresby states that in
the stomach of a walrus he found, along with small crabs, pieces of
a young seal.

The largest walrus tusks I have seen were two of a male walrus
purchased in the summer of 1879 at St. Lawrence Island, in the north
part of Behring's Sea. They measured 830 and 825 millimetres in
length, their largest circumference was 227 and 230 millimetres, and
they weighed together 6,680 gram. I have seen the tusks of females
of nearly the same length, but they are distinguished from those of
the male by being much more slender. The surface of the tusks is
always full of cracks, but under it there is a layer of ivory free
of cracks, which again incloses a grained kernel of bone which at
some places is semi-transparent, as if drenched with oil.

When the walrus ox gets very old, he swims about by himself as a
solitary individual, but otherwise animals of the same age and sex keep
together in large herds. The young walrus long follows its mother, and
is protected by her with evident fondness and very conspicuous maternal
affection. Her first care, when she is pursued, is accordingly to save
her young even at the sacrifice of her own life. A female walrus with
young is nearly always lost, if they be discovered from a hunting boat.
However eagerly she may try by blows and cuffs to get her young under
water or lead her pursuers astray by diving with it under her forepaw,
she is generally overtaken and killed. Such a hunt is truly grim, but
the walrus-hunter knows no mercy in following his occupation. The
walrus, especially the old solitary male, sleeps and rests during
autumn, when the drift-ice has disappeared, also in the water, with his
head now above the surface, now under it, and with his lungs so strongly
inflated that the body is kept floating, with part of the back
projecting out of the water. The latter way of sleeping is indeed
possible only for so long at once as the animal can keep below, but this
is said to be a very long time. If a hunting boat meets a walrus
sleeping in this way it is first wakened with a loud "strike up" before
it is harpooned, "in order that in its fright it may not knock a hole in
the boat with its tusks." The walrus sinks and is lost, if he is killed
by a shot while in the water, or if he be shot while lying on a piece of
ice, but without being killed so instantaneously that he cannot cast
himself into the water in his death struggles. He is killed accordingly
almost exclusively with the harpoon or lance.

[Illustration: WALRUS TUSKS. A. Tusk of male, outside. B. Tusk of
male, inside C. Tusks of female. One-tenth of natural size. ]

The harpoon consists of a large and strong iron hook, very sharp on
the outer edge, and provided with a barb. The hook is loosely fixed
to the shaft, but securely fastened to the end of a slender line ten
fathoms long, generally made of walrus hide. The line is fastened at
its other end to the boat, in the forepart of which it lies in a
carefully arranged coil. There are from five to ten such harpoon
lines in every hunting boat. When the hunters see a herd of walrus,
either on a piece of drift-ice or in the water, they endeavour
silently and against the wind to approach sufficiently near to one
of the animals to be able to harpoon it. If this is managed, the
walrus first dives and then endeavours to swim under water all he
can. But he is fixed with the line to the boat, and must draw it
along with him. His comrades swim towards the boat, curious to
ascertain the cause of the alarm. A new walrus is fixed with another
harpoon, and so it goes on, one after another, until all the
harpoons are in use. The boat is now drawn forward at a whizzing
speed, although the rowers hold back with the oars; but there is no
actual danger as long as all the animals draw in the same direction.
If one of them seeks to take a different course from that of his
comrades in misfortune, his line must be cut off, otherwise the boat
capsizes. When the walruses get exhausted by their exertions and by
loss of blood, the hunters begin to haul in the lines. One animal
after the other is drawn to the stem of the boat, and there they
commonly first get a blow on the head with the flat of a lance, and
when they turn to guard against it, a lance is thrust into the
heart. Since breechloaders have begun to be used by the
walrus-hunters, they often prefer to kill the harpooned walruses
with a ball instead of "lancing" them. To shoot an unharpooned
walrus, on the other hand, the walrus hunters formerly considered an
unpardonable piece of thoughtlessness, because the animal was in
this way generally wounded or killed without any advantage accruing.
They therefore expressed themselves with great irritation against
the tourists who sometimes came to Spitzbergen, and in this way
destroyed the hunting. It cannot however be denied that they
themselves in recent times have often followed the bad example, and
many consider that this is one of the main reasons of the great
diminution in the numbers of the walrus of late years. Should an
international code be established for hunting in the Polar sea, all
shooting of unharpooned walruses ought to be forbidden in the first
place.

[Illustration: HUNTING IMPLEMENTS.
(1) Harpoon, and (2) Lance for Walrus-hunting.
(3) "Skottel" for the capture of the White Whale. One-fifteenth of
natural size. ]

Gregariousness and curiosity appear to be the main characteristics
of the walrus. These qualities of theirs I had an opportunity of
observing when once, on a glorious northern summer day, I rowed
forward over a mirror-bright, drift-ice-bestrewn sea right into the
midst of a considerable herd of these animals. Part followed the
boat long distances quite peaceably, now and then emitting a
grunting sound; others swam quite close, and raised themselves high
out of the water in order to take a view of the foreigners; others,
again, lay so closely packed on pieces of drift-ice as to sink them
down to the water's edge, while their comrades swimming about in the
sea endeavoured with violence to gain a place on the already
overfilled resting-places, though a number of unoccupied pieces of
ice floated up and down in the neighbourhood.

When the hunters have killed a female walrus, it often happens that
they take the young living. It is easily tamed, and soon regards its
keeper with warm attachment. It seeks, as best it can--poorly
equipped as it is for moving about on dry land--to follow the seamen
on the deck, and gives itself no rest if it be left alone.
Unfortunately, one does not succeed in keeping them long alive,
probably because it is impossible to provide them with suitable
food. There are instances, however, of the young of the walrus being
brought to Europe alive. Thus it is said (Purchas, iii., p. 560),
that Master Welden and Stephen Bennet, on the 22nd/12th July, 1608,
caught two young walruses alive, one a male and the other a female.
The female died before they reached England, but the male lived ten
weeks. He was carried to court, shown to the king and many
honourable gentlemen, and excited general admiration for his
extraordinary form and great docility. A young walrus that was taken
to St. Petersburg in 1829-30, also died in a short time. It gave
occasion to K.E. von BAER'S famous treatise: "Anatomische und
zoologische Untersuchungen über das Wallross," printed in _Mémoires
de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg_, ser. vi.,
t. iv. 2, 1838, p. 97.

The walrus is hunted for its skin, blubber, and oil. The value of a
full-grown walrus was calculated at Tromsoe, in 1868, in settling
accounts between the owners of hunting sloops and the hunters, at
eighty Scandinavian crowns (say 4_l_. 10s.), but it sank in 1871 to
only forty-eight crowns (say 2_l_. 15s.). The flesh of the walrus is
coarse and train-flavoured, and is eaten by the hunters only in
cases of necessity. From my own experience, however, I can certify
that its comparatively small tongue is very delicious. By the Eskimo
and the Chukchis the flesh of the walrus is considered a delicacy.

[Illustration: WALRUS HUNTING. After Olaus Magnus (1555). ]

The walrus was doubtless hunted by the Polar tribes long before the
historic period,[79] but it is mentioned for the first time in
writing in the sketch of Othere's Arctic journey. The narrative
shows that it was then captured on the north coast of Scandinavia.
This appears the less improbable, as a walrus now and then even in
our days drifts to land on the Norwegian coast, and walruses are
still annually killed off Swjatoinos on the Kola peninsula,[80] The
walrus is very correctly described in the well-known Norse
confession written in the end of the eleventh century, "Konungs
skuggsjá" (the King's Mirror), as an animal resembling the seal,[81]
except that, besides several smaller teeth, it has two large tusks
which project beyond the upper jaw. This clear and unexaggerated
sketch is however replaced in the later writings of the middle ages
by the most extraordinary accounts of the animal's appearance and
mode of capture. Thus Albertus Magnus,[82] who died in 1280, says
that the walrus is taken by the hunter, while the sleeping animal
hangs by its large tusks to a cleft of the rock, cutting out a piece
of its skin and fastening to it a strong rope whose other end is
tied to trees, posts, or large rings fixed to rocks. The walrus is
then wakened by throwing large stones at its head. In its attempts
to escape it leaves its hide behind. It perishes soon after, or is
thrown up half dead on the beach. He further states that walrus
lines on account of their strength are suitable for lifting great
weights, and that they are always on sale at Cologne. They were
probably used at the building of the Cathedral there. Similar
extraordinary representations of the appearance and mode of life of
the walrus are repeated in a more or less altered form even by Olaus
Magnus, whose representation of the walrus is shown by the
accompanying woodcut.

[Illustration: WALRUSES (female with young). Old Dutch drawing.[83] ]

[Illustration: JAPANESE DRAWING OF THE WALRUS.[84] ]

The 11th/1st of August 1556, the year after the publication of the
work of Olaus Magnus, a West European saw for the first time some
actual walruses, which had been killed by Russian hunters at Vaygats
Island. No description of the animal, however, is given, but from
that period all the members of the English and Dutch north-east
expeditions had opportunities of seeing walruses in hundreds and
thousands. It was now first that man learned actually to know this
remarkable animal which had been decked out in so many fables. To
this period belongs the beautiful and natural delineation of the
walrus which is given above.

A peculiarity of the walrus may be mentioned here. The hide,
especially in old males, is often full of wounds and scratches,
which appear to be caused partly by combats and scraping against
sharp pieces of ice, partly by some severe disease of the skin. Mr.
H.W. Elliot has remarked this of the walrus in Behring's Sea[85].
The walrus is also troubled with lice, which is not the case, so far
as I know, with any kind of seal. Masses of intestinal worms are
found instead in the stomach of the seal, while on the contrary none
are found in that of the walrus.

With reference to the other animals that are hunted in the Polar Sea
I am compelled to be very brief, as I have scarcely any observations
to make regarding them which are not already sufficiently known by
numerous writings.

There are three kinds of seals on Novaya Zemlya. _Storsaelen_, the
bearded seal (_Phoca barbata_, Fabr.) occurs pretty generally even on
the coasts of Spitzbergen, though never in large flocks. The pursuit
of this animal is the most important part of the seal-fishing in
these waters, and the bearded seal is still killed yearly by
thousands. Their value is reckoned in settling accounts between
owners and hunters at twenty to twenty-five Scandinavian crowns (say
22s. to 27s. 6d.).

[Illustration: YOUNG OF THE GREENLAND SEAL. After a drawing by
A W. Quennerstedt (1864). ]

_Groenlands_ or _Jan-Mayen-saelen_, the Greenland seal (_Phoca
Groenlandica_ Muller), which at Jan Mayen gives occasion to so
profitable a fishing, also is of general occurrence among the
drift-ice in the Munnan and Kara seas.

_Snadden_, the rough or bristled seal (_Phoca hispida_, Erxl.) is
also common on the coast. These animals in particular are seen to
lie, each at its hole, on the ice of fjords, which has not been
broken up. It also many times follows with curiosity in the wake of
a vessel for long distances, and can then be easily shot, because it
is often so fat that, unlike the two other kinds of seals, it does
not sink when it has been shot dead in the water.

_Klapmytsen_, the bladdernose seal, (_Cystophora cristata_, Erxl.)
the walrus-hunters say they have never seen on Novaya Zemlya, but it
is stated to occur yearly in pretty large numbers among the ice
W.S.W. of South Cape on Spitzbergen. Only once during our many
voyages in the Polar Sea has a _Klapmyts_ been seen, viz, a young
one that was killed in 1858 in the neighbourhood of Bear Island.

Of the various species of whales, the narwhal, distinguished by its
long and valuable horn projecting in the longitudinal direction of
the body from the upper jaw, now occurs so seldom on the coast of
Novaya Zemlya that it has never been seen there by the Norwegian
walrus-hunters. It is more common at Hope Island, and Witsen states
(p. 903) that large herds of narwhals have been seen between
Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

[Illustration: THE BEARDED SEAL. Swedish, Storsal (_Phoca barbata_,
Fabr.) THE ROUGH SEAL. Swedish, Snadd. (_Phoca hispida_, Erxl.) ]

The white whale or beluga, of equal size with the narwhal, on the
other hand, occurs in large shoals on the coasts of Spitzbergen and
Novaya Zemlya, especially near the mouths of fresh-water streams.
These animals were formerly captured, but not with any great
success, by means of a peculiar sort of harpoon, called by the
hunters "skottel." Now they are caught with nets of extraordinary
size and strength, which are laid out from the shore at places which
the white whales are wont to frequent. In this way there were taken
in the year 1871, when the fishing appears to have been most
productive, by vessels belonging to Tromsoe alone, 2,167 white
whales. Their value was estimated at fifty-four Scandinavian crowns
each (about 3_l_.). The fishing, though tempting, is yet very
uncertain; it sometimes falls out extraordinarily abundant, as in
the spring of 1880, when a skipper immediately on arriving at
Magdalena Bay caught 300 of these animals at a cast of the net. Of
the whales thus killed not only the blubber and hide are taken away,
but also, when possible, the carcases, which, when cheap freight can
be had, are utilised at the guano manufactories in the north of
Norway. After having lain a whole year on the beach at Spitzbergen
they may be taken on board a vessel without any great inconvenience,
a proof that putrefaction proceeds with extreme slowness in the
Polar regions.

[Illustration: THE WHITE WHALE. (_Delphinapterus leucas_, Pallas)
After a drawing by A.W. Quennerstedt (1804). ]

With its blinding milk-white hide, on which it is seldom possible to
discover a spot, wrinkle, or scratch, the full-grown white whale is
an animal of extraordinary beauty. The young whales are not white,
but very light greyish brown. The white whale is taken in nets not
only by the Norwegians at Spitzbergen, but also by the Russians and
Samoyeds at Chabarova. In former times they appear to have been also
caught at the mouth of the Yenisej, to judge by the large number of
vertebræ that are found at the now deserted settlements there. The
white whale there goes several hundred kilometres up the river. I
have also seen large shoals of this small species of whale on the
north coast of Spitzbergen and the Taimur peninsula.

Other species of the whale occur seldom on Novaya Zemlya. Thus on
this occasion only two small whales were seen during our passage
from Tromsoe, and I do not remember having seen more than one in the
sea round Novaya Zemlya in the course of my two previous voyages to
the Yenisej. At the north part of the island, too, these animals
occur so seldom, that a hunter told me, as something remarkable,
that towards the end of July, 1873, W.N.W. of the western entrance
to Matotschkin Schar 20' to 30' from land, he had seen a large
number of whales, belonging to two species, of which one was a
_slaethval_, and the other had as it were a top, instead of a fin,
on the back.

It is very remarkable that whales still occur in great abundance on
the Norwegian coast, though they have been hunted there for a
thousand years back, but, on the other hand, if we except the little
white whale, only occasionally east of the White Sea. The whale
fishing which was carried on on so grand a scale on the west coast
of Spitzbergen, has therefore never been prosecuted to any great
extent on Novaya Zemlya; and fragments of skeletons of the whale
which are found thrown up in such quantities on the shores of
Spitzbergen, are not to be found, so far as my experience reaches,
either on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, on the coast of the Kara Sea,
or at the places on the north coast of Siberia between the Yenisej
and the Lena, at which we landed. The sacrifices which were so long
made in vain in the endeavour to find a passage to China in this
direction accordingly were not compensated, as on Spitzbergen, by
the rise of a profitable whale fishery. Meeting with a whale is
spoken of by the first seafarers in these regions as something very
remarkable and dangerous; for instance, in the account of Stephen
Burrough's voyage in 1556:--"On St. James his day, there was a
monstrous whale aboord of us, so neere to our side that we might
have thrust a sworde or any other weapon in him, which we durst not
doe for feare lie should have over-throwen our shippe; and then I
called my company together, and all of us shouted, and with the crie
that we made he departed from us; there was as much above water of
his back as the bredth of our pinnesse, and at his falling down he
made such a terrible noise in the water, that a man would greatly
have marvelled, except he had known the cause of it; but, God be
thanked, we were quietly delivered of him."[86] When Nearchus sailed
with the fleet of Alexander the Great from the Indus to the Red Sea,
a whale also caused so great a panic that it was only with
difficulty that the commander could restore order among the
frightened seamen, and get the rowers to row to the place where the
whale spouted water and caused a commotion in the sea like that of a
whirlwind. All the men now shouted, struck the water with their
oars, and sounded their trumpets, so that the large, and, in the
judgment of the Macedonian heroes, terrible animal, was frightened.
It seems to me that from these incidents we may draw the conclusion
that great whales in Alexander's time were exceedingly rare in the
sea which surrounds Greece, and in Burrough's time in that which
washes the shores of England. Quite otherwise was the whale regarded
on Spitzbergen some few years after Burrough's voyage by the Dutch
and English whalers. At the sight of a whale all men were out of
themselves with joy, and rushed down into the boats in order from
them to attack and kill the valuable animal. The fishery was carried
on with such success, that, as has already been stated, the right
whale (_Balæna mysticetus_ L.), whose pursuit then gave full
employment to ships by hundreds, and to men by tens of thousands, is
now practically extirpated. Thus during our many voyages in these
waters we have only seen one such whale, which happened on the 23rd
June, 1864, among the drift-ice off the west coast of Spitzbergen in
78° N.L. As the right whale still occurs in no limited numbers
in other parts of the Polar Sea, and as there has been no whale
fishing on the coast of Spitzbergen for the last forty or fifty
years, this state of things shows how difficult it is to get an
animal type to return to a region where it has once been extirpated,
or from which it has been driven away.

The whale which Captain Svend Foeyn has almost exclusively hunted on
the coast of Finmark since 1864 belongs to quite another species,
_blaohvalen_ (_Balænoptera Sibbaldii_ Gray); and there are likewise
other species of the whale which still in pretty large numbers
follow shoals of fish to the Norwegian coast, where they sometimes
strand and are killed in considerable numbers. A _tandhval_, killer
or sword-fish (_Orca gladiator_ Desm.) was even captured some years
ago in the harbour of Tromsoe. This whale was already dying of
suffocation, caused by an attempt to swallow an eider which entered
the gullet, not, as the proper way is, with the head, but with the
tail foremost. When the mouthful should have slidden down, it was
prevented by the stiff feathers sticking out, and the bird stuck in
the whale's throat, which, to judge by the extraordinary struggles
it immediately began to make, must have caused it great
inconvenience, which was increased still more when the inhabitants
did not neglect to take advantage of its helpless condition to
harpoon it.


[Footnote 60: The name _stormfogel_ is also used for the Stormy
Petrel (_Thalassidroma pelagica_, Vig.). This bird does not occur in
the portions of the Polar Sea with which we are now concerned. ]

[Footnote 61: At Bear Island, Tobiesen, on the 28th May, 1866, saw
fulmars' eggs laid immediately on the ice which still covered the
rock. At one place a bird sitting on its eggs was even frozen fast
by one leg to the ice on the 31/21 August, 1596. Barents found on
the north part of Novaya Zemlya that some fulmars had chosen as a
hatching-place a piece of ice covered with a little earth. In both
these cases the under part of the egg during hatching could never be
warmed above the freezing-point. ]

[Footnote 62: It deserves to be investigated whether some little
auks do not, like the Spitzbergen ptarmigan, pass the winter in
their stone mounds, flying out to sea only at pretty long intervals
in order to collect their food. ]

[Footnote 63: The quantity of eider-down which was brought from the
Polar lands to Tromsoe amounted in 1868 to 540, in 1869 to 963, in
1870 to 882, in 1871 to 630, and in 1872 to 306 kilograms. The total
annual yield may be estimated at probably three times as much. ]

[Footnote 64: There are, however, various other song-birds found
already on south Novaya Zemlya, for instance, _lappsparfven_, the
Lapland bunting (_Emberiza lapponica_, L.), and _berglaerkan_, the
shore-lark (_Alauda alpestris_, L.). They hatch on the ground under
bushes, tufts of grass, or stones, in very carefully constructed
nests lined with cotton-grass and feathers, and are not uncommon. ]

[Footnote 65: Hedenström also states (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, St.
Petersburg, 1830, p. 130,) that the ptarmigan winters on the New
Siberian Islands, and that there it is fatter and more savoury than
on the mainland. ]

[Footnote 66: The hunters from Tromsoe brought home, in 1868, 996;
in 1869, 975; and in 1870, 837 reindeer. When to this we add the
great number of reindeer which are shot in spring and are not
included in these calculations, and when we consider that the number
of walrus-hunting vessels which are fitted out from Tromsoe is less
than that of those which go out from Hammerfest, and that the
shooting of reindeer on Spitzbergen is also carried on by hunters
from other towns, and by tourists, we must suppose that at least
3,000 reindeer have been killed during each of those years. Formerly
reindeer stalking was yet more productive, but since 1870 the number
killed has considerably diminished. ]

[Footnote 67: When Spitzbergen was first mapped, a great number of
places were named after reindeer, which shows that the reindeer was
found there in large numbers, and now just at these places it is
completely absent. On the other hand, the Dutch and English
explorers during the sixteenth century saw no reindeer on Novaya
Zemlya. During the Swedish expedition of 1875 no reindeer were seen
on the west coast of this island south of Karmakul Bay, while a
number were shot at Besimannaja Bay and Matotschkin Schar. When some
of the companions of the well-known walrus-hunting captain, Sievert
Tobiesen, were compelled in 1872-73 to winter at North Goose Cape,
they shot during winter and spring only eleven reindeer. Some
Russians, who by an accident were obliged to pass six years in
succession somewhere on the coast of Stans Foreland (Maloy Broun),
and who, during this long time, were dependent for their food on
what they could procure by hunting without the use of fire-arms
(they had when they landed powder and ball for only twelve shots),
when the three survivors were found and taken home in 1749, had
killed two hundred and fifty reindeer (P.L. le Roy, _Relation des
Aventures arrivées à quatre matelots Russes jettés par une tempête près
de l'Isle deserte d'Ost-Spitzbergen, sur laquelle ils ont
passé six ans et trois mois_, 1766). ]

[Footnote 68: During the wintering of 1869-70 on East Greenland, Dr.
Punsch once saw a female bear with quite small young (_Die zweite
deutsche Nordpolarfahrt_, Leipzig, 1873-74. Vol. II p. 157). ]

[Footnote 69: W. Scoresby's des Jüngern, _Tagebuch einer Reise auf
dem Wallfischfang. Aus dem engl. üebers_. Hamburg, 1825, p. 127. ]

[Footnote 70: _Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt_, Vol. I. p. 465. ]

[Footnote 71: _Grönlands historiske Mindesmärker._ Kjöbenhavn, 1838,
III. p. 384. ]

[Footnote 72: Ramusio, Part II., Venice, 1583, p. 60. ]

[Footnote 73: Ol. Magnus. Rome edition, 1555, p. 621. ]

[Footnote 74: It is stated that wolves also occur on Novaya Zemlya
as far up as to Matotschkin Sound. They are exceedingly common on
the north coasts of Asia and Eastern Europe. ]

[Footnote 75: That is to say, not on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya,
for it is otherwise on the coast of the mainland. In West Greenland
the mosquito as far north as the southern part of Disco Island is
still so terrible, especially to the new comer during the first
days, that the face of any one who without a veil ventures into
marshy ground overgrown with bushes, becomes in a few hours
unrecognisable. The eyelids are closed with swelling and changed
into water-filled bladders, suppurating tumours are formed in the
head under the hair, &c. But when a man has once undergone this
unpleasant and painful inoculation, the body appears, at least for
one summer, to be less susceptible to the mosquito-poison. ]

[Footnote 76: As the _only_ Chrysomela, which von Baer found at
Matotschkin Schar, played so great a _rôle_ in Arctic-zoological
literature, I shall here enumerate the species of coleoptera, now
known--after Professor Mäklim's determination of the collections
which we brought home with us--to exist on Novaya Zemlya. These
are:--_Feronia borealis_ Ménétr., _F. gelida_ Mäkl., _Amara alpina_
Fabr., _Agabus subquadratus_ Motsch., _Homalota sibirica_ Mäkl.,
_Homalium angustatum_ Mäkl., _Cylletron (?) hyperboreum_ Mäkl.,
_Chrysomela septentrionalis_ (?) Ménétr., _Prasocuris hannoverana_
Fabr., v. _degenerata_. From Vaygats Island we brought home seven
species more, which were not found on Novaya Zemlya. The insects
occur partly under stones, especially at places where lemming dung
is abundant, or in tracts where birds'-nests are numerous, partly in
warm days on willow-bushes. ]

[Footnote 77: Echini occur only very sparingly in the Kara Sea and
the Siberian Polar Sea, but west of Novaya Zemlya at certain places
in such numbers that they almost appear to cover the sea-bottom. ]

[Footnote 78: Compare Malmgren's instructive papers in the
publications of the Royal (Swedish) Academy of Sciences and
Scoresby's _Arctic Regions_, Edinburgh, 1820, i., p. 502. That the
walrus eats mussels is already indicated in the Dutch drawing from
the beginning of the seventeenth century reproduced below, page 160. ]

[Footnote 79: Implements of walrus-bone occur among the Northern
grave _finds_. ]

[Footnote 80: Compare note at page 48 above. ]

[Footnote 81: I saw in 1858 a _Phoca barbata_ with tusks worn away by
age, which in its reddish-brown colour very much resembled a walrus,
and was little inferior to it in size. ]

[Footnote 82: Albertus Magnus, _De animalibus_, Mantua, 1479, Lib.
xxiv. At the same place however is given a description of the
whale-fishery grounded on actual experience, but with the shrewd
addition that what the old authors had written on the subject did
not correspond with experience. ]

[Footnote 83: This drawing is made after a facsimile by Frederick
Müller from Hessel Gerritz, _Descriptio et delineatio geographica
detectionis freti, &c._ Amsterodami, 1613. The same drawing is
reproduced coloured in Blavii _Atlas major_, Part I, 1665, p. 25,
with the inscription: "Ad vivum delineatum ab Hesselo G.A." ]

[Footnote 84: The drawing is taken from a Japanese manuscript book
of travels--No. 360 of the Japanese library which I brought home.
According to a communication by an attaché of the Japanese embassy
which visited Stockholm in the autumn of 1880, the book is entitled
_Kau-kai-i-fun_, "Narrative of a remarkable voyage on distant seas."
The manuscript, in four volumes, was written in 1830. In the
introduction it is stated that when some Japanese, on the 21st
November, 1793 (?), were proceeding with a cargo of rice to Yesso,
they were thrown out of their course by a storm, and were driven far
away on the sea, till in the beginning of the following June they
came to some of the Aleutian islands, which had recently been taken
by the Russians. They remained there ten months, and next year in
the end of June they came to Ochotsk. The following year in autumn
they were carried to Irkutsk, where they remained eight years, well
treated by the Russians. They were then taken to St. Petersburg,
where they had an audience of the Czar, and got furs and splendid
food. Finally they were sent back by sea round Cape Horn to Japan in
one of Captain von Krusenstern's vessels. They were handed over to
the Japanese authorities in the spring of 1805, after having been
absent from their native country about thirteen years. From Nagasaki
they were carried to Yeddo, where they were subjected to an
examination. One person put questions, another wrote the answers,
and a third showed by drawings all the remarkable events they had
survived. They were then sent to their native place. In the
introduction it is further said that the shipwrecked were unskilful
seamen, by whom little attention was often given to the most
important matters. A warning accordingly is given against full
reliance on their accounts and the drawings in the book. The latter
occupy the fourth part of the work, consisting of more than 100
quarto pages. It is remarkable that the first Russian circumnavigation
of the globe, and the first journey of the Japanese round the world,
happened at the same time. ]

[Footnote 85: _A Report upon the Condition of Affairs in the
Territory of Alaska._ Washington, 1875, p. 160. ]

[Footnote 86: Hakluyt, first edition, p. 317. ]



CHAPTER IV.

    The Origin of the names Yugor Schar and Kara Sea--Rules
    for Sailing through Yugor Schar--The "Highest Mountain"
    on Earth--Anchorages--Entering the Kara Sea--
    Its Surroundings--The Inland-ice of Novaya Zemlya--True
    Icebergs rare in certain parts of the Polar Sea--The Natural
    Conditions of the Kara Sea--Animals, Plants, Bog Ore--
    Passage across the Kara Sea--The Influence of the Ice on
    the Sea-bottom--Fresh-water Diatoms on Sea-ice--Arrival at
    Port Dickson--Animal Life there--Settlers and Settlements
    at the Mouth of the Yenisej--The Flora at Port Dickson--
    Evertebrates--Excursion to White Island--Yalmal--Previous
    Visits--Nmmnelin's Wintering on the Briochov Islands.


In crossing to Vaygats Island I met the _Lena_, which then first
steamed to the rendezvous that had been fixed upon. I gave the
captain orders to anchor without delay, to coal from the _Express_,
and to be prepared immediately after my return from the excursion to
weigh anchor and start along with the other vessels. I came on board
the _Vega_ on the evening of the 31st July, much pleased and
gratified with what I had seen and collected in the course of my
excursion on Vaygats Island. The _Lena_, however, was not quite
ready, and so the start was put off till the morning of the 1st
August. All the vessels then weighed anchor, and sailed or steamed
through Vaygats Sound or Yugor Schar into the Kara Sea.

We do not meet with the name Yugor Schar in the oldest narratives of
travel or on the oldest maps. But it is found in an account dating
from 1611, of a Russian commercial route between "Pechorskoie
Zauorot and Mongozei," which is annexed to the letter of Richard
Finch to Sir Thomas Smith, already quoted (Purchas, iii. p. 539). The
name is clearly derived from the old name, Jugaria, for the land
lying south of the sound, and it is said, for instance, in the map
to Herberstein's work, to have its name from the Hungarians, who are
supposed to derive their origin from these regions. The first Dutch
north-east explorers called it Vaygats Sound or Fretum Nassovicum.
More recent geographers call it also Pet's Strait, which is
incorrect, as Pet did not sail through it.

There was at first no special name for the gulf between the Taimur
peninsula and Novaya Zemlya. The name "Carska Bay" however is to be
found already in the information about sailing to the north-east,
communicated to the Muscovie Companie by its principal factor,
Antonie Marsh (Purchas, iii. p. 805). At first this name was applied
only to the estuary of the Kara river, but it was gradually
transferred to the whole of the neighbouring sea, whose oldest
Samoyed name, also derived from a river, was in a somewhat
Russianised form, "Neremskoe" (compare Purchas, iii. p. 805, Witsen,
p. 917). I shall in the following part of this work comprehend under
the name "Kara Sea" the whole of that gulf which from 77° N.L.
between Cape Chelyuskin and the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya
extends towards the south to the north coast of Europe and Asia.

Captain Palander gives the following directions for sailing through
the sound between Vaygats Island and the mainland:--

    "As Yugor Straits are difficult to discover far out at
    sea, good solar observations ought to be taken on
    approaching them, where such can be had, and after these
    the course is to be shaped in the middle of the strait,
    preferably about N.E. by the compass. On coming nearer
    land (three to four English miles) one distinguishes the
    straits with ease. Afterwards there is nothing else to
    observe than on entering to keep right in the middle of
    the fairway.

    "If one wishes to anchor at the Samoyed village one ought
    to keep about an English mile from the land on the
    starboard, and steer N.E. by the compass, until the
    Samoyed huts are seen, when one bends off from starboard,
    keeping the church a little to starboard. For larger
    vessels it is not advisable to go in shallower water than
    eight to nine fathoms, because the depth then diminishes
    rather suddenly to from three to four fathoms.

    "From the Samoyed village the course is shaped right to
    the south-east headland of Vaygats Island (Suchoi Nos),
    which ought to be passed at the distance of half an
    English mile. Immediately south-west of this headland lies
    a very long shoal, which one ought to take care of.

    "From this headland the vessel is to be steered N.-1/2E.
    out into the Kara Sea. With this course there are two
    shoals on starboard and two on port at the distance of
    half an English mile.

    "The depth is in general ten fathoms; at no place in the
    fairway is it less than nine fathoms.

    "Vessels of the greatest draught may thus sail through
    Yugor Schar. In passing the straits it is recommended to
    keep a good outlook from the top, whence in clear weather
    the shoals may easily be seen."

In the oldest narratives very high mountains, covered with ice and
snow, are spoken of as occurring in the neighbourhood of the sound
between Vaygats Island and the mainland. It is even said that here
were to be found the highest mountains on earth, whose tops were
said to raise themselves to a height of a hundred German miles.[87]
The honour of having the highest mountains on earth has since been
ascribed by the dwellers on the plains of Northern Russia to the
neighbourhood of Matotschkin Schar, "where the mountains are even
much higher than Bolschoj Kamen," a rocky eminence some hundreds of
feet high at the mouth of the Petchora--an orographic idea which
forms a new proof of the correctness of the old saying:--"In the
kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is king." Matotschkin Schar indeed
is surrounded by a wild Alpine tract with peaks that rise to a
height of 1,000 to 1,200 metres. On the other hand there are to be
seen around Yugor Straits only low level plains, terminating towards
the sea with a steep escarpment. These plains are early free of
snow, and are covered with a rich turf, which yields good pasture to
the Samoyed reindeer herds.

Most of the vessels that wish to sail into the Kara Sea through
Yugor Schar require to anchor here some days to wait for favourable
winds and state of the ice. There are no good harbours in the
neighbourhood of the sound, but available anchorages occur, some in
the bay at Chabarova, at the western entrance of the sound; some,
according to the old Dutch maps, on the eastern side of the sound,
between Mestni Island (Staten Eiland) and the mainland. I have,
however, no experience of my own of the latter anchorages, nor have
I heard that the Norwegian walrus-hunters have anchored there.
Perhaps by this time they are become too shallow.

When we sailed through Yugor Schar in 1878, the sound was completely
free of ice. The weather was glorious, but the wind was so light
that the sails did little service. In consequence of this we did not
go very rapidly forward, especially as I wished to keep the three
vessels together, and the sailing ship _Express_, not to be left
behind, had to be towed by the _Fraser_. Time was lost besides in
dredging and taking specimens of water. The dredgings gave at some
places, for instance off Chabarova, a rich yield, especially of
isopods and sponges. The samples of water showed that already at a
limited depth from the surface it had a considerable salinity, and
that therefore no notable portion of the mass of fresh water, which
the rivers Kara, Obi, Tas, and Yenisej and others pour into the Kara
Sea, flows through this sound into the Atlantic Ocean.

In the afternoon of the 1st August we passed through the sound and
steamed into the sea lying to the east of it, which had been the
object of so many speculations, expectations, and conclusions of so
many cautious governments, merchants eager for gain, and learned
cosmographers, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
which even to the geographer and man of science of the present has
been a _mare incognitum_ down to the most recent date. It is just
this sea that formed the turning-point of all the foregoing
north-east voyages, from Burrough's to Wood's and Vlamingh's, and it
may therefore not be out of place here, before I proceed further
with the sketch of our journey, to give some account of its
surroundings and hydrography.

If attention be not fixed on the little new-discovered island,
"Ensamheten," the Kara Sea is open to the north-east. It is bounded on
the west by Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island; on the east by the Taimur
peninsula, the land between the Pjaesina and the Yenisej and Yalmal; and
on the south by the northernmost portion of European Russia, Beli
Ostrov, and the large estuaries of the Obi and the Yenisej. The coast
between Cape Chelyuskin and the Yenisej consists of low rocky heights,
formed of crystalline schists, gneiss, and eruptive rocks, from the
Yenisej to beyond the most southerly part of the Kara Sea, of the Gyda
and Yalmal _tundras_ beds of sand of equal fineness, and at Vaygats
Island and the southern part of Novaya Zemlya (to 73° N.L.) of limestone
and beds of schist[88] which slope towards the sea with a steep
escarpment three to fifteen metres high, but form, besides, the
substratum of a level plain, full of small collections of water which is
quite free of snow in summer. North of 73° again the west coast of the
Kara Sea is occupied by mountains, which near Matotschkin are very high,
and distributed in a confused mass of isolated peaks, but farther north
become lower and take the form of a plateau.

Where the mountains begin, some few or only very inconsiderable
collections of ice are to be seen, and the very mountain tops are in
summer free of snow. Farther north glaciers commence, which increase
towards the north in number and size, till they finally form a
continuous inland-ice which, like those of Greenland and
Spitzbergen, with its enormous ice-sheet, levels mountains and
valleys, and converts the interior of the land into a wilderness of
ice, and forms one of the fields for the formation of icebergs or
glacier-iceblocks, which play so great a _rôle_ in sketches of
voyages in the Polar seas. I have not myself visited the inland-ice
on the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, but doubtless the experience
I have previously gained during an excursion with Dr. Berggren on
the inland-ice of Greenland in the month of July 1870, _after all
the snow on it had melted_, and with Captain Palander on the
inland-ice of North-East Land in the beginning of June 1873, _before
any melting of snow had commenced_, is also applicable to the
ice-wilderness of north Novaya Zemlya.

[Illustration: SECTION OF INLAND-ICE.
A. Open glacier-canal.
B. Snow-filled canal.
C. Canal concealed by a snow-vault.
D. Glacier-clefts. ]

As on Spitzbergen the ice-field here is doubtless interrupted by
deep bottomless clefts, over which the snowstorms of winter throw
fragile snow-bridges, which conceal the openings of the abysses so
completely that one may stand close to their edge without having any
suspicion that a step further is certain death to the man, who,
without observing the usual precaution of being bound by a rope to
his companions, seeks his way over the blinding-white, almost
velvet-like, surface of this snow-field, hard packed indeed, but
bound together by no firm crust. If a man, after taking necessary
precautions against the danger of tumbling down into these
crevasses, betakes himself farther into the country in the hope that
the apparently even surface of the snow will allow of long day's
marches, he is soon disappointed in his expectations; for he comes
to regions where the ice is everywhere crossed by narrow
depressions, _canals_, bounded by dangerous clefts, with
perpendicular walls up to fifteen metres in height. One can cross
these depressions only alter endless zigzag wanderings, at places
where they have become filled with snow and thereby passable. In
summer again, when the snow has melted, the surface of the
ice-wilderness has quite a different appearance. The snow has
disappeared and the ground is now formed of a blue ice, which
however is not clean, but everywhere rendered dirty by a grey
argillaceous dust, carried to the surface of the glacier by wind and
rain, probably from distant mountain heights. Among this clay, and
even directly on the ice itself, there is a scanty covering of low
vegetable organisms. The ice-deserts of the Polar lands are thus the
habitat of a peculiar flora, which, insignificant as it appears to
be, forms however an important condition for the issue of the
conflict which goes on here, year after year, century after century,
between the sun and the ice. For the dark clay and the dark parts of
plants absorb the warm rays of the sun better than the ice, and
therefore powerfully promote its melting. They eat themselves down
in perpendicular cylindrical holes thirty to sixty centimetres in
depth, and from a few millimetres to a whole metre in diameter. The
surface of the ice is thus destroyed and broken up.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE INLAND-ICE OF GREENLAND. After a drawing
by S. Berggren, 23rd July, 1870. ]

[Illustration: GREENLAND ICE FJORD. After a design drawn and
lithographed by a Greenland Eskimo. ]

[Illustration: SLOWLY-ADVANCING GLACIER. At Foul Bay, on the west coast of
Spitzbergen, after a photograph taken by A. Envall, 30th August, 1872. ]

[Illustration: GLACIER WITH STATIONARY FRONT. Udde Bay, on Novaya
Zemlya, after a drawing by Hj. Théel (1875). ]

After the melting of the snow there appears besides a number of
inequalities, and the clefts previously covered with a fragile
snow-bridge now gape before the wanderer where he goes forward, with
their bluish-black abysses, bottomless as far as we can depend on
ocular evidence. At some places there are also to be found in the
ice extensive shallow depressions, down whose sides innumerable
rapid streams flow in beds of azure-blue ice, often of such a volume
of water as to form actual rivers. They generally debouch in a lake
situated in the middle of the depression. The lake has generally an
underground outlet through a grotto-vault of ice several thousands
of feet high. At other places a river is to be seen, which has bored
itself a hole through the ice-sheet, down which it suddenly
disappears with a roar and din which are heard far and wide, and at
a little distance from it there is projected from the ice a column
of water, which, like a geyser with a large intermittent jet in
which the water is mixed with air, rises to a great height.

Now and then a report is heard, resembling that of a cannon shot
fired in the interior of the icy mass. It is a new crevasse that has
been formed, or if one is near the border of the ice-desert, an
ice-block that has fallen down into the sea. For, like, ordinary
collections of water, an ice-lake also has its outlet into the sea.
These outlets are of three kinds, viz., _ice-rapids_, in which the
thick ice-sheet, split up and broken in pieces, is pressed forward
at a comparatively high speed down a narrow steeply-sloping valley,
where ice-blocks tumble on each other with a crashing noise and din,
and from which true icebergs of giant-like dimensions are projected
in hundreds and thousands; _broad; slowly-advancing glaciers_, which
terminate towards the sea with an even perpendicular face, from
which now and then considerable ice-blocks, but no true icebergs,
fall down; and _smaller stationary glaciers_, which advance so slowly
that the ice in the brim melts away about as fast as the whole mass
of ice glides forward, and which thus terminate at the beach not
with a perpendicular face but with a long ice-slope covered with
clay, sand, and gravel.

The inland-ice on Novaya Zemlya is of too inconsiderable extent to
allow of any large icebergs being formed. There are none such
accordingly in the Kara Sea[89], and it is seldom that even a large
glacier ice-block is to be met with drifting about.

The name ice-house, conferred on the Kara Sea by a famous Russian
man of science, did not originate from the large number of
icebergs[90], but from the fact that the covering of ice, which
during winter, on account of the severity of the cold and the slight
salinity of the surface-water, is immensely thick, cannot, though
early broken up, be carried away by the marine currents and be
scattered over a sea that is open even during winter[91]. Most of
the ice formed during winter in the Kara Sea, and perhaps some of
that which is drifted down from the Polar basin, is on the contrary
heaped by the marine currents against the east coast of Novaya
Zemlya, where during early summer it blocks the three sounds which
unite the Kara Sea with the Atlantic. It was these ice-conditions
which caused the failure of all the older north-east voyages and
gave to the Kara Sea its bad report and name of ice-house. Now we
know that it is not so dangerous in this respect as it was formerly
believed to be--that the ice of the Kara Sea melts away for the
most part, and that during autumn this sea is quite available for
navigation.

In general our knowledge of the Kara Sea some decades back was not
only incomplete, but also erroneous. It was believed that its animal
life was exceedingly scanty, and that algæ were absolutely wanting;
no soundings had been taken elsewhere than close to the coast; and
much doubt was thrown, not without reason, on the correctness of the
maps. Now all this is changed to a great extent. The coast line,
bordering on the sea, is settled on the maps; the ice-conditions,
currents and depth of water in different parts of the sea are
ascertained, and we know that the old ideas of its poverty in
animals and plants are quite erroneous.

[Illustration: UMBELLULA FROM THE KARA SEA.
A. Polype stem entire, one-half the natural size.
B. Polype stem, upper part, one-and-a-half times the natural size. ]

In respect to depth the Kara Sea is distinguished by a special
regularity, and by the absence of sudden changes. Along the east
coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island there runs a channel, up
to 500 metres in depth, filled with cold salt-water, which forms the
haunt of a fauna rich not only in individuals, but also in a large
number of remarkable and rare types, as Umbellula, Elpidia, Alecto,
asterids of many kinds, &c. Towards the east the sea-bottom rises
gradually and then forms a plain lying 30 to 90 metres below the
surface of the sea, nearly as level as the surface of the
superincumbent water. The bottom of the sea in the south and west
parts of it consists of clay, in the regions of Beli Ostrov of sand,
farther north of gravel. Shells of crustacea and pebbles are here
often surrounded by bog-ore formations, resembling the figures on
page 186. These also occur over an extensive area north-east of Port
Dickson in such quantity that they might be used for the manufacture
of iron, if the region were less inaccessible.

Even in the shallower parts of the Kara Sea the water at the bottom is
nearly as salt as in the Atlantic Ocean, and all the year round cooled
to a temperature of -2° to -2.7°. The surface-water, on the contrary, is
very variable in its composition, sometimes at certain places almost
drinkable, and in summer often strongly heated. The remarkable
circumstance takes place here that the surface water in consequence of
its limited salinity freezes to ice if it be exposed to the temperature
which prevails in the salt stratum of water next the bottom, and that it
forms a deadly poison for many of the decapoda, worms, mussels,
crustacea and asterids which crawl in myriads among the beds of clay or
sand at the bottom.

At many places the loose nature of the bottom does not permit the
existence of any algæ, but in the neighbourhood of Beli Ostrov,
Johannesen discovered extensive banks covered with "sea-grass"
(algæ), and from the east coast of Novaya Zemlya Dr. Kjellman in
1875 collected no small number of algæ[92], being thereby enabled
to take exception to the old erroneous statements as to the nature
of the marine flora. He has drawn up for this work a full account of
the marine vegetation in the Kara Sea, which will be found further
on.

[Illustration: ELPIDIA GLACIALIS (THÉEL) FROM THE KARA SEA.
Magnified three times. A. Belly. B. Back.
MANGANIFEROUS IRON-ORE FORMATIONS FROM THE KARA SEA.
Half the natural size. ]

I shall now return to the account of our passage across this sea. On
this subject my journal contains the following notes:

_August 2nd._ Still glorious weather--no ice. The _Lena_ appears to
wish to get away from the other vessels, and does not observe the
flag which was hoisted as the signal agreed upon beforehand that her
Captain should come on board, or at least bring his little vessel
within hail. The _Fraser_ was therefore sent in pursuit, and
succeeded in overtaking her towards night.

_August 3rd._ In the morning Captain Johannesen came on board the
_Vega_. I gave him orders to take on board Dr. Almquist and
Lieutenants Hovgaard and Nordquist, and go with them to Beli Ostrov,
where they should have freedom for thirty-six hours to study the
people, animals, and plants, as they pleased; the _Lena_ was then,
if possible, to pass through the Sound between the island and Yalmal
to Port Dickson, where the three other vessels should be found.
Almquist, Nordquist, and Hovgaard were already quite in order for
the excursion; they went immediately on board the _Lena_, and were
soon, thanks to the great power of the engine in proportion to the
size of the vessel, far on their way.

In the course of the day we met with very open and rotten ice, which
would only have been of use to us by its moderating effect on the
sea, if it had not been accompanied by the usual attendant of the
border of the ice, a thick fog, which however sometimes lightened.
Towards evening we came in sight of Beli Ostrov. This island, as
seen from the sea, forms a quite level plain, which rises little
above the surface of the water. The sea off the island is of an even
depth, but so shallow, that at a distance of twenty to thirty
kilometres from the shore there is only from seven to nine metres of
water. According to a communication from Captain Schwanenberg, there
is, however, a depth of three to four metres close to the north
shore. Such a state of things, that is, a uniform depth, amounting
near the shore to from four to ten metres, but afterwards increasing
only gradually and remaining unchanged over very extensive areas, is
very common in the Arctic regions, and is caused by the ice-mud-work
which goes on there nearly all the year round. Another remarkable
effect of the action of the ice is that all the blocks of stone to
be found in the sea next the beach are forced up on land. The beach
itself is formed accordingly at many places, for instance at several
points in Matotschkin Sound, of a nearly continuous stone rampart
going to the sea level, while in front of it there is a quite even
sea bottom without a fragment of stone.

[Illustration: SECTION FROM THE SOUTH COAST OF MATOTSCHKIN SOUND.
Showing the origin of Stone-ramparts at the beach. ]

_August 4th._ In the morning a gentle heaving indicated that the sea
was again free of ice, at least over a considerable space to
windward. Yesterday the salinity in the water was already diminished
and the amount of clay increased; now the water after being filtered
is almost drinkable. It has assumed a yellowish-grey colour and is
nearly opaque, so that the vessel appears to sail in clay mud. We
are evidently in the area of the Ob-Yenisej current. The ice we
sailed through yesterday probably came from the Gulf of Obi, Yenisej
or Pjäsina. Its surface was dirty, not clean and white like the
surface of glacier-ice or the sea-ice that has never come in contact
with land or with muddy river-water. Off the large rivers the ice,
when the snow has melted, is generally covered with a yellow layer
of clay. This clay evidently consists of mud, which has been washed
down by the river-water and been afterwards thrown up by the swell
on the snow-covered ice. The layer of snow acts as a filter and
separates the mud from the water. The former, therefore, after the
melting of the snow may form upon true sea-ice a layer of dirt,
containing a large number of minute organisms which live only in
fresh water.

_August 5th._ Still under sail in the Kara Sea, in which a few
pieces of ice are floating about. The ice completely disappeared
when we came north-west of Beli Ostrov. We were several times in the
course of the day in only nine metres of water, which, however, in
consequence of the evenness of the bottom, is not dangerous. Fog, a
heavy sea, and an intermittent but pretty fresh breeze delayed our
progress.

_August 6th._ At three o'clock in the morning we had land in sight.
In the fog we had gone a little way up the Gulf of Yenisej, and so
had to turn in order to reach our destination, Port Dickson. The
mast-tops of the _Express_ were seen projecting over islands to the
north, and both vessels soon anchored south of an island which was
supposed to be Dickson's Island, but when the _Fraser_ soon after
joined us we learned that this was a mistake. The shore, which, seen
from our first anchorage, appeared to be that of the mainland,
belonged in fact to the pretty extensive island, off which the haven
itself is situated.

After an excursion on land, in the course of which a covey of
partridges was seen, and Dr. Kjellman on the diorite rocks of the
island made a pretty abundant collection of plants, belonging partly
to species which he had not before met with in the Arctic regions,
we again weighed anchor in order to remove to the proper harbour.

Captain Palander went before in the steam launch in order to examine
the yet unsurveyed fairway. On the way he fell in with and killed a
bear, an exceedingly fat and large male. Like the bear Dr. Théel
shot here in 1875, he had only mosses and lichens in his stomach,
and as it is scarcely probable that the bear in this region can
catch a great many seals in summer, it is to be supposed that his
food consists principally of vegetable substances, with the addition
perhaps of a reindeer or two when he can succeed in getting hold of
them. In the year 1875 we saw here an old male bear that appeared to
pasture quite peaceably in company with some reindeer, probably with
a view to get near enough to spring upon them. Bears must besides be
very common in that part of the north coast of Siberia, for during
the few days we now remained there, two more were shot, both of them
very fat.

The haven, which has now been surveyed by Lieutenant Bove, was
discovered by me in 1875 and named Port Dickson. It is the best
known haven on the whole north coast of Asia, and will certainly in
the future be of great importance for the foreign commerce of
Siberia. It is surrounded on all sides by rocky islands, and is thus
completely sheltered. The anchorage is a good clay bottom. The haven
may be entered both from the north and from the south-west; but in
sailing in, caution should be used, because some rocky shoals may be
met with which are not shown on Lieutenant Bove's sketch chart,
which was made in the greatest haste. The water probably varies
considerably as to its salinity with the season of the year and with
ebb and flood tides, but is never, even at the surface, completely
fresh. It can therefore be used in cooking only in case of the
greatest necessity. But two streams on the mainland, one debouching
north and the other south of the harbour, yield an abundant supply
of good water, in case snow water cannot be obtained from any of the
beds of snow which up to autumn are to be found at several places
along the strand escarpments in the neighbourhood of the harbour.

At our arrival six wild reindeer were seen pasturing on Dickson's
Island; one of them was killed by Palander, the others were stalked
unsuccessfully. Some bears, as has already been stated, were also
seen, and everywhere among the heaps of stones there were numerous
remains of the lemming and the fox. With these exceptions there were
few of the higher animals. Of birds we thus saw only snow-buntings,
which bred among the stone heaps both on the mainland and on the
islands, a covey of ptarmigan, a large number of birds, principally
species of Tringa and Phalaropus, but not further determined,
eiders, black guillemots and burgomasters in limited numbers, and
long-tailed ducks and loons in somewhat greater abundance. There are
no "down islands," and as there are no precipitous shore cliffs
neither are there any looneries. A shoal of fish was seen in Lena
Sound, and fish are probably exceedingly abundant. Seals and white
whales also perhaps occur here at certain seasons of the year in no
small numbers. It was doubtless with a view to hunt these animals
that a hut was occupied, the remains of which are visible on one of
the small rocky islands at the north entrance into the harbour. The
ruin, if we may apply the term to a wooden hut which has fallen in
pieces, showed that the building had consisted of a room with a
fireplace and a storehouse situated in front, and that it was only
intended as a summer dwelling for the hunters and fishers who came
hither during the hunting season from the now deserted _simovies_[93]
lying farther south.

I am convinced that the day will come when great warehouses and many
dwellings inhabited all the year round will be found at Port Dickson.
Now the region is entirely uninhabited as far as Goltschicha, although,
as the map reproduced here shows, numerous dwelling-houses were to be
found built along the river bank and sea-shore beyond the mouth of the
Yenisej and as far as to the Pjäsina. They have long since been
abandoned, in the first place in consequence of the hunting falling off,
but probably also because even here, far away on the north coast of
Siberia, the old simple and unpretentious habits have given way to new
wants which were difficult to satisfy at the time when no steamers
carried on traffic on the river Yenisej. Thus, for instance, the
difficulty of procuring meal some decades back, accordingly before the
commencement of steam communication on the Yenisej, led to the
abandonment of a _simovie_ situated on the eastern bank of the river in
latitude 72° 25' north.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE MOUTH OF THE YENISEJ FROM ATLAS RUSSICUS CURA
ET OPERE ACADEMIÆ IMPERIALIS SCIENTIARUM PETROPOLITANÆ PETROPOLI 1745. ]

The _simovies_ at the mouth of the Yenisej formed in their time the
most northerly fixed dwelling-places of the European races.[94]
Situated as they were at the foot of the cold _tundra_, exposed to
continual snowstorms in winter and to close fogs during the greater
part of summer, which here is extremely short, it seems as if they
could not offer their inhabitants many opportunities for enjoyment,
and the reason why this tract was chosen for a residence, especially
in a country so rich in fertile soil as Siberia, appears to be
difficult to find. The remains of an old _simovie_ (Krestovskoj),
which I saw in 1875 while travelling up the river along with Dr.
Lundström and Dr. Stuxberg, however, produced the impression that a
true home life had once been led there. Three houses with
turf-covered roofs then still remained in such a state that one
could form an idea of their former arrangement and of the life which
had been earned on in them. Each cabin contained a whole labyrinth
of very small rooms; dwelling-rooms with sleeping places fixed to
the walls, bake-rooms with immense fireplaces, bathing houses with
furnaces for vapour-baths, storehouses for train-oil with large
train-drenched blubber troughs hollowed out of enormous tree-stems,
blubber tanks with remains of the white whale, &c., all witnessing
that the place had had a flourishing period, when prosperity was
found there, when the home was regarded with loyalty, and formed in
all its loneliness the central point of a life richer perhaps in
peace and well-being than one is inclined beforehand to suppose.

[Illustration: RUINS OF A SIMOVIE AT KRESTOVSKOJ. After a drawing by A.
Stuxberg. ]

In 1875 a "prikaschik" (foreman) and three Russian labourers lived
all the year round at Goltschicha. Sverevo was inhabited by one man
and Priluschnoj by an old man and his son. All were poor; they dwelt
in small turf-covered cabins, consisting of a lobby and a dirty
room, smoked and sooty, with a large fireplace, wooden benches along
the walls, and a sleeping place fixed to the wall, high above the
floor. Of household furniture only the implements of fishing and the
chase were numerously represented. There were in addition pots and
pans, and occasionally a tea-urn. The houses were all situated near
the river-bank, so high up that they could not be reached by the
spring inundations. A disorderly midden was always to be found in
the near neighbourhood, with a number of draught dogs wandering
about on it seeking something to eat. Only one of the Russian
settlers here was married, and we were informed that there was no
great supply of the material for Russian housewives for the
inhabitants of these legions. At least the Cossack Feodor, who in
1875 and 1876 made several unsuccessful attempts to serve me as
pilot, and who himself was a bachelor already grown old and
wrinkled, complained that the fair or weaker sex was poorly
represented among the Russians. He often talked of the advantages of
mixed marriages, being of opinion, under the inspiration of memory
or hope, I know not which, that a Dolgan woman was the most eligible
_purti_ for a man disposed to marry in that part of the world.

A little farther south, but still far north of the limit of trees,
there are, however, very well-to-do peasants, who inhabit large
_simovies_, consisting of a great number of houses and rooms, in
which a certain luxury prevails, where one walks on floor-coverings
of skins, where the windows are whole, the sacred pictures covered
with plates of gold and silver, and the walls provided with mirrors
and covered with finely coloured copper-plate portraits of Russian
Czars and generals. This prosperity is won by traffic with the
natives, who wander about as nomads on the _tundra_ with their
reindeer herds.

The cliffs around Port Dickson consist of diorite, hard and
difficult to break in pieces, but weathering readily. The rocky
hills are therefore so generally split up that they form enormous
stone mounds. They were covered with a great abundance of lichens,
and the plains between them yielded to Dr. Kjellman the following
phanerogamous plants:

  Cineraria frigida RICHARDS.
  Erigeron uniflorus L.
  Saussurea alpina DC.
  Taraxacum phymatocarpum J. VAHL.
  Gymnandra Stelleri CH. &c. SCHL.
  Pedicularis sudetica WILLD.
  Pedicularis hirsuta L.
  Pedicularis Oederi VAHL.
  Eritrichium villosum BUNGE.
  Myosotis silvatica HOFFM.
  Astragalus alpinus L.
  Oxytropis campestris (L.) DC.
  Dryas octopetala L.
  Sieversia glacialis B. BR.
  Potentilla emarginata PURSH.
  Saxifraga oppositifolia L.
  Saxifraga bronchialis L.
  Saxifraga Hirculus L.
  Saxifraga stellaris L.
  Saxifraga nivalis L.
  Saxifraga hieraciifolia WALDST. &c. KIT.
  Saxifraga punctata L.
  Saxifraga cernua L.
  Saxifraga rivularis L.
  Saxifraga cæspitosa L.
  Chrysosplenium alternifolium L.
  Rhodiola rosea L.
  Parrya macrocarpa R. BR.
  Cardamine pratensis L.
  Cardamine bellidifolia L.
  Eutrema Edwardsii R. BR.
  Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.
  Draba alpina L.
  Draba oblongata (R. BR.) DC.
  Draba corymbosa R. BR.
  Draba Wahlenbergii HN.
  Draba altaica (LEDEB.) BUNGE.
  Papaver nudicaule L.
  Banunculus pygmæus WG.
  Ranunculus hyperboreus ROTTB.
  Ranunculus lapponicus L.
  Ranunculus nivalis L.
  Ranunculus sulphureus SOL.
  Ranunculus affinis R. BR.
  Caltha palustris L.
  Wahlbergella apetala (L.) FR.
  Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.
  Cerastium alpinum L.
  Alsine arctica FENZL.
  Alsine macrocarpa FENZL.
  Alsine rubella WG.
  Sagina nivalis FR.
  Oxyria digyna (L.) HILL.
  Rumex arcticus TRAUTV.
  Polygonum viviparum L.
  Polygonum Bistorta L.
  Salix polaris WG.
  Festuca rubra L.
  Poa cenisea ALL.
  Poa arctica R BR.
  Glyceria angustata B. BR.
  Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
  Catabrosa concinna TH. FR.
  Colpodium latifolium E. BR.
  Dupontia Fisheri E. BR.
  Koeleria hirsuta GAUD.
  Aira cæspitosa L.
  Alopecurus alpinus SM.
  Eriophorum angustifolium ROTH.
  Eriophorum vaginatum L.
  Eriophorum Scheuchzeri HOPPE.
  Carex rigida GOOD.
  Carex aquatilis WG.
  Juncus biglumis L.
  Luzula hyperborea R BR.
  Luzula arctica BL.
  Lloydia serotina (L.) REICHENB.
  Banunculus pygmæus WG.

[Illustration: SIEVERSIA GLACIALIS R. BR. From Port Dickson. ]

Our botanists thus made on land a not inconsiderable collection,
considering the northerly position of the region. On the other hand
no large algæ were met with in the sea, nor was it to be expected
that there would, for the samples of water taken up with Ekman's
instrument showed that the salinity at the bottom was as slight as
at the surface, viz. only 0.3 per cent. The temperature of the water
was also at the time of our visit about the same at the bottom as at
the surface, viz. +9° to +10°. In spring, when the snow
melts, the water here is probably quite fresh, in winter again cold,
and as salt as at the bottom of the Kara Sea. Under so variable
hydrographical conditions we might have expected an exceedingly
scanty marine fauna, but this was by no means the case. For the
dredgings in the harbour gave Dr. Stuxberg a not inconsiderable
yield, consisting of the same types as those which are found in the
salt water at the bottom of the Kara Sea. This circumstance appears
to show that certain evertebrate types can endure a much greater
variation in the temperature and salinity of the water than the
algæ, and that there is a number of species which, though as a rule
they live in the strongly cooled layer of salt water at the bottom
of the Kara Sea, can bear without injury a considerable diminution
in the salinity of the water and an increase of temperature of about
12°.

For the science of our time, which so often places the origin
of a northern form in the south, and _vice versâ_, as the foundation
of very wide theoretical conclusions, a knowledge of the types
which can live by turns in nearly fresh water of a temperature
of +10°, and in water cooled to -2.7° and of nearly the same
salinity as that of the Mediterranean, must have a certain
interest. The most remarkable were, according to Dr. Stuxberg,
the following: a species of Mysis, _Diastylis Rathkei_ KR.,
_Idothea entomon_ LIN., _Idothea Sabinei_ KR., two species of
Lysianassida, _Pontoporeia setosa_ STBRG., _Halimedon brevicalcar_
GOËS, an Annelid, a Molgula, _Yoldia intermedia_ M. SARS,
_Yoldia_ (?) _arctica_ GRAY, and a Solecurtus.

Driftwood in the form both of small branches and pieces of roots,
and of whole trees with adhering portions of branches and roots,
occurs in such quantities at the bottom of two well-protected coves
at Port Dickson, that the seafarer may without difficulty provide
himself with the necessary stock of fuel. The great mass of the
driftwood which the river bears along, however, does not remain on
its own banks, but floats out to sea to drift about with the marine
currents until the wood has absorbed so much water that it sinks, or
until it is thrown up on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, the north
coast of Asia, Spitzbergen or perhaps Greenland.

[Illustration: EVERTIBRATIS FROM PORT DICKSON.
A. Yoldia arctica GRAY One and two-thirds of natural size.
B. Diastylis Rathkei KR Magnified three times. ]

Another portion of the wood sinks, before it reaches the sea,
often in such a way that the stems stand upright in the river
bottom, with one end, so to say, rooted in the sand. They may
thus be inconvenient for the navigation, at least at the shallower
places of the river. A bay immediately off Port Dickson
was almost barred by a natural palisade-work of driftwood
stems.

_August 7th._ The _Vega_ coaled from the _Express_. In the evening
the _Lena_ arrived, 36 hours after the _Vega_ had anchored, that is
to say, precisely at the appointed time. Concerning this excursion.
Dr. Almquist reports:

    "On the 2nd August we--Horgaard, Nordquist and I--went on
    board the _Lena_ to make an excursion to Beli Ostrov. We
    were to land on the south-western headland and there
    undertake botanical and zoological researches. Thereafter
    we were to direct some attention to the opposite shore of
    Yalmal and visit the Samoyeds living there.

    "We left the _Vega_ at eleven o'clock forenoon. In the
    course of the day we saw here and there in the south
    scattered ice, and at half-past ten at night we ran into a
    large belt, about 300 metres broad, of scattered ice,
    which lay stretched out from N.E. to S.W. It was passed
    without difficulty. In the course of the night we now and
    then fell in with a little scattered ice, and in the
    morning with a belt of masses of ice of considerable
    dimensions; sounding constantly in 10 to 3-1/2 metres
    water we succeeded, notwithstanding the fog and rain, in
    finding the straits between Beli Ostrov and the mainland,
    and on the 3rd August at eleven o'clock forenoon we
    anchored a little to the east of the southern extremity of
    the island. The _Lena_ lay in 3-1/2 metres water, about an
    English mile out to sea. The water was shallow for so
    great a distance from the beach that we had to leave our
    boat about 300 metres out to sea and wade to land.

    "Beli Ostrov consists entirely of fine sand, and only on
    that part of the beach which is washed by the sea-water
    did we see any stones as large as walnuts; higher up we
    did not find a piece of stone even of the size of the
    nail. The highest point of the island appears to be
    scarcely three metres above the surface of the sea. That
    part of the island over which the sea water washes, that
    is, the beach and the deep bays which indent the land here
    and there, shows the fine sand bare, without trace of
    vegetation. Where the ground rises a little, it becomes
    covered with a black and white variegated covering of
    mosses and lichens; scattered among which at long
    intervals are small tufts of grass. First somewhat higher
    up, and properly only round the marshy margins of the
    numerous small fresh-water lakes and in hollows and bogs,
    is the ground slightly green. The higher plants are
    represented by only 17 species, all small and stunted,[95]
    most of them rising only some few lines above the sand.
    Very few plants reached a height of 15 centimetres. No
    kind of willow was found, nor any flower seen of any other
    colour than green or white.

    "The lichen-flora too was scanty. No species showed any
    great luxuriance, and seldom did the black and white
    lichen-crust produce any 'apothecium,' The
    lichen-vegetation was most abundant on the driftwood of
    the beach and on the tufts in the marshes. The larger
    lichens, as the reindeer and Iceland lichens, occurred
    very sparingly. About 80 species were found. The land
    evertebrates were so sparingly represented, that only
    three diptera, one species of hymenoptera, and some insect
    larvæ and spiders could be collected. Only poduræ were
    found in great abundance; they completely covered the
    whole ground at the beach.

    "Several herds of reindeer were seen, but we did not
    succeed in getting within range of them. A little fish of
    the Cottus family was caught by Nordquist in a ditch which
    was in connection with the sea. Driftwood still fresh was
    found in great abundance, and farther up on land here and
    there lay a more rotten stem.

    "Rain and fog rendered impossible any determination of
    position. During night we went across the sound and
    anchored about an English mile and a half from the shore
    of Yalmal, right opposite some Samoyed tents which we
    discovered a little inland. In the same unfavourable
    weather as that of the day before we attempted to land
    there, but found the water too shallow. First pretty far
    to the east we succeeded in reaching the beach at a place
    where the land rose out of the sea with a steep bank about
    nine metres high. Above the bank, which consisted of loose
    clay, we found a plain with the appearance of a rich
    watered _tundra_, full of marshes and streams, and
    therefore presenting a very green appearance. In order to
    meet with the Samoyeds we now went westwards, passing
    several rivulets which cut deeply into the land and had
    high banks, until after half an hour's walking we came to
    a broad but not very deep river, which it was impossible
    to ford. We therefore returned to our boat with the view
    of seeking a landing-place on the other side of the river;
    but as the _Lena's_ distance from land was considerable
    and the breeze was freshening, the captain considered that
    the time at our disposal did not permit us to undertake so
    long an excursion.

    "So far as we may judge from our hasty visit, the
    vegetation on this part of Yalmal struck us as being
    remarkably abundant. The high banks especially were richly
    covered by phanerogamous plants and lichens, and would
    have deserved a closer examination. Our cursory
    observations of the plants here may however be interesting
    for comparison with the flora of Beli Ostrov; we collected
    and noted the higher plants[96] and about 40 species of
    lichens. Nordquist found that the fauna resembled that of
    the neighbouring island, and collected besides two species
    of Coleoptera.

    "After lying 26 hours in the sound we weighed anchor again
    and went westwards, following a channel with ten to
    sixteen metres water. We could not find its course farther
    to the east, and were compelled, although we were near the
    eastern extremity of Beli Ostrov, to turn in order to pass
    out through the western entrance of the sound. We saw a
    quantity of stranded ice on the north coast of the island,
    which, seen from the sea, did not present any
    dissimilarity to the part which we had visited. On the 7th
    August we arrived at Port Dickson."

From Lieutenant Hovgaard's report on this excursion, a map is given
here of Beli Ostrov and the neighbouring coast of Yalmal, in which I
have named the sound between the island and the mainland after
MALYGIN, one of the gallant Russian seamen who first sailed through
it nearly a century and a half ago.

Yalmal has been visited by Europeans so seldom, and their
observations are scattered in printed papers so inaccessible, that
it may perhaps not be out of place here to collect the most
important facts which are known regarding this peninsula, along with
the necessary bibliographical references.

First as to its name, it is sometimes also written "Yelmert
Land,"[97] but this is quite incorrect.

"Yalmal" is of Samoyed origin, and has, according to a private
communication from the well-known philologist Dr. E.D. EUROPÆUS,
the distinctive meaning "land's-end." YELMERT again was a boatswain
with the Dutch whale-fisher VLAMINGH, who in 1664 sailed round the
northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya to Barents' winter haven, and
thence farther to the south-east. Vlamingh himself at his
turning-point saw no land, though all signs showed that land ought
to be found in the neighbourhood; but several of the crew thought
they saw land, and the report of this to a Dutch mapmaker, DICK
REMBRANTSZ. VAN NIEROP, led to the introduction of the supposed land
into a great many maps, commonly as a large island in the Kara Sea.
This island was named Yelmert Land. The similarity between the names
Yelmert Land and Yalmal, and the doubt as to the existence of the
Yelmert Island first shown on the maps, have led to the transfer of
the name Yelmert Land to the peninsula which separates the Gulf of
Obi from the Kara Sea. It is to be remarked, however, that the name
Yalmal is not found in the older accounts of voyages from the
European waters to the Obi. The first time I met with it was in the
narrative of Skuratov's journey in 1737, as the designation of the
most north-easterly promontory of the peninsula which now bears that
name.

Yalmal's grassy plains offer the Samoyeds during summer reindeer
pastures which are highly valued, and the land is said to have a
very numerous population in comparison with other regions along the
shores of the Polar Sea, the greater portion, however, drawing
southward towards winter with their large herds of reindeer. But the
land is, notwithstanding this, among the most imperfectly known
parts of the great Russian empire. Some information regarding it we
may obtain from sketches of the following journeys:

SELIFONTOV, 1737. In the months of July and August the surveyor
Selifontov travelled in a reindeer sledge along the coast of the
Gulf of Obi as far as to Beli Ostrov. About this journey
unfortunately nothing else has been published than is to be found in
LITKE, _Viermalige Reise_, &c., Berlin, 1835, p. 66, and WRANGEL,
_Sibirische Reise_, Berlin, 1839, p. 37.

SUJEFF, in 1771, travelled under the direction of Pallas over the
southern part of Yalmal from Obdorsk to the Kara Sea, and gives an
instructive account of observations made during his journey in
PALLAS, _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen Reiches_,
St. Petersburg, 1771--76, III. pp. 14--35.

KRUSENSTERN, 1862. During his second voyage in the Kara Sea, which
ended with the abandonment of the ship _Yermak_ on the coast of
Yalmal in about 69° 54' N.L., Krusenstern junior escaped with
his crew to the shore, reaching it in a completely destitute
condition. He had lost all, and would certainly have perished if he
had not near the landing-place fallen in with a rich Samoyed, the
owner of two thousand reindeer, who received the shipwrecked men in
a very friendly way and conveyed them with his reindeer to Obdorsk,
distant in a straight line 500, but, according to the Samoyed's
reckoning, 1,000 versts. In the sketch of Krusenstern's travels, to
which I have had access, there is unfortunately no information
regarding the tribe with which he came in contact during this
remarkable journey.[98]

WALDBURG-ZEIL and FINSCH, 1876. A very full and exceedingly
interesting description of the natural conditions in the
southernmost part of the peninsula is to be found in the accounts of
Count Waldburg-Zeil and Dr. Finsch's journey in the year 1876.[99]

SCHWANENBERG, 1877. Captain Schwanenberg landed on the north part of
Beli Ostrov during the remarkable voyage which he made in that year
from the Yenisej to St. Petersburg. No traces of men, but some of
reindeer and bears, were visible. The sea was sufficiently deep
close to the shore for vessels of light draught, according to a
private communication which I have received from Captain
Schwanenberg.

THE SWEDISH EXPEDITION, 1875. During this voyage we landed about the
middle of the west coast of Yalmal. In order to give an idea of the
nature of the country, I make the following extract from my
narrative of the voyage,[100] which has had but a limited
circulation:

"In the afternoon of the 8th August I landed, along with Lundström and
Stuxberg, on a headland projecting a little from Yalmal, on the north
side of the mouth of a pretty large river. The landing place was
situated in lat. 72° 18', long. 68° 42'. The land was bounded here by a
low beach, from which at a distance of one hundred paces a steep bank
rose to a height of from six to thirty metres. Beyond this bank there is
an extensive, slightly undulating plain, covered with a vegetation which
indeed was exceedingly monotonous, but much more luxuriant than that of
Vaygats Island or Novaya Zemlya. The uniformity of the vegetation is
perhaps caused, in a considerable degree, by the uniform nature of the
terrain. There is no solid rock here. The ground everywhere consists of
sand and sandy clay, in which I could not find a stone so large as a
bullet or even as a pea, though I searched for a distance of several
kilometres along the strand-bank. Nor did the dredge bring up any stones
from the sea-bottom off the coast, a circumstance which, among other
things, is remarkable, because it appears to show that the strand-ice
from the Obi and Yenisej does not drift down to and melt in this part of
the Kara Sea. Nor do the sand beds contain any sub-fossil shells, as is
the case with the sand beds of the Yenisej _tundra_. 'Noah's wood' also
appears to be absent here. To judge from our observations at this place,
the peninsula between the Gulf of Obi and the Kara Sea thus differs very
essentially from the _tundra_ lying east of the Yenisej.

[Illustration: PLACE OF SACRIFICE ON YALMAL. After a drawing by A.N.
Lundström. ]

"We saw no inhabitants, but everywhere along the beach numerous
traces of men--some of them barefoot--of reindeer, dogs and Samoyed
sleighs, were visible. On the top of the strand-bank was found a
place of sacrifice, consisting of forty-five bears' skulls of
various ages placed in a heap, a large number of reindeer skulls,
the lower jaw of a walrus, &c. From most of the bears' skulls the
canine teeth were broken out, and the lower jaw was frequently
entirely wanting. Some of the bones were overgrown with moss and lay
sunk in the earth; others had, as the adhering flesh showed, been
placed there during the present year. In the middle of the heap of
bones stood four erect pieces of wood. Two consisted of sticks a
metre in length with notches cut in them, serving to bear up the
reindeer and bears' skulls, which were partly placed on the points
of the sticks or hung up by means of the notches, or spitted on the
sticks by four-cornered holes cut in the skulls. The two others,
which clearly were the proper idols of this place of sacrifice,
consisted of driftwood roots, on which some carvings had been made
to distinguish the eyes, mouth, and nose. The parts of the pieces of
wood, intended to represent the eyes and mouth, had recently been
besmeared with blood, and there still lay at the heap of bones the
entrails of a newly-killed reindeer. Close beside were found the
remains of a fireplace, and of a midden, consisting of reindeer
bones of various kinds and the lower jaws of bears.

"As the sandy slopes of the beach offered no suitable breeding-place
for looms, black guillemots, or other sea-fowl, and there were no
islands along the coast which could serve as breeding-places for
eiders and other species of geese which breed in colonies, the
abundant bird-life of the Polar Sea was wanting here. At the mouth
of the river, however, large flocks of eiders and long-tailed ducks
flew about, and on the sandy banks along the shore, flocks of
_Calidris arenaria_ and a Tringa or two ran about restlessly seeking
their food. The solitude of the _tundra_ was broken only by a couple
of larks and a pair of falcons (_Falco peregrinus_) with young.
Traces of reindeer were also seen, and two fox-traps set on the
strand-bank showed that foxes occur in these regions in sufficient
numbers to be the object of capture.

"Later in the afternoon, when some solar altitudes had been taken,
in order to determine the geographical position of the place, we
rowed back to our vessel and sailed on, keeping at some distance
from the coast, and at one place passing between the shore and a
long series of blocks of ground-ice, which had stranded along the
coast in a depth of nine to sixteen metres. During night we passed a
place where five Samoyed tents were pitched, in whose neighbourhood
a large number of reindeer pastured. The land was now quite low, and
the sea had become considerably shallower. The course was therefore
shaped for the N.W., in which direction deeper water was soon met
with. Notwithstanding the slight salinity and high temperature
(+ 7.7°) of the surface water a _Clio borealis_ and a large
number of Copepoda were taken at the surface."

The excursion now described and Almquist's and Hovgaard's landing in
1878 were, as far as I am aware, the only occasions on which
naturalists have visited the northern part of that peninsula which
separates the Kara Sea from the Obi. The Norwegian hunters also
visit the place seldom, the main reasons being the inaccessibility
of the shallow east coast, and the want of harbours. They now,
however, land occasionally to take in water, and perhaps to barter
the tobacco they have saved from their rations, knives they have no
use for, and old-fashioned guns, gunpowder, lead, &c., for the
products of the Samoyeds' reindeer husbandry, hunting and fishing.
At first the natives fled when they saw the Norwegians coming, and,
when they could not make their escape, they saluted them with great
humility, falling on their knees and bending their heads to the
earth, and were unwilling to enter into any traffic with them or to
show them their goods. But since the Samoyeds observed that the
Norwegians never did them any harm, the mistrust and excessive
humility have completely disappeared. Now a visit of Europeans is
very agreeable to them, partly for the opportunity which it offers
of obtaining by barter certain articles of necessity, luxury, or
show, partly perhaps also for the interruption thereby caused in the
monotony of the _tundra_ life. When the walrus-hunters row or sail
along that open coast, it often happens that natives run backwards
and forwards on the shore, and by signs eagerly invite the
foreigners to land; if they do so, and there are any wealthy
Samoyeds in the neighbourhood, there immediately begins a grand
entertainment, according to the customs of the people, with more
than one trait reminding us of the sketches from the traditionary
periods of the civilised nations.

What I have stated here is about all that we know of Yalmal, and we
see from this that a very promising, yet untouched field for
researches in ethnography and natural history here lies before
future travellers to the Yenisej.


What sort of winter is there at the mouth of the Yenisej? We have
for the present no information on this point, as no scientific man
has wintered there. But on the other hand we have a very exciting
narrative of the wintering of the Fin, NUMMELIN, at the Briochov
Islands in the Yenisej in lat. 70° 48' north.

[Illustration: "JORDGAMMOR" ON THE BRIOCHOV ISLANDS. After a sketch
by the Author. ]

I visited the place on the 27th August 1875. It consisted of a fishing
post, occupied only in summer, and at that season of the year very
attractive, surrounded as it is by luxuriant vegetation of grass and
bushes. The houses were situated on a sound running between the Briochov
Islands, which form the northernmost group of the labyrinth of islands
which occupy the channel of the Yenisej between 69-1/2° and 71° N.L. At
the time of our visit the fishing was over for the season and the
place deserted. But two small houses and a number of earth-huts
(_jordgammor_), all in good repair, stood on the river bank and gave
evidence, along with a number of large boats drawn up on land, and
wooden vessels intended for salting fish, of the industry which had
been carried on there earlier in the summer. It was at this place that
Nummelin passed one of the severest winters that Arctic literature has
to record.[101]

In 1876 M. Sidoroff, well known for the lively interest which he
takes in navigation in the Siberian waters, had a ship _Severnoe
Sianie_ (the _Aurora_) built and fitted out at Yeniseisk, in order
to carry goods from the Yenisej to Europe. The vessel was placed
under the command of a Russian sea-captain, Schwanenberg. Under him
Nummelin served as mate, and the vessel had a crew of eighteen men,
most of whom had been exiled to Siberia for crime. In consequence of
various mishaps the vessel could not get farther the first year than
to the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Yenisej, where it was left
in winter quarters at the place which has been named above. Nummelin
and four exiles remained on board, while Schwanenberg and the rest
of the crew returned to Yeniseisk on the 28th September. Frost had
already commenced. During the two following weeks the temperature
kept in the neighbourhood of the freezing point; clear weather
alternating with snow and rain.

On the 5th of October the crew withdrew to their winter quarters,
having previously collected driftwood and placed it in heaps in
order that they might easily find it under the snow.

On the 16th October the thermometer at eight o'clock in the morning
showed -4.5° and afterwards sank lower every day, until after the 21st
October the mercury for some days was constantly under -10°. On the 26th
October the temperature was -18°, but in the beginning of November it
rose again to -2°. On the 6th November it sank again to -17°, but rose
on the 11th to -3.5°. On the 14th November the thermometer showed
-23.5°, on the 21st -29.5°. Next day in the morning it stood at -32°,
and in the evening at -37°, but these figures were arrived at _by
guess_, the instrument not indicating so low temperatures. This
temperature of -30° to -32°, varying with frozen mercury, continued till
the end of November, when it rose again to -11.5°. At Christmas there
was again a temperature of -31° and the six following days the mercury
was frozen, with which the new year came in. The temperature then rose
again to -20°, but soon sank so that from the 16th January the mercury
was frozen for five days. On the 22nd January the reading was -9°. On
the 26th the mercury froze again, and on the 29th the temperature was
-6°. During the month of February the temperature never rose above -24°;
the mercury was frozen on the 20th, 25th, 26th, and 28th. This was the
case on the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 14th, 16th, and 18th March; on the 22nd
March the reading was -7°, on the 30th -29°. April began with -31°, but
the temperature afterwards rose, so that on the 16th it reached -11° and
varied between -21° and -6° (the 25th). On the 2nd May the reading in
the morning and evening was -12°, at mid-day -2° to -5°. On the 8th May
it was +0, on the 17th -10.5°, on the 31st +0.5°. June began with +1.5°.
On the 8th the reading at mid-day was +11°, on the morning and evening
of the same day +2° to +3°. During the remainder of June and the month
of July the temperature varied between +2° and +21°.

It was in such circumstances that Nummelin and his four companions
lived in the ill-provided house of planks on the Little Briochov
Island. They removed to it, as has been already said, on the 5th
October; on the 20th the ice was so hard frozen that they could walk
upon it. On the 26th snowstorms commenced, so that it was impossible
to go out of the house.

The sun was visible for the last time on the 21st November, and it
reappeared on the 19th January. On the 15th May the sun no longer
set. The temperature was then under the freezing point of mercury.
That the upper edge of the sun should be visible on the 19th January
we must assume a horizontal refraction of nearly 1°. The
islands on the Yenisej are so low that there was probably a pretty
open horizon towards the south.

Soon after Christmas scurvy began to show itself. Nummelin's
companions were condemned and punished criminals, in whom there was
to be expected neither physical nor moral power of resistance to
this disease. They all died, three of scurvy, and one in the attempt
to cross from the Briochov Islands to a _simovie_ at Tolstoinos. In
their stead Nummelin succeeded in procuring two men from Tolstoinos,
and later on one from Goltschicha. On the 11th May a relief party
arrived from the south. It consisted of three men under the mate
Meyenwaldt, whom Sidoroff had sent to help to save the vessel. They
had first to shovel away the snow which weighed it down. The snow
lay nearly six metres deep on the river ice, which was three metres
thick. When they at last had got the vessel nearly dug out, it was
buried again by a new snowstorm.

In the middle of June the ice began to move, and the river water
rose so high that Nummelin, Meyenwaldt, and four men, along with two
dogs, were compelled to betake themselves to the roof of the hut,
where they had laid in a small stock of provisions and fuel. Here
they passed six days in constant peril of their lives.

The river had now risen five metres; the roof of the hut rose but a
quarter of a metre above the surface of the swollen river, and was
every instant in danger of being carried away by a floating piece of
ice. In such a case a small boat tied to the roof was their only
means of escape.

The whole landscape was overflowed. The other houses and huts were
carried away by the water and the drifting ice, which also
constantly threatened the only remaining building. The men on its
roof were compelled to work night and day to keep the pieces of ice
at a distance with poles.

The great inundation had even taken the migrating birds at unawares.
For long stretches there was not a dry spot for them to rest upon,
and thus it happened that exhausted ptarmigan alighted among the men
on the roof; once a ptarmigan settled on Meyenwaldt's head, and a
pair on the dogs.

On the 23rd June the water began to fall, and by the 25th it had
sunk so low that Nummelin and his companions could leave the roof
and remove to the deserted interior of the house.

The narrative of Nummelin's return to Europe by sea, in company with
Schwanenberg, belongs to a following chapter.


[Footnote 87: _Les moeurs et usages des Ostiackes_, par Jean Bernard
Muller, Capitaine de dragon au service de la Suède, pendant sa
captivité en Sibérie (_Recueil de Voiages au Nord._ T. VIII.,
Amsterdam, 1727, p. 389). ]

[Footnote 88: I come to this conclusion from the appearance of the
strata as seen from the sea, and from their nature on Vaygats Island
and the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. So far as I know, no geologist
has landed on this part of the east coast. ]

[Footnote 89: Sometimes, however, icebergs are to be met with in the
most northerly part of the Kara Sea and on the north coast of Novaya
Zemlya, whither they may drive down from Franz Josef Land or from
other yet unknown Polar lands lying farther north. ]

[Footnote 90: In most of the literary narratives of Polar journeys
colossal icebergs play a very prominent part in the author's
delineations both with the pencil and the pen. The actual fact,
however, is that icebergs occur in far greater numbers in the seas
which are yearly accessible than in those in which the advance of
the Polar travellers' vessel is hindered by impenetrable masses of
ice. If we may borrow a term from the geography of plants to
indicate the distribution of icebergs, they may be said to be more
_boreal_ than _polar_ forms of ice. All the fishers on the coast of
Newfoundland, and most of the captains on the steamers between New
York and Liverpool, have some time or other seen true icebergs, but
to most north-east voyagers this formation is unknown, though the
name iceberg is often in their narratives given to glacier
ice-blocks of somewhat considerable dimensions. This, however, takes
place on the same ground and with the same justification as that on
which the dwellers on the Petchora consider Bolschoj-Kamen a very
high mountain. But although no true icebergs are ever formed at the
glaciers so common on Spitzbergen and also on North Novaya Zemlya,
it however often happens that large blocks of ice fall down from
them and give rise to a swell, which may be very dangerous to
vessels in their neighbourhood. Thus a wave caused by the falling of
a piece of ice from a glacier on the 23rd (13th) of June, 1619,
broke the masts of a vessel anchored at Bell Sound on Spitzbergen,
threw a cannon overboard, killed three men, and wounded many more
(Purchas, iii., p. 734). Several similar adventures, if on a smaller
scale, I could relate from my own experience and that of the
walrus-hunters. Care is taken on this account to avoid anchoring too
near the perpendicular faces of glaciers. ]

[Footnote 91: It may, however, be doubted whether the _whole_ of the
Kara Sea is completely frozen over in winter. ]

[Footnote 92: Already in 1771 one of Pallas' companions, the student
Sujeff, found large algæ in the Kara Sea (Pallas, _Reise_. St.
Petersburg, 1771--1776, ii. p. 34). ]

[Footnote 93: Dwellings intended both for winter and summer
habitation. ]

[Footnote 94: The most northerly fixed dwelling-place, which is at
present inhabited by Europeans, is the Danish commercial post
Tasiusak, in north-western Greenland, situated in 73° 24' N.L.
How little is known, even in Russia, of the former dwellings at the
mouth of the Yenisej may be seen from _Neueste Nachrichten über die
nördlichste Gegend von Sibirien zwischen den Flüssen Pjassida und
Chatanga in Fragen und Autworten abgefasst. Mit Einleitung und
Anmerkungen vom Herausgeber_ (K.E. v. Baer und Gr. v. Helmersen,
_Beiträge sur Kenntniss des russischen Reiches_, vol. iv. p. 269.
St. Petersburg, 1841). ]

[Footnote 95: The collections made here were after our return
determined by Dr. Kjellman, who has communicated the following list:

  Saxifraga stellaris L.
  Saxifraga cernua L.
  Saxifraga rivularis L.
  Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.
  Stellaria humifusa ROTTB.
  Sagina nivalis FR.
  Arctophila pendulina (LAEST.) ANDS.
  Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
  Dupontia Fisheri R. BR.
  Aira cæspitosa L.
  Hierochloa pauciflora R. BR.
  Eriophorum russeolum FR.
  Eriophorum Scheuchzeri HOPPE.
  Carex salina WG.
  Carex ursina DESV.
  Luzula hyperborea R. BR.
  Luzula arctica BL. ]

[Footnote 96: These according to Dr. Kjellman's determination are:

  Saxifraga cernua L.
  Saxifraga cæspitosa L.
  Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.
  Draba alpina L.
  Ranunculus sulphureus SOL.
  Ranunculus nivalis L.
  Ranunculus pygmæus WG.
  Ranunculus lapponicus L.
  Ranunculus borealis TRAUTV.
  Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.
  Salix glauca L.
  Arctophila pendulina (LAEST.) AND.
  Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
  Catabrosa concinna TH. FR.
  Dupontia Fisheri R. BR.
  Calamagrostis lapponica L.
  Carex salina WG.
  Carex rigida GOOD.
  Eriophorum russeolum FR.
  Luzula arcuata SM. f. hyperborea  R. BR.
  Lloydia serotina (L.) REICHENB.
 ]

[Footnote 97: On the maps in Linschoten's work already quoted,
printed in 1601, and in Blavii _Atlas Major_ (1665, t. i. pp. 24,
25), this land is called "Nieu West Vrieslant" and "West Frisia
Nova," names which indeed have priority _in print_, but yet cannot
obtain a preference over the inhabitants' own beautiful name. ]

[Footnote 98: Paul von Krusenstern, _Skizzen aus seinem Seemannsleben_.
Hirschberg in Silesia. Farther on I intend to give a more detailed
account of von Krusenstern's two voyages in the Kara Sea. ]

[Footnote 99: _Deutsche Geogr. Blätter_ von Lindemann Namens d.
Geogr. Gesellsch., Bremen. I. 1877. II. 1878. O. Finsch, _Reise nach
West-Sibirien im Jahre 1876_. Berlin, 1879. A bibliographical list
has been drawn up by Count von Waldburg-Zeil under the title,
_Litteratur-Nachweis fur das Gebiet des unteren, Ob_. ]

[Footnote 100: Nordenskiöld, _Redogörelse for en expedition till
mynningen af Jenisej och Sibirien år 1875_, Bih. till Kongl.
Vet.-Ak. Handl, vol. iv., No. 1, p. 38-42. ]

[Footnote 101: I give the particulars of this wintering partly after
communications made to me in conversation by Nummelin, partly after
_Göteborgs Handelsoch Sjofartstidning_ for the 20th and 21st
November, 1877. This _first_ and, as far as I know, only detailed
narrative of the voyage in question, was dictated to the editor of
that journal, _reference being made to the log_ by Schwanenberg and
Nummelin. Schwanenberg had come to Gothenburg some days before with
his Yeniseisk-built vessel. ]



CHAPTER V.

    The history of the North-east Passage from 1556 to 1878--
    Burrough, 1556--Pet and Jackman, 1580--The first voyage of
    the Dutch, 1594--Oliver Brunel--The second voyage, 1595--
    The third voyage, 1596--Hudson, 1608--Gourdon, 1611--Bosman,
    1625--De la Martinière, 1653--Vlamingh, 1664--Snobberger,
    1675--Roule reaches a land north of Novaya Zemlya--Wood
    and Flawes, 1676--Discussion in England concerning the state
    of the ice in the Polar Sea--Views of the condition of the
    Polar Sea still divided--Payer and Weyprecht, 1872-74.


The sea which washes the north coast of European Russia is named by
King Alfred (_Orosius_, Book I. Chaps, i. ii.) the Quaen Sea (in
Anglo-Saxon _Cwen Sae_),[102] a distinctive name, which
unquestionably has the priority, and well deserves to be retained.
To the inhabitants of Western Europe the islands, Novaya Zemlya and
Vaygats, first became known through Stephen Burrough's voyage of
discovery in 1556. Burrough therefore is often called the discoverer
of Novaya Zemlya, but incorrectly. For when he came thither he found
Russian vessels, manned by hunters well acquainted with the
navigable waters and the land. It is clear from this that Novaya
Zemlya had then already been known to the inhabitants of Northern
Russia for such a length of time that a very actively prosecuted
hunting could arise there. It is even probable that in the same way
as the northernmost part of Norway was already known for a thousand
years back, not only to wandering Lapps, but also to Norwegians and
Quaens, the lands round Yugor Schar and Vaygats were known several
centuries before Burrough's time, not only to the nomad Samoyeds on
the mainland, but also to various Beorma or Finnish tribes. Probably
the Samoyeds then, as now, drove their reindeer herds up thither to
pasture on the grassy plains along the coast of the Polar Sea, where
they were less troubled by the mosquito and the reindeer fly than
further to the south, and probably the wild nomads were accompanied
then, as now, by merchants from the more civilised races settled in
Northern Russia. The name Novaya Zemlya (New Land), indicates that
it was discovered at a later period, probably by Russians, but we
know neither when nor how.[103] The narrative of Stephen Burrough's
voyage, which, like so many others, has been preserved from oblivion
by Hakluyt's famous collection, thus not only forms a sketch of the
first expedition of West-Europeans to Novaya Zemlya, but is also the
principal source of our knowledge of the earliest Russian voyages to
these regions. I shall on this account go into greater detail in the
case of this voyage than in those of the other voyages that will be
referred to here.

It is self-evident that the new important commercial treaties, to
which Chancelor's discovery of the route from England to the White
Sea led, would be hailed with great delight both in England and in
Russia, and would give occasion to a number of new undertakings. At
first, as early as 1555, there was formed in England a company of
"merchant adventurers of England for the discoverie of landes,
territories, isles, dominions, and seigniories unknowen," commonly
called "the Muscovy Company," Sebastian Cabot, then almost an
octogenarian, was appointed governor for the term of his natural
life, and a number of privileges were conferred upon it by the
rulers both of England and Russia. At the same time negotiators,
merchants, and inquirers were sent by different ways from England to
Russia in order to confirm the amity with that country, and more
thoroughly examine the, at least to England, new world, which had
now been discovered in the East. But a detailed account of these
journeys does not enter into the plan of this work.

With this, however, men were not content. They considered
Chancelor's voyage as but the first step to something far more
important, namely, the opening of the North-East Passage to China
and India. While Chancelor himself the year after his return was
sent along with several merchants to the White Sea, a further
attempt was planned to reach the east coast of Asia by the same
route. A small vessel, the _Searchthrift_, was fitted out for this
purpose and placed under the command of Stephen Burrough.[104] The
most important occurrences during the voyage were the following:--

On the 3rd May/23rd April, 1556, the start was made from Ratcliffe
to Blackwall and Grays. Here Sebastian Cabot came on board, together
with some distinguished gentlemen and ladies. They were first
entertained on board the vessel and gave liberal presents to the
sailors, alms being given at the same time to a number of poor
people, in order that they might pray for good luck and a good
voyage; "then at the signe of the Christopher, Master Cabot and
his friends banketted, and made them that were in the company
great cheere; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness
of our intended discovery, he entered into the dance himselfe,
amongst the rest of the young and lusty company." At Orwell Burrough
left his own vessel, in order, at the wish of the merchants,
to make the passage to Vardoehus in the _Edward Bonaventure_.
In the end of May he was off the North Cape, which name Burrough
says he gave to this northernmost headland of Europe during his first
voyage.[105] When Burrough left the _Edward Bonaventure_ and went
on board his own vessel is not stated, but on the 17th/7th June he
replied on the _Searchthrift_ to the parting salute of the
_Edward Bonaventure_. On the 20th/10th June Kola was reached,
and its latitude fixed at 63° 48'.[106]

    "On Thursday the 21st/11th June at 6 of the clocke in the
    morning, there came aboord of vs one of the Russe Lodiaes,
    rowing with twentie oares, and there were foure and
    twentie men in her. The master of the boate presented me
    with a great loafe of bread, and six rings of bread, which
    they call Colaches, and foure dryed pikes, and a peck of
    fine otemeale, and I gave vnto the Master of the boate a
    combe, and a small glasse. He declared vnto me that he was
    bound to Pechora, and after that I made to drinke, the
    tide being somewhat broken, they gently departed. The
    Master's name was Pheother (Feodor).... Thursday (the
    28th/18th June) we weyed our ankers in the Riuer Cola, and
    went into the Sea seuen or eight leagues, where we met
    with the winde farre Northerly, that of force it
    constrained vs to goe againe backe into the sayd riuer,
    where came aboord of vs sundry of their Boates, which
    declared unto me that they were also bound to the
    northwards, a fishing for Morse and Salmon, and gave me
    liberally of their white and wheaten bread.

    "As we roade in this riuer, wee saw dayly comming downe
    the riuer many of their Lodias, and they that had least,
    had foure and twentie men in them, and at the last they
    grew to thirtie saile of them; and amongst the rest, there
    was one of them whose name was Gabriel, who shewed me very
    much friendshippe, and he declared vnto mee that all they
    were bound to Pechora, a fishing for salmons, and morses:
    insomuch that hee shewed mee by demonstrations, that with
    a faire winde we had seuen or eight dayes sailing to the
    riuer Pechora, so that I was glad of their company. This
    Gabriel promised to giue mee warning of shoales, as he did
    indeede.... Sunday being the one and twentieth day [of
    June, 1st July new style], Gabriel gaue mee a barrell of
    Meade, and one of his speciall friends gaue me a barrell
    of beere, which was caryed upon mens backs at least 2
    miles.

    "Munday we departed from the riuer Cola, with all the rest
    of the said Lodias, but sailing before the wind they were
    all too good for vs:[107] but according to promise, this
    Gabriel and his friend did often strike their sayles, and
    taryed for us forsaking their owne company. Tuesday at an
    Eastnortheast sunne we were thwart of Cape St. John.[108]
    It is to be vnderstood, that from the Cape S. John vnto
    the riuer or bay that goeth to Mezen, it is all sunke
    land, and full of shoales and dangers, you shall haue
    scant two fadome water and see no land. And this present
    day wee came to an anker thwart of a creeke, which is 4 or
    5 leagues to the northwards of the sayd Cape, into which
    creeke Gabriel and his fellow rowed, but we could not get
    in: and before night there were aboue 20 saile that went
    into the sayd creeke, the wind being at the Northeast. We
    had indifferent good landfang. This afternoone Gabriel
    came aboord with his skiffe, and then I rewarded him for
    the good company that he kept with vs ouer the Shoales,
    with two small iuory combes, and a steele glasse with two
    or three trifles more, for which he was not ungratefull.
    But notwithstanding, his first company had gotten further
    to the Northwards. Wednesday being Midsummer day we sent
    our skiffe aland to sound the creeke, where they found it
    almost drie at a low water. And all the Lodias within were
    on ground. (In consequence of the threatening appearance
    of the weather Burrough determined to go into the bay at
    high water. In doing so he ran aground, but got help from
    his Russian friends.) Gabriel came out with his skiffe,
    and so did sundry others also, shewing their good will to
    help us, but all to no purpose, for they were likely to
    have bene drowned for their labour, in so much that I
    desired Gabriel to lend me his anker, because our owne
    ankers were too big for our skiffe to lay out, who sent me
    his owne, and borrowed another also and sent it vs."

[Illustration: RUSSIAN "LODJA." After G. de Veer. ]

After much trouble Burrough succeeded in getting his vessel off the
shoal, and then sought for a better anchorage on the other side of
Cape St. John.

    "Friday (6th July/26th June) at afternoone we weyed, and
    departed from thence, the wether being mostly faire, and
    the winde at East-southeast, and plied for the place where
    we left our cable and anker, and our hawser, and as soone
    as we were at an anker the foresaid Gabriel came aboord of
    vs, with 3 or foure more of their small boats, and brought
    with them of their Aquauitæ and Meade, professing unto me
    very much friendship, and reioiced to see vs againe,
    declaring that they earnestly thought that we had bene
    lost. This Gabriel declared vnto me that they had saued
    both the ankers and our hauser, and after we had thus
    communed, I caused 4 or 5 of them to goe into my cabbin,
    where I gaue them figs and made them such cheere as I
    could. While I was banketing of them, there came another
    of their Skiffes aboord with one who was a Kerill
    (Karelian), whose name afterwards I learned, and that he
    dwelt in Colmogro, and Gabriel dwelled in the towne of
    Cola, which is not far from the river's mouth. This
    foresaid Keril said vnto me that one of the ankers which I
    borrowed was his. I gave him thanks for the lone of it,
    thinking it had bene sufficient. And as I continued in our
    accustomed maner, that if the present which they brought
    were worth enterteinment, they had it accordingly, he
    brought nothing with him, and therfore I regarded him but
    litle. And thus we ended, and they took their leaue and
    went ashore. At their comming ashore, Gabriel and Keril
    were at vnconvenient words, and by the eares, as I
    vnderstand; the cause was because the one had better
    enterteinment than the other; but you shal vnderstand that
    Gabriel was not able to make his party good, because there
    were 17 lodias of the Kerils company who tooke his part,
    and but 2 of Gabriel's company. The next high water
    Gabriel and his company departed from thence, and rowed to
    their former company and neighbours, which were in number
    28 at the least, and all of them belonging to the river
    Cola. And as I vnderstood Keril made reckoning that the
    hauser which was fast in his anker should have bene his
    owne, and at first would not deliver it to our boat,
    insomuch that I sent him worde that I would complain vpon
    him, whereupon he deliuered the hauser to my company. The
    next day being Saturday, I sent our boat on shore to fetch
    fresh water and wood, and at their comming on shore this
    Keril welcomed our men most gently, and also banketed
    them, and in the meanetime caused some of his men to fill
    our baricoes with water, and to help our men to beare wood
    into their boat; and then he put on his best silke coate,
    and his collar of pearles and came aboorde againe, and
    brought his present with him: and thus having more respect
    vnto his present than to his person, because I perceiued
    him to be vain-glorious, I bade him welcome and gaue him a
    dish of figs; and then he declared vnto me that his father
    was a gentleman, and that he was able to shew me pleasure,
    and not Gabriel, who was but a priest's sonne."

After Burrough has given account of a storm, during which he lost a
jolly boat, which he had purchased at Vardoehus, and by which they
were detained some time in the neighbourhood of Cape St. John (whose
latitude was fixed at 66° 50') he continues:--

    "Saturday (the 14/24th July) at a Northnorthwest sunne the
    wind came at Eastnortheast, and then we weied, and plied
    to the Northwards, and as we were two leagues shot past
    the Cape, we saw a house standing in a valley, which is
    dainty to be seene in those parts and by and by I saw
    three men on the top of the hil. Then I iudged them, as it
    afterwards proued, that they were men which came from some
    other place to set traps to take vermin[109] for their
    furres, which trappes we did perceiue very thicke alongst
    the shore as we went."

The 14th to the 19th July, new style, were passed on the coast of
Kanin Nos.[110] On the 19th at noon Burrough was in lat. 68°
40' north. On Friday, the 10/20th July another storm appeared to
threaten.

    "And as I was musing what was best to be done, I saw a
    sail come out of a creeke under the foresayd Caninoz,
    which was my friend Gabriel, who forsook his harborough
    and company, and came as neere us as he might, and pointed
    vs to the Eastwards, and then we weyed and followed him.
    Saturday we went eastsoutheast and followed Gabriel, and
    he brought vs into an harborough called Morgiouets, which
    is 30 leagues from Caninoz. This morning Gabriel saw a
    smoke on ye way, who rowed vnto it with his skiffe, which
    smoke was two leagues from the place where we road; and at
    a Northwest sunne he came aboord again, and brought with
    him a Samoed,[111] which was but a young man; his apparell
    was then strange vnto vs, and he presented me with three
    young wild geese, and one young barnacle."

On the 24th/14th July Burrough sailed past Dolgoi Island, and the
following day entered the mouth of the Petchora, the latitude of
which was fixed at 69° 10'.[112] On the 30th/20th they sailed
out again over sandbanks in only five feet of water, and thanked God
that their vessel was of so light draught. The day after ice was met
with for the first time. On the 4th Aug./6th July in lat. 70°
20' north, they had the meeting already described with an enormous
whale.[113] Somewhat later on the same day the _Searchthrift_
anchored in a good haven between two islands, situated in 70°
42' N.L.[114] They were named by Burrough St. James's Islands.

    "Tuesday, the 7th Aug./29th July we plyed to the Westwards
    alongst the shoare, the wind being at Northwest, and as I
    was about to come to anker, we saw a sail comming about
    the point whereunder we thought to have ankered. Then I
    sent a skiffe aboorde of him, and at their comming aboord,
    they tooke acquaintance of them, and the chiefe man said
    hee had bene in our company in the riuer Cola, and also
    declared vnto them that we were past the way which should
    bring vs to the Ob. This land, sayd he, is called Nova
    Zembla, that is to say, the New Land; and then he came
    aboord himselfe with his skiffe he told me the like ... he
    made me also certaine demonstrations of the way to the Ob.
    I gave him a steele glasse, two pewter spoons, and a paire
    of veluet sheathed knives; and then he seemed somewhat the
    more willing to tary and shewed me as much as he knew for
    our purpose; he also gave me 17 wild geese.... This man's
    name was Loshak. Wednesday, as we plied to Eastwards, we
    espied another saile, which was one of this Loshak's
    company, and we bare roome and spake with him, who in like
    sort tolde us of the Ob, as the other had done.... Friday
    (the 10th Aug./31st July) the gale of winde began to
    increase, and came Westerly withall, so that by a
    Northwest sunne we were at an anker among the Islands of
    Waigats, where we saw two small lodias; the one of them
    came aboord of us and presented me with a great loafe of
    bread; and they told me they were all of Colmogro, except
    one man that dwelt at Pechora, who seemed to be the
    chiefest among them in killing of the Morse.[115] There
    were some of their company on shoare which did chase a
    white beare ouer the high clifs into the water, which
    beare the lodia that was aboord of us killed in our sight.
    This day there was a great gale of wind at North, and we
    saw so much ice driving a seaboord that it was then no
    going to sea."

During the first days of August the vessel lay for the most part in
company with or in the neighbourhood of Loshak, who gave them
information about the Samoyeds, after which Burrough visited their
sacrificial places.[116]

    "Tuesday (the 14/4th) August we turned for the harborough
    where Loshak's barke lay,[117] where, as before, we road
    vnder an Island. And there he came aboord of vs and said
    unto me: if God send wind and weather to serve, I will go
    to the Ob with you, because the Morses were scant at these
    Islands of Vaigats; but if he could not get to the riuer
    of Ob, then he sayd hee would goe to the riuer of
    Narainzay,[118] where the people were not altogether so
    savage as the Samoyds of the Ob are: hee shewed me that
    they will shoot at all men to the vttermost of their
    power, that cannot speake their speech."

On the 15/5th of August much ice was seen to drift towards the haven
where the vessel lay, wherefore Burrough removed back to the place
where he had lain a few days before, and whose latitude he now found
to be 70° 25'. Loshak left him unexpectedly the following day,
while Burrough was taking solar altitudes, and on the 19/9th
Burrough too weighed anchor to sail south along the coast of
Vaygats. After sailing about in these waters for a time, and being
exposed to a severe storm with an exceedingly heavy sea, Burrough,
on the 3rd Sept./23rd Aug., determined to turn. On the 21st/11th
September he arrived at Colmogro, where he wintered with a view to
continue his voyage next year to the Obi. This voyage, however, was
abandoned, because he instead went westwards in order to search for
two of the ships which accompanied Chancelor, and which had been
lost during the return voyage from Archangel.[119]

From this narrative we see that a highly developed Russian or
Russian-Finnish navigation was carried on as early as the middle of
the fifteenth century between the White Sea, the Petchora, Vaygats,
and Novaya Zemlya, and that at that time the Russians or Finns even
sailed to the Obi. The sketch, which Burrough gives of the Russian
or Russian-Finnish hunters, shows, besides, that they were brave and
skilful seamen, with vessels which for the time were very good, and
even superior to the English in sailing before the wind. With very
few alterations this sketch might also be applied to the present
state of things in these regions, which shows that they continue to
stand at a point which was then high, but is now low. Taking a
general view of matters, it appears as if these lands had rather
fallen behind than advanced in well-being during the last three
hundred years.

To judge by a letter from the Russian Merchant Company, which was
formed in London, it was at his own instance that Stephen Burrough
in 1557 sailed from Colmogro, not to Obi, but to the coast of
Russian Lapland to search for the lost vessels.[120] The following
year the English were so occupied with their new commercial treaties
with Russia and with the fitting out of Frobisher's three
expeditions to the north-west, that it was long before a new attempt
was made in the direction of the north-east, namely till ARTHUR
PETS' voyage in 1580.[121] He was the first who penetrated from
Western Europe into the Kara Sea, and thus brought the solution of
the problem of the North-East Passage to the Pacific a good way
forward. The principal incidents of this voyage too must therefore
be briefly stated here.

PET and JACKMAN, the former in the _George_, the latter in the
_William_, sailed from Harwich on the 9th June/30th May, 1580. On
the 2nd July/22nd June they doubled the North Cape, and on the
12th/2nd July, Pet was separated from Jackman after appointing to
meet with him at "Verove Ostrove or Waygats." On the 15/5th land was
in sight, the latitude having the preceding day been ascertained to
be 71° 38'. Pet was thus at Gooseland, on the west coast of
Novaya Zemlya. He now sailed E.S.E., and fell in with ice on the
16/6th July. On the 20/10th July, land was seen, and the vessel
anchored at an island, probably one of the many small islands in the
Kara Port, where wood and water were taken on board.

On the 24/14th July, Pet was in the neighbourhood of land in 70° 26'. At
first he thought that the land was an island, and endeavoured to sail
round it, but as he did not succeed in doing so, he supposed it to be
Novaya Zemlya. Hence he sailed in different directions between S.W. and
S.E., and was on the 26/16th in 69° 40' N.L. Next day there was
lightning with showers of rain. Pet believed himself now to be in
Petchora Bay, and after sighting, on the 28/18th July, the headland
which bounds the mouth of the river on the north-east, he sailed, it
would seem, between this headland and the Selenetz Islands into the
great bay east of Medinski Savorot. Here he made soundings on the
supposition that the sound between Vaygats Island and the mainland would
open out at this place, but the water was found to be too shallow, even
for a boat. Pet now sailed past Yugor Schar along the coast of Vaygats
towards Novaya Zemlya, to a bay on the west coast of Vaygats Island,
where he anchored between two small islands, which were supposed to be
Woronski Ostrov. _The entrance to an excellent haven was indicated on
both sides by two crosses._[122] On the islands there was abundance of
driftwood, and on one of them was found a cross, at the foot of which a
man was buried. Pet inscribed his name on the cross, and likewise on a
stone at the foot of the cross, "in order that Jackman, if he came
thither, might know that Pet had been there." In the afternoon Pet again
weighed anchor, doubled the western extremity of Vaygats Island, and
continued his voyage, following all along the coast of Vaygats, first to
the north and north-east, then to the south, between an ice-field and
the land, until the ice came so close to the shore that the vessel could
make no headway, when he anchored in a good haven by an island which lay
on the east side of Vaygats in the neighbourhood of the mainland. It was
perhaps the island which in recent maps is called Mestni Island. Pet was
thus now in the Kara Sea.[123] The latitude given--69° 14'--shows even,
if it is correct, that he went far into the bay at the mouth of the Kara
river. Here Pet fell in with his comrade Jackman, from whom he had
parted on the coast of Kola, and of whose voyage during the interval we
know nothing. When the vessels met they were both damaged by ice. As,
in addition, the sea to the north and east was barred by compact masses
of ice, the captains, after deliberating with the inferior officers,
determined to return. They had, also, during the return voyage, to
contend with formidable ice obstacles, until, on the 25/15th August, in
Lat. 69° 49' north, near the southeastern extremity of Vaygats they met
with open water. They sailed along the east coast of Vaygats through the
Kara Port, which was passed on the 27/17th August. Hence the course was
shaped for Kolgujev Island, on whose sandbanks both vessels ran aground,
but were soon got off again without loss. The latitude of the sandbanks
was correctly fixed at 68° 48'.

On the 1st Sept./22nd Aug. _William_ was again lost sight of.[124]
On the 8th Sept./29th Aug. the _George_ anchored in Tana Fiord, on
which there was a town named Hungon.[125] Two days afterwards the
_George_ doubled the North Cape, and on the 5th Nov./26th Oct. again
anchored at Ratcliffe.

Pet and Jackman were the first north-east explorers who ventured
themselves in earnest amongst the drift-ice. In navigating among ice
they showed good judgment and readiness of resource, and in the
history of navigation the honour falls to them of having commanded
the first vessels from Western Europe that forced their way into the
Kara Sea. It is therefore without justification that BARROW says of
them that they were but indifferent navigators.[126]

With Pet and Jackman's voyage the English North-east Passage expeditions
were broken off for a long time. But the problem was, instead, taken up
with great zeal in Holland. Through the fortunate issue of the war of
freedom with Spain, and the incitement to enterprise which civil
freedom always brings along with it, Holland, already a great industrial
and commercial state, had begun, towards the close of the sixteenth
century, to develop into a maritime power of the first rank. But
navigation to India and China was then rendered impossible for the
Dutch, as for the English, by the supremacy of Spain and Portugal at
sea, and through the endeavours of these countries to retain the sole
right to the commercial routes they had discovered. In order to become
sharers in the great profits which commerce with the land of silks and
perfumes brought with it, it therefore appeared to be indispensable to
discover a new sea route north of Asia or America to the Eastern seas.
If such a route had been actually found, it was clear that the position
of Holland would have been specially favourable for undertaking this
lucrative trade. In this state of things we have to seek for the reason
of the delight with which the Dutch hailed the first proposal to force a
passage by sea north of Asia to China or Japan. Three successive
expeditions were at great expense fitted out for this purpose. These
expeditions did not, indeed, attain the intended goal--the discovery of
a north-eastern sea route to Eastern Asia, but they not only gained for
themselves a prominent place in the history of geographical discovery,
but also repaid a hundred fold the money that had been spent on them, in
part directly through the whale-fishing to which they gave rise, and
which was so profitable to Holland, and in part indirectly through the
elevation they gave to the self-respect and national feeling of the
people. They compared the achievements of their countrymen among the ice
and snow of the Polar lands to the voyage of the Argonauts, to
Hannibal's passage of the Alps, and to the campaign of the Macedonians
in Asia and the deserts of Libya (see, for instance, BLAVIUS. _Atlas
major_, Latin edition, t. i., pp. 24 and 31.) As these voyages together
present the grandest attempts to solve the problem that lay before the
_Vega_ expedition, I shall here give a somewhat detailed account of
them.

[Illustration: DUTCH SKIPPER. After G. de Veer. ]

THE FIRST DUTCH EXPEDITION, 1594.--This was fitted out at the expense of
private persons, mainly by the merchants BALTHASAR MUCHERON, JACOB
VALCKE, and FRANCISCUS MAELSON. The first intention was to send out only
two vessels with the view of forcing a passage through the sound at
Vaygats towards the east, but on the famous geographer PLANCIUS
representing that the route north of Novaya Zemlya was that which would
lead most certainly to the desired goal, other two were fitted out, so
that no fewer than four vessels went out in the year 1594 on an
exploratory expedition towards the north. Of these, two, viz. a large
vessel, specially equipped, it would appear, for the northern waters,
called the _Mercurius_, and commanded by WILLEM BARENTS,[127] and a
common fishing-sloop, attempted the way past the northern extremity of
Novaya Zemlya. The two others, viz. the _Swan_ of Zeeland, commanded by
CORNELIS CORNELISZ. NAY, and the _Mercurius_ of Enkhuizen, commanded by
BRANDT YSBRADTSZ. TETGALES, were to pass through the sound at Vaygats
Island.

All the four vessels left the Texel on the 15/5th June, and eighteen
days later arrived at Kilduin in Russian Lapland, a place where at
that time vessels, bound for the White Sea, often called. Here the
two divisions of the expedition parted company.

Barents sailed to Novaya Zemlya, which was reached on the 14/4th
July in 73° 25'; the latitude was determined by measuring the
altitude of the midnight sun at an island which was called Willem's
Island. Barents sailed on along the coast in a northerly direction,
and two days afterwards reached the latitude of 75° 54' north.
On the 19/9th July there was a remarkable chase of a Polar bear. The
bear was fallen in with on land and was pierced by a bullet, but
notwithstanding this he threw himself into the water, and swam with
a vigour "that surpassed all that had been heard of the lion or
other wild animal." Some of the crew pursued him in a boat, and
succeeded in casting a noose round his neck in order to catch him
living, with a view to carry him to Holland. But when the bear knew
that he was caught "he roared and threw himself about so violently
that it can scarcely be described in words." In order to tire him
they gave him a little longer line, rowing forward slowly the while,
and Barents at intervals struck him with a rope. Enraged at this
treatment, the bear swam to the boat, and caught it with one of his
forepaws, on which Barents said: "he wishes to rest himself a
little." But the bear had another object in view, for he cast
himself into the boat with such violence that half his body was soon
within it. The sailors were so frightened that they rushed to the
fore and thought that their last hour was come. Fortunately the bear
could make no further advance, because the noose that was thrown
round his neck had fastened in the rudder. A sailor taking courage,
now went aft and killed the bear with the stroke of an axe. The skin
was sent to Amsterdam. On account of this occurrence the place was
called "Bear Cape."

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF A POLAR BEAR. After G. de Veer. ]

Barents sailed on towards the north and north-east, past the place
which he called Cruys Eylandt (Cross Island)[128] and Cape Nassau, a
name which has been retained in recent maps, to the latitude of 77°
55', which was reached on the 23rd/13th July. Here from the
mast-top an ice-field was seen, which it was impossible to see
beyond, which compelled Barents to turn. However, he still remained
in these northern regions, waiting for a better state of the ice,
till the 8th August/29th July, when the vessel was due west of a
promontory situated in latitude 77° north, which was named Ice
Cape. Some gold-glittering stones were found here on the ground.
Such _finds_ have played a not inconsiderable _rôle_ in the history
of Arctic voyages, and shiploads of worthless ore have on several
occasions been brought home. On the 16th August/31st July, while
sailing among the Orange Islands, they saw 200 walruses on land. The
sailors attacked them with axes and lances, without killing a single
walrus, but they succeeded during the attempt to kill them in
striking out several tusks, which they carried home with them.

Convinced that he could not reach the intended goal by this northern
route, Barents determined, after consulting with his men, to turn
south and sail to Vaygats. While sailing down, Barents, in latitude
71° north, makes the remark that he was now probably at a
place where OLIVER BRUNEL[129] had been before, and which had been
named by him Costinsark, evidently the present Kostin Schar, a
Russian name still in use for the sound which separates Meschduschar
Island from the main island. It ought to be observed, however, that
on old maps Matotschkin Schar is often marked with some perversion
of the word Kostin Schar.

South of "St. Laurens Bay,"[130] in 70-3/4°, Barents, on the
21st/11th August, found upon a headland across erected, and in the
neighbourhood of it three wooden buildings, the hull of a Russian
vessel and several sacks of meal, and at the same place some graves,
all clearly remains of some Russian salmon-fishers. On the 25/15th
August he arrived at Dolgoi Island, where he fell in with the two
other vessels from Zeeland and Enkhuizen that had come thither
shortly before. All the four vessels sailed back thence to Holland,
arriving there in the middle of September. The narrative of this
voyage closes with the statement that Barents brought home with him
a walrus, which had been fallen in with and killed on the drift-ice.
Barents during this journey discovered and explored the northern
part of Novaya Zemlya, never before visited by West-European
seafarers.

The two other vessels, that left the Texel at the same time as
Barents, also made a remarkable voyage, specially sketched by the
distinguished voyager JAN HUYGHEN VAN LINSCHOTEN.[131]

The vessels were manned by fifty men, among them two interpreters--a
Slav, CHRISTOFFEL SPLINDLER, and a Dutch merchant, who had lived
long in Russia, FR. DE LA DALE. Provisions for eight months only
were taken on board. At first Nay and Tetgales accompanied Barents
to Kilduin, which island is delineated and described in considerable
detail in Linschoten's work.

[Illustration: JAN HUYGHEN VAN LINSCHOTEN. Born in 1563 at Haarlem,
died in 1611 at Enkhuizen. After a portrait in his work,
_Navigatio in Orientalem sive Lusitanorum Indiam_, Hagæ Comitis, 1590. ]

[Illustration: KILDUIN, IN RUSSIAN LAPLAND, IN 1504. After Linschoten. ]

[Illustration: Russian Map of the North Polar Sea from the beginning of
the 17th century, published in Holland in 1612 by Isaac Massa ]

On the 12th/2nd July Nay and Tetgales sailed from Kilduin for
Vaygats Island. Three days afterwards they fell in with much
drift-ice. On the 20/10th they arrived at Toxar, according to
Linschoten's map an island on the Timan coast, a little west of the
entrance to Petchora. They there met with a Russian _lodja_, whose
captain stated that he believed, after hearsay, that the Vaygats
Sound[132] was continually covered with ice, and that, when it was
passed, men came to a sea which lay to the south of, and was warmer
than, the Polar Sea. Some other Russians added, the following day,
that it was quite possible to sail through Vaygats Sound, if the
whales and walruses, that destroy all vessels that seek to pass
through, did not form an obstacle; that the great number of rocks
and reefs scarcely permitted the passage of a vessel; and finally,
that the Grand Duke had ordered three vessels to attempt the
passage, but that they had all been crushed by ice.

On the 22nd/12th July there came to Toxar hunters from the White
Sea, who spoke another language than the Russians, and belonged to
another race of men--they were evidently Finns or Karelians. A large
number of whales were seen in the haven, which gave occasion to a
remark by Linschoten that whale-fishing ought to be profitable
there. After the ice had broken up, and crosses with inscriptions
giving information of their movements had been erected on the shore,
they sailed on. On the 31/21st July they sighted Vaygats. They
landed at a headland marked with two crosses, and there fell in with
a native, clad in much the same way as a Kilduin Lapp, who soon took
to flight. Other headlands marked with crosses were afterwards
visited, and places where idols were found set up by hundreds.
Linschoten also landed on that Idol Cape which was visited during
the voyage of the _Vega_. There were then from three to four hundred
wooden idols, which, according to Lindschoten's description, were
very similar in appearance to those we saw. They were so ill made,
says he, that one could scarcely guess that they were intended to
represent men. The visage was very broad, the nose projecting, there
were two holes in place of the eyes, and another hole represented
the mouth. Five, six, or seven faces were often found carved on one
and the same stock "perhaps intended to represent a whole family."
Many Russian crosses were also erected there. Some days later they
found on the south shore of the sound a small house filled with
idols, much better made than the former, with eyes and paps of
metal. While the Dutch were employed in examining this collection of
idols, a reindeer sledge was driven forward in which sat a man armed
with a bow. When he saw the foreigners, he called loudly, on which a
number of sledges with about thirty men drove out of a valley and
endeavoured to surround the Dutch. They now fled in haste to their
boat, and when it had left the beach the Samoyeds shot at it with
their arrows, but without hitting it. This bloodless conflict is, so
far as we know, the only one that took place between the natives and
the north-east voyagers. The latter are thus free from the great
bloodguiltiness which attaches to most of those, who in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made voyages of discovery in
southern regions.

Some days later, on the 10th August/31st July, the Dutch had a
friendly meeting with the Samoyeds, who gave them very correct
information concerning the state of the land and the sea, telling
them that "after ten or twelve days they would meet with no more
ice, and that summer would last six or seven weeks longer." After
the Dutch had learned all they could from these "barbarians, who had
greater skill in managing their bow than a nautical gnomon, and
could give better information regarding their hunting than about the
navigable water," they took their departure. When one of the sailors
hereupon blew a horn, the savages were so frightened, that they
begun to take to flight, but, quieted by the assurance that the
blast of the horn was only a sign of friendship, they returned and
on the beach saluted the departing strangers, bowing themselves to
the earth with uncovered heads and crossed hands.

On the 11th/1st August the Dutch, full of hope, sailed into the Kara
Sea, or, as they called it, the "North Tartaric Ocean." They soon
fell in with ice, on which account on the 13th/3rd they sought
protection under Mestni Island (Staten Eiland). Here they found a
sort of rock crystal resembling diamonds in all respects except
hardness, a disappointing circumstance which was ascribed to the
action of cold. Here also were seen images and sacrificial places,
but no houses and no trees.

When Nay and Tetgales sailed on, they came to an extensive open sea,
and on the 20/10th August they believed that they were off the mouth
of the Obi. Two of its principal mouth-arms they named, after the
vessels, "Swan" and "Mercurius," names which have since been
forgotten. It is quite evident that the river which the Dutch took
for the Obi was the Kara, and that the mouth-arms, Swan and
Mercurius, were two small coast rivers which debouch from Yalmal
into the Kara Sea.

On the 21st/11th August they determined to return home, taking it
for proved that, from the point which had been reached, it would be
easy to double "Promontorium Tabin," and thus get to China by the
north-east passage. A large number of whales were seen raising half
their bodies out of the sea and spouting jets of water from their
nostrils in the common way, which was considered a further sign that
they had an extensive ocean before them.

On the 24/14th August, Nay and Tetgales sailed again through Yugor
Schar (Fretum Nassovicum), and the day after at three small islands,
which were called Mauritius, Orange, and New Walcheren, they fell in
with Barents, and all sailed home to Holland, fully convinced that
the question of the possibility of a north-east passage to China was
now solved. It was shown indeed, in the following year, that this
supposition rested on quite too slight a foundation, but the voyages
of Nay and Tetgales deserve in any case an honoured place in the
history of navigation, for they extended considerably the knowledge
of the northern regions through the discovery, or at least through
the first passage of, Yogor Schar, and, like Barents, these
seafarers must get the credit of carrying out the task assigned to
them with skill, insight, resolution, and resource.

[Illustration: MAP OF FRETUM NASSOVICUM OR YUGOR SCHAR. After
Linschoten. ]

THE SECOND DUTCH EXPEDITION, 1595.[133] After the return of the
first expedition a report of the discoveries which had been made was
given in to Prince MAURICE of ORANGE, JAN VAN OLDENBARNEVELT,
Advocate of Holland, and the other authorities at home. They were so
convinced by this report that the sea route to China was actually
discovered, that they immediately made arrangements to send out the
following year a flotilla of seven vessels, two from Amsterdam, two
from Zeeland, two from Enkhuizen, and one from Rotterdam, with a
view to open the new commercial communication.

The commanders of the vessels were CORNELIS NAY (Admiral), BRANDT
TETGALES (Second in Command), BARENTS, LAMBERT GERRITSZ. OOM, THOMAS
WILLEMSZ., HARMAN JANSZ., and HENDRIK HARTMAN. The lieutenants were
LINSCHOTEN, JACOB HEEMSKERK, FRANÇOYS DE LA DALE, JAN CORNELISZ.,
RIJP, and N. BUYS. Six of the vessels were laden with goods and
coin; the seventh was to return, home with news when the fleet had
sailed through Vaygats Sound. The great preparations, however,
occupied so much time that it was not until the 12th/2nd July that
the voyage could be begun. On the 22nd/12th August, Kegor on the
Ribatschni peninsula was sighted, and on the 29/19th August the
fleet arrived at the Sound between Vaygats and the mainland, and
found a great deal of ice there.

On the 3rd Sep./24th Aug. the Dutch met with some Russians, who told
them that the winter had been very severe, but that the ice would in
a short time disappear, and that the summer would still last six
weeks. They also stated that the land to the northward, which was
called Vaygats, was an island, separated on its north side from
Novaya Zemlya; that it was visited in summer by natives, who towards
winter returned to the mainland; that Russian vessels, laden with
goods, yearly sailed through Vaygats Sound past the Obi to the river
Gillissy (Yenisej), where they passed the winter; that the dwellers
on the Yenisej were of the Greek-Christian religion, &c.

On the 10th Sept./31st Aug. the Dutch came in contact with the
Samoyeds south of Vaygats Sound. Their "king" received the strangers
in a very hospitable and friendly manner, and informed them that in
three or four weeks the cold would begin; that in some years the
drift-ice did not disappear; that during winter the whole sound and
the bays and coves were frozen over, but that the sea on both sides
did not freeze; that beyond the mouth of the river Ob there were the
mouths of two other rivers, of which the more remote was called the
"Molconsay," the nearer, which was often visited by Russian trading
vessels, the Gillissy; that the land continued beyond the Ob to a
cape which projected towards Novaya Zemlya, and that beyond this
promontory there was a great sea, which extended along Tartary to
warm regions.[134]

When the Dutch sailed into the Kara Sea they fell in with much ice,
on which account they anchored at the island, Staten Eiland, where
during the preceding voyage rock crystal had been found. Here two
men were killed in the way that has already been described.[135]
Depressed by this unfortunate occurrence and afraid to expose their
vessels, laden with valuable goods, too late in the season, to the
large quantity of ice which drifted about in the Kara Sea, the
commanders determined to turn. The fleet returned to Holland without
further adventure, passing through Vaygats Sound on the 25/15th
September.

This expedition did not yield any new contribution to the knowledge
of our globe. But it deserves to be noted that we can state with
certainty, with the knowledge we now possess of the ice-conditions
of the Kara Sea, that the Dutch during both their first and second
voyages had the way open to the Obi and Yenisej. If they had availed
themselves of this and continued their voyage till they came to
inhabited regions on either of these rivers, a considerable commerce
would certainly have arisen between Middle Asia and Europe by this
route as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century.

THE THIRD DUTCH EXPEDITION, 1596-97.[136] After the unfortunate
issue of the expedition of 1595, which had been fitted out at so
great an expense, and which had raised so great expectations, the
States-General would not grant the necessary funds for a third
voyage, but they offered instead a great prize to the states or
merchants that at their own expense should send out a vessel that
should by the route north of Asia force a passage to Asia and
China.[137] Encouraged by this offer the merchants of Amsterdam sent
out two vessels, one under the command of Willem Barents and Jacob
van Heemskerk, the other under Jan Cornelisz. Rijp. The crew were
chosen with care, unmarried men being preferred, with the idea that
wife and children would detract from the bravery of the members of
the expedition and lead them to return home prematurely.

[Illustration: UNSUCCESSFUL FIGHT WITH A POLAR BEAR. During the
Second Dutch Expedition. From De Veer. ]

On the 20/10th May these vessels left Amsterdam. On the 14/4th June
they saw in lat. 71° North some beautiful parhelia, which are
found delineated in De Veer's work, and Blavii _Atlas Major_.

[Illustration: Map showing Barents' Third Voyage, from _J.L. Pontani
Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium historia_, Amst., 1611 ]

On the 15/5th June one of the crew cried out from the deck that he
saw white swans, but on a closer examination it appeared that they
consisted of large pieces of ice, which drifted along the edge of
the pack.[138] On the 19/9th they discovered, north of North Cape, a
new island, situated in latitude 74° 30' North. A large bear
was killed here, and on this account the island was called Bear
Island. On the 29/19th they came in the 80th degree of latitude to
another formerly unknown land, which they believed to be connected
with Greenland. It was in fact the large group of islands, which
afterwards obtained the name Spitzbergen. There were found here on a
small island the eggs of a species of goose--_rotgansen_[139] which
comes yearly to Holland in great flocks, but whose breeding place
was before unknown. With reference to this, De Veer says that it is
finally proved that this goose is not, as has been hitherto
supposed, propagated in Scotland by the goose laying her eggs from
the branches of trees overhanging the water, the eggs being broken
in pieces against the surface of the water, and the newly hatched
young immediately swimming about.

After an unsuccessful attempt had been made to sail to the north of
Spitzbergen the vessels proceeded southwards along the west
coast,[140] and on the 11th/1st July came again to Bear Island. Here
the vessels parted company, Barents sailing eastwards towards Novaya
Zemlya, Rijp northwards towards the east coast of Spitzbergen. On
the 27/17th July, Barents reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in
latitude 73° 20' North. On the 30/20th July, no further
advance could be made for ice, which still lay close to the shore.
During the stay here there were several adventures with bears, all
of which, came off successfully. In consequence of ice obstacles
their progress was exceedingly slow, so that it was not until the
25/15th August that they reached the Orange Islands. The following
day several of the crew ascended a high mountain, from which they
saw open water on the other side of an island. As glad at the sight
of the sea as the ten thousand under Xenophon, they rushed back to
the vessel to give Barents the important news. He now did all he
could to pass the north extremity of Novaya Zemlya. He was
successful in doing so, and on the 31/21st a haven, situated in
about the latitude of 76° North, was reached with great
difficulty, but all attempts to sail eastwards from it were
unsuccessful. Finally, on the 4th Sept./25th Aug. Barents determined
to return to Holland.

[Illustration: BARENTS' AND RIJP'S VESSELS. From De Veer. ]

Now, however, it was too late. The haven was blocked with drift-ice,
which was in constant motion, several times pressed the vessel high up
between the pieces of ice, and finally broke the rudder in pieces. It
was now evident that it would be necessary to winter, and for this
purpose the requisite tools, household articles, and provisions were
landed and men sent out to examine the neighbourhood. Reindeer tracks
were seen, and, what was more important, there were found on the beach
large tree-stems with their roots still adhering, and other wood which
the marine currents had drifted to this otherwise completely woodless
region. The drift-wood was collected in large heaps that it might not be
buried under the snow in winter. A place was chosen for a house, and
the Dutch began to draw timber to the place. The openings in the
drift-ice were on the 25/15th September covered with a crust of ice two
inches thick, but on the 5th Oct./15th Sept. the ice was again somewhat
broken up, which however was of no advantage to the imprisoned, because
their vessel was forced up so high on a block of ground ice that it
could not be got off. Bears were hunted almost daily. They were very
bold and sometimes came on board the vessel. On the 15/5th October all
ice was driven off as far as the eye could see, but the vessel still lay
motionless on the blocks of ground ice. Round these the ice closed in
again, to break up anew at a greater or less distance from the beach. On
the 4th March/22nd Feb. there was still much open water visible from the
beach, and on the 16/6th and 18/8th March, the sea appears to have been
in one direction completely free of ice.

On the 31/21st October, the crew began to remove into the house,
where they afterwards passed the winter 1596-97 with many
sufferings, dangers, difficulties, and privations which are
described in De Veer's work. The crew, however, never lost courage,
which undoubtedly was a principal cause of most of them being saved.
The house was built on the north-east side of Novaya Zemlya, on the
shore of Barents' Ice Haven. It was situated far to the north of any
other place where men had previously passed the winter. The land and
its animal life was unknown, the hard frozen, almost rock-fast and
yet continually moving ice-covering, with which the sea was bound,
was something quite novel, as also were the effects which long
continued and severe cold exerts on animate and inanimate objects.
Before the attempt was made it was not considered at all certain
that men could actually endure the severe cold of the highest north
and the winter night three or four months long. No wonder therefore
that the skill and undaunted resolution of the Dutch Polar explorers
aroused unmingled admiration among all civilised nations, and that
the narrative of their wintering was received with unbounded
interest and formed the subject of innumerable writings and
reproductions both in prose and verse in almost all civilised
languages. Only a few facts from the journal of the wintering need
therefore be given here.

[Illustration: BARENTS' HOUSE, OUTSIDE. From De Veer. ]

[Illustration: BARENTS' HOUSE, INSIDE. From De Bry. ]

On the 14/4th November the sun disappeared, and was again visible on
the 3rd Feb./24th Jan. These dates have caused scientific men much
perplexity, because in latitude 76° North, the upper edge of
the sun ought to have ceased to be visible when the sun's south
declination in autumn became greater than 13°,[141] and to
have again become visible when the declination again became less
than that figure; that is so say, the sun ought to have been seen
for the last time at Barents' Ice Haven on the 27/17th October, and
it ought to have appeared again there on the 14/4th February. It has
been supposed that the deviation arose from some considerable error
in counting the days, but this was unanimously denied by the crew
who wintered.[142] The bears disappeared and reappeared with the
sun. Instead, foxes came during winter to the building, and were
caught for food in numbers, many on the roof of the house. In order
to pass the time and keep up their courage, the Dutch sometimes had
entertainments, at which the cheerfulness of the partakers had to
make up for the meagreness of the fare. After the return of the sun
the bears again came very close, so that there was a number of
hunting adventures with them, all of which came off successfully.
Several bears made themselves at home in the vessel abandoned by the
crew, casting everything about, and broke up the hatch of the
kitchen, covered as it was with deep snow. An attempt to eat bear's
liver resulted in those that ate of it becoming very ill, and after
recovery renewing their skin over the whole body. Once during severe
cold, when pitcoal was used to warm the building, all the men in it
were like to have died of the fumes. On one or two occasions, for
instance on the 25/15th February, so much snow had collected outside
the door, that it was necessary to go out by the chimney. For the
preservation of their health the Dutch often took a vapour bath in a
barrel fitted up for the purpose.

On the 7th May/27th April the first small birds were seen, and on
the 25/15th May Barents declared that if the vessel were not got off
before the end of the month, they should return in boats, which were
therefore immediately got ready. This was, however, attended with
great difficulty, because most of the crew had during the course of
the winter become exceedingly weak, evidently from scurvy. After the
equipment of the boats had been completed and they had been properly
laden with provisions, the Dutch at last started on the 23rd/13th June.

A man had died on the 6th Feb./27th Jan. At beginning of the boat
voyage Barents himself was very ill, and six days after, on the
30/20th June, he died, while resting with his companions on a large
floe, being compelled to do so by the drift-ice. On the same day one
of the crew died, and on the 15/5th July another.

On the 7th Aug./28 July returning Arctic explorers at St. Lawrens'
Bay fell in with two vessels manned by Russian hunters, whose
acquaintance the Dutchmen had made the year before, and who now
received them with great friendliness and pity for their sufferings.
They continued their voyage in their small open boats, and all
arrived in good health and spirits at Kola, where they were received
with festivities by the inhabitants. It gave them still greater joy
to meet here Jan Cornelisz. Rijp, from whom they had parted at Bear
Island the preceding year, and of whose voyage we know only that he
intended to sail up along the east coast of Spitzbergen, and that,
when this was found to be impossible, he returned home the same
autumn.

After the two boats, in which Barents' companions had travelled with
so many dangers and difficulties from their winter haven to Russian
Lapland, had been left in the merchant's yard[143] at Kola, as a
memorial of the journey--the first memorial of a Polar expedition
was thus raised at Kola--they went on board Rijp's vessel, and
sailed in it to Holland, arriving there the 8th November/29th
October. Sixteen men had left Holland with Barents, twelve men
returned in safety to their native land, and among them JACOB VAN
HEEMSKERK, a man who during the whole voyage had played a prominent
part, and afterwards lived long enough to see the time when the
Dutch were a match at sea for the Spaniards. For he fell as
commander of the Dutch fleet which defeated the Spanish at Gibraltar
on April 25, 1607.

[Illustration: JACOB VAN HEEMSKERK. Born in 1567 at Amsterdam,
died in 1607 at Gibraltar After a contemporary engraving by N.
de Clerck. ]

During Barents' third voyage Bear Island and Spitzbergen were
discovered, and the natural conditions of the high northern regions
during winter first became known. On the other hand, the unfortunate
issue of the maritime expeditions sent out from Holland appears to
have completely deterred from farther attempts to find a
north-eastern commercial route to China and Japan, and this route
was also now less necessary, as Houtman returned with the first
Dutch fleet from the East Indies the same year that Barents'
companions came back from their wintering. The problem was therefore
seriously taken up anew for the first time during the present
century; though during the intervening period attempts to solve it
were not wholly wanting.

For the desire to extend the White Sea trade to Siberia, and
jealousy of the companies that had known how to procure for
themselves a monopoly of the lucrative commerce with eastern Asia,
still led various merchants now and then during the seventeenth
century to send out vessels to try whether it was possible to
penetrate beyond Novaya Zemlya. I shall confine myself here to an
enumeration of the most important of these undertakings, with the
necessary bibliographical references.

1608. HENRY HUDSON, during his second voyage, landed on Novaya
Zemlya at Karmakul Bay and other places, but did not succeed in his
attempt to sail further to the east, north of this island. He made
the voyage on account of English merchants. A narrative of it is to
be found in _Purchas_ (iii. p. 574), and an excellent critical
collection of all the original documents relating to Hudson's life
and voyages in G.M. Asher's _Henry Hudson the Navigator_, London,
1860 (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, No. 26). It was west of
the Atlantic that Hudson earned the laurels which gave him for all
time so prominent a place in the history of navigation, and the sea
there also became his grave. Eastwards he did not penetrate so far
as his predecessors. I cannot therefore here find room for any
account of his voyage to Novaya Zemlya; it may only be mentioned
that two of his crew on the morning of the 25/15th of June, 1608, in
75° N.L., saw a mermaid. The following statement is taken from
his journal: "This morning one of the crew, as he looked over the
side, saw a mermaid. Another of his comrades came up at his call.
She was close to the vessel's side, looking steadily at the men.
Soon after she was thrown down by a wave. From the middle upwards
her back and breast were like a woman's. Her body was as large as a
man's, her skin very white, and long dark hair hung down her back.
When she dived, they saw her tail, which resembled that of a dolphin
and was spotted like a mackerel's. The names of the men who saw her
were Thomas Hiller and Robert Bayner." It was probably a curious
seal that gave occasion to this version of the old yarn.

1611. WILLIAM GOURDON, with the title "appointed chief pilote for
discoverie to Ob," brought this year a cargo of goods to Pustosersk,
and sailed thence to Novaya Zemlya. At the mouth of the Petchora he
saw 24 _lodjas_, manned with ten to 16 men each, bound for
"Mangansei" east of Ob (_Purchas_, iii. pp. 530, 534). While
attempting to get further information regarding these voyages to
Siberia, the Muscovy Company's envoy learned that, at least as a
rule, the question was only of carrying goods by sea to the bottom
of Kara Bay, whence they were transported overland to Ob, advantage
being taken of two small rivers and a lake (_Purchas_, iii. p. 539).
But other accounts lead us to infer that the Russian _lodjas_
actually sailed to Ob, even through Matotschkin Schar, as appears
from statements in _Purchas_ (iii. pp. 804, 805). At the same place
we find the statement, already quoted, of a Russian, who in 1584
offered for fifty roubles to act as guide overland from the Petchora
to the Ob, that a West-European ship was wrecked at the mouth of the
Ob, and its crew killed by the Samoyeds who lived there. The Russian
also said that it was an easy matter to sail from Vaygats to the
mouth of the Ob.

1612. The whaling captain JAN CORNELISZ. VAN HOORN endeavoured to
sail north of Novaya Zemlya towards the east, but met with ice in
77° N.L., which compelled him to return (_Witsen_, p. 906).

1625. CORNELIS BOSMAN, at the instance of the Northern Company of
the Netherlands, with a vessel of 90 tons, manned by 24 men, and
provisioned for two and a half years, passed through Yugor Schar
eastwards, but fell in with so much ice in the Kara Sea that he was
compelled to seek for a harbour in that sound. There he waited for
more favourable conditions, but was finally compelled by storm and
ice to return with his object unaccomplished. (S. Muller,
_Geschiedenis der Noordsche Compagnie_, Utrecht, 1874, p. 185.)

1653.[144] This year a Danish expedition was sent out to the
North-east. An account of the voyage was given by DE LA MARTINIÈRE,
surgeon to the expedition, in a work published for the first time at
Paris in 1671, with the following title: _Voyage des Pais
Septentrionaux. Dans lequel se void les moeurs, manière de vivre, &c.
superstitions des Norweguiens, Lappons, Kiloppes, Borandiens,
Syberiens, Samojedes, Zembliens, &c. Islandois, enrichi de plusieurs
figures_.[145] This work afterwards attained a considerable
circulation, doubtless in consequence of Martinière's easy style,
contrasting so strongly with the common dry ship's-log manner, and
the large number of wonderful stories he narrates, without the least
regard to truth or probability. He is the Munchhausen of the
North-east voyages. The Norse peasants, for instance, are said to be
all slaves to the nobles, who have sovereign power over their
property, tyrannise over their inferiors, and are prone to
insurrection. The elks are said to be liable to falling sickness,
and therefore fall down in convulsions when they are hunted--hence
their name "eleend." Sailors are said to have purchased on the
north-west coast of Norway for ten crowns and a pound of tobacco
three knots of wind from the Lapps living there, who were all
magicians; when the first knot was loosed, a gentle breeze arose,
the second gave a strong gale, the third a storm, during which the
vessel was in danger of being wrecked.[146]. Novaya Zemlya is stated
to be inhabited by a peculiar tribe, "the Zembliens," of whom two
were taken prisoners and carried to Copenhagen. De la Martinière
also got the head of a walrus, which had been harpooned with great
difficulty; the animal was drawn as a fish with a long horn
projecting from its head. As a specimen of the birds of Novaya
Zemlya a penguin was drawn and described, and finally the work
closed with a rectification of the map of the Polar Regions, which
according to the author's ideas ought to be as represented below. I
refer to these absurdities, because the account of Martinière's
voyage exerted no little influence on the older writings relating to
the Arctic Regions.

1664 and 1668. A whaling captain, WILLEM DE VLAMINGH, sailed in 1664
round the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya to Barents' winter
quarters, and thence eastwards, where one of his men thought he saw
land ("Jelmert-landt," _Witsen_, p. 902).[147] The same Vlamingh
says that in 1668 he discovered, twenty-five miles N.N.E. of
Kolgujev, a new island three to four miles in circumference. This
island, which was described in great detail, and named by the
discoverer "Witsen's Island," has not since been seen again
(_Witsen_, p. 923).

1666. In this year some vessels were sent from the Netherlands to
the north-east. There were Jews among the owners, and the seafarers
were furnished with letters in Hebrew, because it was believed that
they would come in contact with some of the lost tribes of Israel.
Nothing farther appears to have been known of the voyage, which
undoubtedly was without result. (_Witsen_, p. 962.)

[Illustration: DE LA MARTINIÈRE'S MAP. ]

1675. A Dutch whaling captain, CORNELIS PIERSZ. SNOB-BERGER, visited
Novaya Zemlya, on whose coast he killed three whales and six hundred
walruses. He would probably have got still more "fish," if he had
not in 72-1/2° found an ore, which appeared to contain silver,
gold, and other metals. Instead of blubber the skipper now loaded
ore, which in his opinion was precious, but afterwards on being
tested at home was found to be valueless (_Witsen_, p. 918).

17th Century, year not stated. Shipmaster CORNELIS ROULE is said to
have sailed in the longitude of Novaya Zemlya to 84-1/2° or 85°
N.L. and there discovered a fjord-land, along which he sailed
ten miles. Beyond that a large open sea was seen. From a high
mountain situated on a sound, in which he rode, it appeared that he
might sail one or two watches further to the north. He found there
large numbers of birds, which were exceedingly tame (_Witsen_, p.
920). If we take some degrees from the latitude stated, which is
perhaps not very unreasonable in dealing with the narratives of old
whalers, which have passed through two or three hands, Roule may, as
far back as two hundred years ago, have reached Franz-Josef's Land,
and sailed along its coast to a very high latitude for those
regions.

1676. WOOD and FLAWES were sent out from England by Charles II. to
sail by the north-east passage to the Pacific. For this purpose the
English Admiralty fitted out a vessel, the _Speedwell_, while "as
all exploratory voyages are exposed to the possibility of disaster,"
another small ship, the _Prosperous_, was purchased and handed over
to the expedition by private gentlemen.[148] The command of the
first vessel was given to Captain Wood, the chief promoter of the
undertaking, and the other vessel was commanded by Captain Flawes.
The voyage was completely without result, as Wood did not penetrate
so far, either to the north or east, as his predecessors or as the
whalers, who appear to have at that time frequently visited North
Novaya Zemlya. Wood had previously accompanied Sir John Narborough
during a voyage through the dangerous Magellan Straits, in the
course of which he became known as a bold and skilful seaman, but he
not only wanted experience in sailing amongst ice, but also the
endurance and the coolness that are required for voyages in the high
north. He thereby showed himself to be quite unfit for the command
which he undertook. Before his departure he was unreasonably certain
of success; with the first encounter with ice his self-reliance gave
way entirely; and when his vessel was wrecked on the coast of Novaya
Zemlya, he knew no other way to keep up the courage of his men and
prevent mutiny than to send the brandy bottle round.[149] Finally
after his return he made Barents and other distinguished seafarers
in the Arctic Regions answerable for all the skipper tales collected
from quite other quarters, which he before his departure held to be
proved undoubtedly true. This voyage would therefore not have been
referred to here, if it had not been preceded and followed by lively
discussions regarding the fitness of the Polar Sea for navigation,
during which at least a portion of the experience which Dutch and
English whalers had gained of the state of the ice between Greenland
and Novaya Zemlya was rescued from oblivion, though unfortunately
almost exclusively in the form of unconfirmed statements of very
high latitudes, which had been occasionally reached. Three papers
mainly led to Wood's voyage. These were:--

1. A letter, inserted in the Transactions of the Royal Society,[150]
on the state of Novaya Zemlya, said to be founded on discoveries
which had been made at the express command of the Czar.
The letter was accompanied by a map, drawn by an artist named
Panelapoetski, who sent it from Moscow as a present to the writer.
The Kara Sea is said to be a freshwater inland lake which freezes
strongly in winter, and it is stated that according to the unanimous
accounts of the Samoyeds and Tartars it is quite possible to sail
north of Novaya Zemlya to Japan.

2. Another letter was inserted in the _Transactions_ of the Royal
Society,[151] in which the statement in the former letter on the
connection of Novaya Zemlya with the mainland is repeated, and the
difficulties which Barents met with ascribed to the circumstance
that he sailed too near the land, along which the sea is often
frozen; some miles from the shore, on the other hand, it never
freezes, even at the Pole, unless occasionally. It is also said that
some Amsterdam merchants sailed more than a hundred leagues eastward
of Novaya Zemlya, and on that account petitioned the States-General
for privileges.[152] However, in consequence of opposition from the
Dutch East India Company, their petition was not granted, on which
the merchants turned to Denmark. Here their proposal was immediately
received with favour. Two vessels were fitted out, but instead of
sailing to Japan, they went to Spitzbergen to the whale-fishing. It
is further stated in the letter that it would not be unadvisable to
let some persons live for a time with the Samoyeds, in order to find
out what they knew of the matter, and that, when a more complete
knowledge of the navigable waters was acquired, the whole voyage
from England to Japan might be accomplished in five or six weeks.
Were a wintering necessary, it would not be attended with any
danger, if, instead of a house of thick planks standing by itself,
earth huts were used.

3. A pamphlet, whose contents are given in the long and peculiar
title: "A brief Discourse of a Passage by the North-Pole to Japan,
China, etc. Pleaded by Three Experiments: and Answers to all
Objections that can be urged against a Passage that way. As: 1. By a
Navigation from Amsterdam into the North-Pole, and two Degrees
beyond it. 2. By a Navigation from Japan towards the North-Pole. 3.
By an Experiment made by the Czar of Muscovy, whereby it appears,
that to the Northwards of Nova Zembla is a free and open Sea as far
as Japan, China, etc. With a Map of all the Discovered Lands neerest
to the Pole. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King's most
Exellent Majesty. London, 1674."

The most remarkable passage in this scarce little book is the
following:--

    "Being about twenty-two years ago in Amsterdam, I went
    into a drinking-house to drink a cup of beer for my
    thirst, and sitting by the public fire, among several
    people, there happened a seaman to come in, who, seeing a
    friend of his there, whom he knew went in the Greenland
    voyage, wondered to see him, because it was not yet time
    for the Greenland fleet to come home, and asked him what
    accident brought him home so soon; his friend (who was the
    steer-man aforsaid in a Greenland ship that summer) told
    him, that their ship went not out to fish that summer, but
    only to take in the lading of the whole fleet, to bring it
    to an early market. But, said he, before the fleet had
    caught fish enough to lade us, we, by order of the
    Greenland Company, sailed unto the north pole and back
    again. Whereupon (his relation being novel to me) I
    entered into discourse with him, and seemed to question
    the truth of what he said; but he did ensure me it was
    true, and that the ship was then in Amsterdam, and many of
    the seamen belonging to her to justify the truth of it;
    and told me, moreover, that they had sailed two degrees
    beyond the pole. I asked him if they found no land or
    islands about the pole? He told me, No, they saw no ice; I
    asked him what weather they had there? He told me fine
    warm weather, such as was at Amsterdam in the summer time
    and as hot."[153]

In addition to these stories there were several contributions to a
solution of the problem, which Wood himself collected, as a
statement by Captain Goulden, who had made thirty voyages to
Spitzbergen, that two Dutchmen had penetrated eastward of that group
of islands to 89° N.L.; the observation that on the coast of
Corea whales had been caught with European harpoons in them;[154]
and that driftwood eaten to the heart by the sea-worm was found on
the coasts of the Polar lands, &c.[155]

When Wood failed, he abandoned the views he had before maintained,
declaring that the statements on which he had founded his plans were
downright lies and delusions. But the belief in a polar sea that is
occasionally navigable is not yet given up. It has since then been
maintained by such men as DAINES BARRINGTON,[156] FERDINAND VON
WRANGEL, AUGUSTUS PETERMANN,[157] and others. Along with nearly all
Polar travellers of the present day, I had long been of an opposite
opinion, believing the Polar Sea to be constantly covered with
impenetrable masses of ice, continuous or broken up, but I have come
to entertain other views since in the course of two winterings--the
first in 79°53', that is to say, nearer the Pole than any
other has wintered in the old world, the second in the neighbourhood
of the Asiatic Pole of cold--I have seen that the sea does not
freeze completely, even in the immediate neighbourhood of land. From
this I draw the conclusion that the sea scarcely anywhere
permanently[158] freezes over where it is of any considerable depth,
and far from land. If this be the case, there is nothing
unreasonable in the old accounts, and what has happened once we may
expect to happen another time.

However this may be, it is certain that the ignominious result of
Wood's voyage exerted so great a deterring influence from all new
undertakings in the same direction, that nearly two hundred years
elapsed before an expedition was again sent out with the distinctly
declared intention, which was afterwards disavowed, of achieving a
north-east passage. This was the famous Austrian expedition of PAYER
and WEYPRECHT in 1872-74, which failed indeed in penetrating far to
the eastward, but which in any case formed an epoch in the history
of Arctic exploration by the discovery of Franz-Josef's Land and by
many valuable researches on the natural conditions of the Polar
lands. Considered as a North-east voyage, this expedition was the
immediate predecessor of that of the _Vega_.

It is so well known through numerous works recently published, and
above all by Payer's spirited narrative, that I need not go into
further detail regarding it.

But if the North-east voyages proper thus almost entirely ceased
during the long interval between Wood's and Payer's voyages, a large
number of other journeys for the purpose of research and hunting
were instead carried out during this period, through which we
obtained the first knowledge founded on actual observations of the
natural conditions of Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea. Of these
voyages, mainly made by Russians and Scandinavians, I shall give an
account in the next chapter. It was these that prepared the way for
the success which we at last achieved.


[Footnote 102: In Bosworth's translation this name is replaced by
_White Sea_, an unnecessary modernising of the name, and incorrect
besides, as the White Sea is only a bay of the ocean which bounds
Europe on the north. ]

[Footnote 103: The Russian chronicles state that the land between
the Dwina and the Petchora (Savolotskaja Tchud) was made tributary
under the Slavs in Novgorod during the first half of the ninth
century. A monastery is spoken of in the beginning of the twelfth
century at the mouth of the Dwina, whence we may conclude that the
land was even then partly peopled by Russians, but we want
trustworthy information as to the time when the Russian-Finnish
Arctic voyages began (compare F. Litke, _Viermalige Reise durch das
nördliche Eismeer_. Berlin, 1835, p. 3). ]

[Footnote 104: The voyage is described in _Hakluyt_, 1st Edition, p.
311. It is inserted in the list of contents in the following terms:
"The voyage of Steven Burrough towarde the river Ob, intending the
discoverie of the north-east passage. An. 1556." It appears from the
introduction to Hakluyt's work that the narrative was revised by
Burrough himself. In the text Burrowe is written instead of
Burrough. ]

[Footnote 105: As I have already mentioned, von Herbertstein states
that the Russians (Istoma and others) as early as 1496 sailed round
the northern extremity of Norway in boats, which when necessary
could be carried over land. North Cape, or rather Nordkyn, was
called at that time Murmanski Nos (the Norman Cape). When Hulsius in
his collection of travels gives von Herbertstein's account of
Istoma's voyage, he considers Swjatoi Nos on the Kola peninsula to
be North Cape (Harnel, _Tradescant_, St. Petersburg, 1847, p. 40). ]

[Footnote 106: This must be a slip of the pen or an error of the
press; it was probably intended to be 68° 48'. Kola lies in 68°
51' N.L. ]

[Footnote 107: This statement is very remarkable. For it shows that
the vessels, that were then used by the Russians and Fins, were not
very inferior as compared with those of the West-Europeans, which is
confirmed by the fact, among others, that, nowhere in accounts of
the voyages of the English or Dutch in former times to Novaya
Zemlya, do we find it stated that in respect to navigation they were
very superior to the Kola men. As the Russian-Finnish _lodjas_ of
the time were probably beyond the influence of the shipbuilding art
of Western Europe, it is of importance to collect all that is known
about the way in which these vessels were built. Several drawings of
them occur in the accounts of the Dutch voyages, but it is uncertain
how far they are accurate. According to these the _lodja_ was
klinker-built, with boards not riveted together but bound fast with
willows, as is still occasionally practised in these regions. The
form of the craft besides reminds us of that of the present
walrus-hunting sloop. ]

[Footnote 108: Cape Voronov, on the west side of the mouth of the
river Mesen. ]

[Footnote 109: Probably mountain foxes. Remains of these fox-traps
are still frequently met with along the coast of the Polar Sea,
where the Russians have carried on hunting. ]

[Footnote 110: Kanin Nos is in 68° 30' N.L. ]

[Footnote 111: This was the first meeting between West-Europeans and
Samoyeds. ]

[Footnote 112: The capes which bound the mouth of the Petchora--Cape
Ruski Savorot and Cape Medinski Savorot,--are very nearly in lat.
69°. ]

[Footnote 113: See above, page 168. ]

[Footnote 114: Evidently islands near the southern extremity of
Novaya Zemlya. ]

[Footnote 115: Probably he was of Finnish race. The Quaens in North
Norway are still the most skilful harpooners. In recent times they
have found rivals in skill with the harpoon and gun in the Lapps. ]

[Footnote 116: The information Burrough obtained regarding the
Samoyeds is given above at page 100. ]

[Footnote 117: From the context, and the circumstance that "much ice
was drifting in the sea," we may conclude that this haven was
situated on the north side of the island at the entrance to the Kara
Port. ]

[Footnote 118: Probably the river which on Massa's map is called
Narontza, and debouches on the west coast of Yalmal. ]

[Footnote 119: All the three vessels that were employed in the first
English expedition to the North-east had an unfortunate fate, viz.:

The _Edward Bonaventure_, commanded by Chancelor and Burrough,
sailed in 1553 from England to the White Sea, returned to England in
1554 and was on the way plundered by the Dutch (_Purchas_, iii. p.
250); started again with Chancelor for the Dwina in 1555, and
returned the same year to England under Captain John Buckland;
accompanied Burrough in 1556 to the Kola peninsula; went thence to
the Dwina to convey to England Chancelor and a Russian embassy,
consisting of the ambassador Ossip Gregorjevitsch Nepeja and a suite
of sixteen men; the vessel besides being laden with goods to the
value of 20,000_l_. It was wrecked in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen
(Aberdour Bay) on the 20th (10th) November. Chancelor himself, his
wife, and seven Russians were drowned, and most of the cargo lost.

The _Bona Esperanza_, admiral of the fleet during the expedition of
1553. Its commander and whole crew perished, as has been already
stated, of disease at Arzina on the coast of Kola in the beginning
of 1554. The vessel was saved and was to have been used in 1556 to
carry to England the Russian embassy already mentioned. After having
been driven by a storm into the North Sea, it reached a harbour in
the neighbourhood of Trondhjem, but after leaving that harbour
disappeared completely, nothing being known of its fate.

The _Bona Confidentia_ was saved like the _Bona Esperanza_ after the
disastrous wintering at Arzina; was also used in conveying the
Russian embassy from Archangel in 1556, but stranded on the
Norwegian coast, every man on board perishing and the whole cargo
being lost.

Of the four vessels that left the Dwina on the 2nd August, 1556,
only the _Philip and Mary_ succeeded, after wintering at Trondhjem,
in reaching the Thames on the 28th (18th) April, 1557. (A letter of
Master Henrie Lane to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson,
containing a brief discourse of that which passed in the north-east
discoverie, for the space of three and thirtie yeeres, _Purchas_,
iii. p. 249.) ]

[Footnote 120: Hamel, _Tradescant der ältere_, p. 106. Hakluyt, 1st
Edition, p. 326. _The voiage of the foresaid M. Stephen Burrough
An_. 1557 _from Colmogro to Wordhouse, &c._ This voyage of Burrough
has attracted little attention; from it however we learn that the
Dutch even at that time carried on an extensive commerce with
Russian Lapland. In the same narrative there is also a list of words
with statements of prices and suitable goods for trade with the
inhabitants of the Kola peninsula. ]

[Footnote 121: Two accounts of this voyage are to be found in
Hakluyt's collection (pp. 466 and 476). A copy of Pet's own journal
was discovered some years ago, along with other books, frozen in
among the remains of Barents' wintering on the north-east side of
Novaya Zemlya. It has not been published, but is in the possession
of Consul Rein at Hammerfest. ]

[Footnote 122: The Russians had thus landmarks on Novaya Zemlya 300
years ago. ]

[Footnote 123: It is commonly assumed that Pet sailed into the Kara
Sea through Yugor Schar, but that this was not the case is shown
partly by the fact that he never speaks of sailing through a long
and narrow sound, partly by the account of the many islands which he
saw in his voyage, and partly by the statement that coming from the
south he sailed round the westernmost promontory of Vaygats Island.
If we except small rocks near the shore, there are no islands off
the southern part of Vaygats Island. In sailing east of Medinski
Savorot, Pet took the land south of Yugor Schar for Vaygats, and the
soundings on the 29th (19th) July were carried out undoubtedly in
the mouth of some small river debouching there. ]

[Footnote 124: Of Jackman Hakluyt says (2nd Edition, i. p. 453):
"William with Charles Jackman came to a haven in Norway between
Tronden and Rostock in October, 1580, and wintered there. Thence the
following February he went with a vessel, belonging to the king of
Denmark, to Iceland, and since then nothing has been heard of him."
About that time an English ship stranded at the Ob, and the crew
were killed by the Samoyeds. It has been conjectured that it
possibly was Jackman (compare _Purchas_, iii. p. 546; _Hamel_, p.
238). It is more probable that the vessel which suffered this fate
was that which, two years before Pet and Jackman's voyage, appears
to have been sent out by the Muscovy Company to penetrate eastwards
from the Petchora. The members of this expedition were James
Bassendine, James Woodcocke, and Richard Brown, but we know nothing
concerning it except the very sensible and judicious rules that were
drawn up for the expedition (_Hakluyt_, 1st Edition, p. 406). ]

[Footnote 125: I have not been able to find any name resembling this
on modern maps. ]

[Footnote 126: _A Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic
Regions._ London, 1818, p. 99. ]

[Footnote 127: His proper name was Willem Barentszoon; it was also
written Barentz, Barendsz, Bernardsson, &c. Barents' three voyages
formed the subject of a work by GERRIT DE VEER, which was published
for the first time in 1598 at Amsterdam in a Dutch, a Latin, and a
French edition. The last-mentioned has the following title: _Vray
Description de Trois Voyages des Mer très admirables faicis_ ...
_par les navires d'Hollande &c. Zelande au nord_ ... _vers les
Royaumes de China &c. Catay, etc._ Afterwards this work was
frequently reprinted in different languages, both singly and in DE
BEY'S, PURCHAS', and other collections of Travels. See on this point
P.A. Tiele, _Mémoire bibliographique sur les journaux des
navigateurs Néerlandais_. Amsterdam, 1867. ]

[Footnote 128: From two large crosses which were found erected on
the island. This shows that the Russians had also explored the north
part of Novaya Zemlya before the West-Europeans. ]

[Footnote 129: The name Oliver Brunel occurs so often in accounts of
the first voyages to Novaya Zemlya, and the man who bore it appears
to have exercised so great an influence on the development of
commercial communications with Russia, and the sending out of
exploratory expeditions to the North Polar Sea, that I shall give a
brief sketch of his life, mainly after S. Muller, _Geschiedenis der
Noordsche Compagnie_, Utrecht, 1874, p. 26.

Oliver Brunel was born in Brussels, and in 1565 went in a Russian
vessel from Kola to Kolmogor in order to learn the Russian language
and make himself acquainted with the trade of the region. But the
English, who of course eagerly endeavoured to prevent any intrusion
on their newly-discovered commercial territory, prevailed on the
Russians to keep him in prison for several years. In the end he was
set at liberty, or rather handed over to the rich merchants Jakov
and Grigory Anikiev (Stroganov). In consequence of this, Brunel came
to take part in the commercial expeditions sent out by this
mercantile house, (which by the conquest of Siberia acquired a
world-historical importance, both by land and sea,) to the parts of
Asia bordering on Russia, whereby he became well acquainted with the
Polar Sea and the Gulf of Obi. Brunel afterwards brought about
direct communication between the Netherlands and the great
commercial house, almost sovereign _de facto_ if not _de jure_ in
extensive countries. In connection with this Brunel made strenuous
exertions to open in earnest the navigation of the Netherlands to
the White Sea, and there found a Netherlands factory, which was
placed not on Rosen Island, which was occupied by the English, but
on the spot where the present Archangel is situated. Brunel next
took part in preparations for a Russian North-east expedition, for
which Swedish shipbuilders were received into Stroganov's service.
Brunei himself travelled by land to Holland to enlist men. A number
of particulars regarding these undertakings of Brunel are contained
in a letter of JOHN BALAK to GERARD MERCATOR, dated "Arusburgi ad
Ossellam fluvium" the 20th February, 1581. The letter is printed in
the second edition of _Hakluyt_, 1598, i. p. 509. Scarcely however
had Brunel returned to his native country, before he altered his
plan and wished to procure for his own fatherland the honour and
advantage of the undertaking. The first attempt of the Dutch to
reach China and Japan by the north-east thus came about. Of this
voyage we know only that Brunel endeavoured without success to sail
through Yugor Schar, and that his vessel, heavily laden with furs,
plates of mica, and rock-crystal, was wrecked on the way home at the
mouth of the Petchora (_Beschryvinghe vander Samoyeden Landt in
Tartarien, &c._ Amsterdam, 1612. S. Muller's Photolithographic
Reproduction, 1878). The mica and rock-crystal were undoubtedly
brought from the Ural, as no useful plates of mica or large
rock-crystals are found in the region of the Petchora. Brunel then
entered the Danish service. For we know that an Oliver Brunel during
the reign of King Fredrik II. in Denmark offered to explore
Greenland, and for that purpose in 1583 obtained the right to settle
in Bergen and there enjoy six years freedom from taxes (Cf.
_Groenlands historiske Mindesmoerker_, Copenhagen, 1838, vol. iii.
p. 666). ]

[Footnote 130: Probably the Sachanich Bay of the Russians. ]

[Footnote 131: _Voyagie, ofte Schip Vaert, van Jan Huyghen van
Linschoten, van by Noorden, om langes Noorwegen de Noortcaep,
Laplant, Vinlant, Ruslandt_ ... _tot voorby de revier Oby_, Franeker,
1601. Another edition at Amsterdam in 1624, and in abstract in
Saeghman's collection of travels in 1665. The voyage is also
described in Blavii _Atlas Major_, 1665. Linschoten was "commis" on
board, a post which included both the employment of supercargo and
that of owners' commissioner. ]

[Footnote 132: That is Yugor Schar. This name also occurs, though in
a somewhat altered form, as "Wegorscoi tzar," on Isaac Massa's map
of 1612, which, according to the statement of the publisher, is a
copy of a Russian chart. ]

[Footnote 133: Accounts of this expedition are given both by De Veer
and Linschoten in the above-named works. ]

[Footnote 134: These remarkable statements are found in Linschoten's
above quoted work printed in 1601, and cannot therefore be spurious.
They thus show that Taimur Land was inhabited by Samoyeds, and that
the geography of this region was then well known. ]

[Footnote 135: See above, page 142. ]

[Footnote 136: The sketch of this voyage forms the main portion of
the above mentioned work of De Veer. Undoubtedly the adventures
during the wintering, the first in so high a latitude, in the first
place procured for De Veer's work the enormous popularity it
enjoyed, and led to its being translated into so many languages. ]

[Footnote 137: The resolution regarding the offer of this prize is
given below: Extract nit het Register der Resolutien van de Hoog
Mogende Heeren Staten Generael der Vereenigde Nederlanden.

Folio 158 vso 13 April 1596.

De Gedeputeerde van de Heeren Staten van Holland verclaren dat heure
principalen geadviseert hebbende op de hervattinge van het voyagie
naer China en Japan, benoorden om, deselve voyage afgeslagen hebben,
ten aenzien van de groote costen die nu twee Jaren achter den
anderen om de reyse te verzoeken te vorgeefs angewent zijn, maer dat
Hare E. goetgevonden ende geconsenteert hebben, mede tgevolgh van de
andere provincien bij zoeverre datter eenige coopluijden aventuriers
bij compagnie ofte anderssine de voerscreven reijse op heure costen
ende risique, zonder te schepen ende tgelt van den lande, zonde
begeren te verzoeken, dat men dezelve aventuriers de reijse gevonden
ende gedaen hebbende, daervan brengende goet ende geloofflijck
beschijt, tot haer luijder wedercomste, zal vereeren mette somme van
vijff en twintich duysent gulden eens. Item daar enboven accorderen
den vrijdom voor twée jaren van convoyen der goederen die zij uit
dese landen naer China off Japan zullen transporteren, ende noch
vrijdom voer den tyd van acht jaren van te goederen die zij uit
China ofte Japan in dese landen sullen bringen. Waerop geadviseert
wesende hebben de Gedeputeerde van d'andere provincien hen daarmede
geconformeert, die van Seelant opt welbehagen van heure principalen,
maer die van Utrecht hebben verclart niet te consenteren in de
vereeringe van XXVm. ]

[Footnote 138: Every Polar traveller has at one time or other made
the same or a similar mistake. In 1861, for instance, a boat party,
of whom I was one, thought that they saw clearly sailors in
sou'-westers and with white shirtsleeves building a cairn on a point
which appeared to be at no great distance. But the cairn was found
to be a very distant mountain, the shirt-sleeves were formed of
snow-fields, the sou'-westers of pointed cliffs, and the motion
arose from oscillatory changes in the atmospheric strata. ]

[Footnote 139: Undoubtedly _Anser bernicla_, which is common on the
west coast of Spitzbergen. The Dutch name ought neither to be
translated _red goose_, as some Englishmen have done, nor confounded
with _rotges_. ]

[Footnote 140: See the copy of Barents' own map with his course laid
down upon it, which is to be found in Pontanus, _Rerum et urbis
Amstelodamensium Historia_ (Amst. 1611), and is annexed to this work
in photolithographic facsimile. ]

[Footnote 141: On the assumption of a horizontal refraction of about
45'. ]

[Footnote 142: See on this point De Veer, leaf 25 and an unpaged
leaf between pages 30 and 31 in Blavii _Atlas Major_, tom. i. That a
mistake occurred in the date is not possible, because the latitude
was determined by solar observations on the 29th (19th) February,
the 21st (11th) and 31st (21st) March (see De Veer, I. 27). Besides,
at the correct date, the 3rd February (24th January), a conjunction
of Jupiter and the moon was observed, whereby the difference of
longitude between Ice Haven and Venice was determined to be 75°.
However erroneous this determination may be, it shows, however,
that the date was correct. ]

[Footnote 143: Built along with a weigh-house intended for the
Norwegians in 1582 by the first vojvode in Kola (_Hamel_, p. 66).
In Pontanus (_Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium Historia_, Amsterodami,
1611, p. 142), there is a drawing of the inner yard of this house,
and of the reception of shipwrecked men there. ]

[Footnote 144: The year is incorrectly given as 1647 by F. von
Adelung (_Kritisch-Litterärische Uebersicht_, &c.). ]

[Footnote 145: The following editions are enumerated: four French,
Paris, 1671, 1672, 1676, and Amsterdam, 1708; six German, Hamburg,
1675, Leipzig, 1703, 1706, 1710, 1711, and 1718; one Latin,
Glückstadt, 1675; two Dutch, Amsterdam, 1681 and 1685; one Italian,
printed in Conte Aurelio degli Anzi's _Il Genio Vagante_, Parma,
1691; two English, one printed separately in 1706, the other in
Harris, _Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibl_., 3rd edition. London,
1744-48, Vol. II. p. 457. ]

[Footnote 146: The story of the wind knots is taken from Olaus
Magnus, _De gentibus septentrionalibus_, Rome, 1555, p. 119. There a
drawing of the appearance of the knots is also given. ]

[Footnote 147: Compare page 203. ]

[Footnote 148: These were James Duke of York, Lord Berkley, Sir John
Williamson, Sir John Bankes, Mr. Samuel Peeps, Captain Herbert, Mr.
Dupey, and Mr. Hoopgood (Harris, _Nav. Bibl._, vol. ii. p. 453). ]

[Footnote 149: "All I could do in this exigency was to let the
brandy-bottle go round, which kept them allways fox'd, till the 8th
July Captain Flawes came so seasonably to our relief" (Barrow, _A
Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions_. London,
1818, p. 268). ]

[Footnote 150: "A letter, not long since written to the Publisher by
an Experienced person residing at Amsterdam," etc. (_Philosophical
Transactions_, vol. IX. p. 3, London, 1674). ]

[Footnote 151: "A summary Relation of what hath been hitherto
discovered in the matter of the North-East passage; communicated by
a good Hand" (_Phil. Trans._, vol. x. p. 417. London, 1675). ]

[Footnote 152: The time when the voyage was made is not stated in
the letter quoted. Harris says that he with great difficulty
ascertained the year of the successful voyage to the eastward to be
1670. He says further that the persons who gave him this information
also stated that, at the time when this petition was given in to the
States-General, it was also asserted that there was no difficulty in
sailing northwards from Spitzbergen (Greenland), and that many Dutch
vessels had actually done it. To confirm this statement the
merchants proposed that the logs of the Spitzbergen fleet for the
year 1655 should be examined. This was done. In seven of them it was
found recorded that the vessels had sailed to 79° N.L. Three
other logs agreed in the point that on the 1st August, 1655, 88°
56' _was observed_. The sea here was open and the swell heavy
(Harris, _Nav. Bibl._, ii. p. 453). J.R. Forster (_Geschichte der
Entdeckungen und Schiffsfahrten im Norden_, Frankfurt a. d. Oder,
1874) appears to place the voyage eastward of Novaya Zemlya in the
period before 1614. It is, however, probable that the voyage in
question is Vlamingh's remarkable one in 1664, or that in 1666, of
which I have already given an account. ]

[Footnote 153: In more recent times the whalers have been more
modest in their statements about high northern latitudes reached.
Thus a Dutchman who had gone whale-fishing for twenty-two years, at
an accidental meeting with Tschitschagoff in Bell Sound in the
year 1766, stated among other things that he himself had once been
in 81°, but that he heard that other whalers had been in 83°
and had seen land over the ice. He had seen the east coast of
Greenland (Spitzbergen) only once in 75° N.L. (Herrn von
Tschitschagoff Russisch-kaiserliehen Admirals _Reise nach dem
Eissmeer_, St. Petersburg, 1793, p. 83). Dutch shipmasters too,
who in the beginning of the seventeenth century penetrated north
of Spitzbergen to 82°, said that they had thence seen land towards
the north (Muller, _Geschiedenis der Noordsche Compagnie_. p. 180). ]

[Footnote 154: Witsen states, p. 43, that he had conversed with a
Dutch seaman, Benedictus Klerk, who had formerly served on board a
whaler, and afterwards been a prisoner in Corea. He had asserted
that in whales that were killed on the coast of that country he had
found Dutch harpoons. The Dutch then carried on whale-fishing only
in the north part of the Atlantic. The _find_ thus shows that whales
can swim from one ocean to the other. As we know that these colossal
inhabitants of the Polar Sea do not swim from one ice-ocean to the
other across the equator, this observation must be considered very
important, especially at a time when the question whether Asia and
America are connected across the Pole was yet unsettled. Witsen also
enumerates, at p. 900, several occasions on which stone harpoons were
found in the skins of whales caught in the North Atlantic. These
harpoons, however, may as well be derived from the wild races,
unacquainted with iron, at Davis\ Strait, as from tribes living
on the north part of the Pacific. At Kamschatka, too, long before
whale-fishing by Europeans began in Behring's Sea, harpoons marked
with Latin letters were found in whales (Steller, _Beschreibung von
dem Lande Kamtschatka_, Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1774, p. 102). ]

[Footnote 155: The account of Wood's voyage was printed in London in
1694 by Smith and Walford, printers to the Royal Society (according
to a statement by Barrington, _The possibility of approaching the
North Pole asserted_, 2nd Edition, London, 1818, p. 34). I have only
had an opportunity of seeing extracts from the account of this
voyage in _Harris_ and others. ]

[Footnote 156: Barrington published a number of papers on this
question, which are collected in the work whose title is given
above, of which there were two editions. ]

[Footnote 157: At several places in his _Mittheilungen_, 1855-79. ]

[Footnote 158: That thin sheets of ice are formed in clear and calm
weather, even in the open sea and over great depths, was observed
several times during the expedition of 1868. But when we consider
that salt water has no maximum of density situated above the
freezing-point, that ice is a bad conductor of heat, and that the
clear, newly-formed ice is soon covered by a layer of snow which
hinders radiation, it appears to me to be improbable that the
ice-covering at deep, open places can become so thick that it is not
broken up even by a moderate storm. Even the shallow harbour at
Mussel Bay first froze permanently in the beginning of February, and
in the end of January the swell in the harbour was so heavy, that
all the three vessels of the Swedish Expedition were in danger of
being wrecked--_in consequence of the tremendous sea in 80°
N.L. in the end of January!_ The sea must then have been open very
far to the north-west On the west coast of Spitzbergen the sea in
winter is seldom completely frozen within sight of land. Even at
Barents' winter haven on the north-east coast of Novaya Zemlya, the
sea during the coldest season of the year was often free of ice, and
Hudson's statement, "that it is not surprising that the navigator
falls in with so much ice in the North Atlantic, when there are so
many sounds and bays on Spitzbergen," shows that even he did not
believe in any ice being formed in the open sea. ]



CHAPTER VI.

    The North-east Voyages of the Russians and Norwegians--
    Rodivan Ivanov, 1690--The great Northern Expedition, 1734-37
    --The supposed richness in metals of Novaya Zemlya--
    Juschkov, 1757--Savva Loschkin, 1760--Rossmuislov, 1768--
    Lasarev, 1819--Lütke, 1821-24--Ivanov, 1822-28--
    Pachtussov, 1832-35--Von Baer, 1837--Zivolka and Moissejev,
    1838-39--Von Krusenstern, 1860-62--The Origin and History
    of the Polar Sea Hunting--Carlsen, 1868--Ed. Johannesen,
    1869-70--Ulve, Mack, and Quale, 1870--Mack, 1871--
    Discovery of the Relics of Barents' wintering--Tobiesen's
    wintering, 1872-73--The Swedish Expeditions, 1875 and 1876
    --Wiggins, 1876--Later Voyages to and from the Yenisej.


From what I have stated above it follows that the coast population
of North Russia earned on an active navigation on the Polar Sea long
before the English and the Dutch, and that commercial expeditions
were often undertaken from the White Sea and the Petchora to the Ob
and the Yenisej, sometimes wholly by sea round Yalmal, but most
frequently partly by sea and partly by land transport over that
peninsula. In the latter case the Russians went to work in the
following way; they first sailed through Yugor Straits, and over the
southern part of the Kara Sea to the mouth of the Mutnaja, a river
debouching on Yalmal; they then rowed or towed the boats up the
river and over two lakes to a ridge about 350 metres broad, which
forms the watershed on Yalmal between the rivers running west and
those running east; over this ridge the boats and the goods were
dragged to another lake, Selennoe, from which they were finally
carried down the River Selennaja to the Gulf of Obi.[159]

These and similar accounts were collected with great difficulty, and
not without danger, by the Muscovy Company's envoys; but among the
accounts that have been thus preserved we do not find a single
sketch of any special voyage, on the ground of which we could place
a Russian name beside that of Willoughby, Burrough, Pet and Barents
in the older history of the North-East Passage. The historical
sources of Russia too must be similarly incomplete in this respect,
to judge from the otherwise instructive historical introduction to
Lütke's voyage. Gallant seamen, but no Hakluyt, were born during the
sixteenth and seventeenth century on the shores of the White Sea,
and therefore the names of these seamen and the story of their
voyages have long since fallen into complete obscurity, excepting
some in comparatively recent times.

In the second edition of Witsen's great work we find, at page 913,
an account of an unsuccessful hunting voyage to the Kara Sea,
undertaken in 1690, that is to say, at a time when voyages between
the White Sea and the Obi and Yenisej were on the point of ceasing
completely. The account was drawn up by Witsen from an oral
communication by one of the shipwrecked men, Rodivan Ivanov, who was
for several years mate on a Russian vessel, employed in seal-fishing
on the coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island.

On the 11th/1st September this Rodivan Ivanov suffered shipwreck
with two vessels on Serapoa Koska (Serapov's Bank), probably
situated in the Southern part of the Kara Sea. The ice was thrown up
here in winter into lofty ice-casts with such a crashing noise that
"the world was believed to be coming to an end," and at high water
with a strong breeze the whole island was submerged with the
exception of some knolls. On one of these the winter house was
erected. It was built of clay, which was kneaded with the blood and
hair of the seal and walrus. This mixture hardened to a solid mass,
of which the walls were built with the help of boards from the
vessel. The house thus afforded good protection not only from cold
and bad weather, but also from bears. A furnace was also built
inside the house and fired with driftwood collected on the beach.
Train oil from the captured animals was used for lighting. There
wintered here fifteen men in all, of whom eleven died of scurvy.
Want of exercise perhaps mainly conduced to bring on this disease.
For most of them did not leave the house during the winter night,
five weeks long. Those were most healthy who had most exercise, as,
for instance, the mate, who was the youngest among the crew, and
therefore had to go round the island to collect wood. Another cause
of the great mortality was the total want of provisions brought from
home. For the first eight days their food consisted of seaweed
dredged up from the bottom of the sea, with which some meal was
mixed. Afterwards they ate the flesh of the seal and walrus, and of
the Polar bear and the fox. The flesh of the bear and the walrus,
however, was considered _unclean_[160] on which account it was eaten
only in case of necessity, and the flesh of the fox had an
unpleasant flavour. Sometimes the want of food was so great that
they were compelled to eat the leather of their boots and furs. The
number of the seals and walruses which they caught was so great,
"that the killed animals, laid together, would have formed a heap
ninety fathoms in length, of the same breadth, and six feet
high."[161] They found, besides, on the island a stranded whale.

In spring Samoyeds came from the mainland, and plundered the
Russians of part of their catch. Probably for fear of the Samoyeds,
the surviving hunters did not go over the ice to the mainland, but
remained on the desert island until by a fortunate accident they
were rescued by some of their countrymen engaged in a hunting
expedition. In connection with the account of this voyage Witsen
states that the previous year a Russian hunting vessel stranded
_east of the Ob_.

It is probable that towards the close of the sixteenth century the
Russian hunting voyages to Novaya Zemlya had already fallen off
considerably. The commercial voyages perhaps had long before
altogether ceased. It appears as if after the complete conquest of
Siberia the land route over the Ural mountains, formerly regarded
with such superstitious feelings, was preferred to the unsafe sea
route across the Kara Sea, and as if the Government even put
obstacles in the way of the latter by setting watches at Matvejev
Island and at Yugor Straits.[162] These were to receive payments
from the hunters and merchants, and the regulations and exactions
connected with this arrangement deprived the Polar Sea voyages of
just that charm which had hitherto induced the bravest and hardiest
of the population to devote themselves to the dangerous traffic to
the Ob, and to the employment of hunting, in which they were exposed
to so many dangers, and subject to so great privations.

The circumstance to which we have referred may also be the reason
why we do not know of a single voyage in this part of the Polar Sea
during the period which elapsed from the voyage of Rodivan Ivanov to
"the great Northern Expedition." It examined, among other parts of
the widely extended north coast of the Russian empire, the southern
portion also of the navigable waters here in question, in the years
1734, 35, under Muravjev and Paulov, and in 1736, 37 under Malygin,
Skuratov, and Suchotin. Their main working field however did not lie
here, but in Siberia itself; and I shall give an account of their
voyages in the Kara Sea further on, when I come to treat of the
development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia. Here I will
only state that they actually succeeded, after untold exertions, in
penetrating from the White Sea to the Ob, and that the maps of the
land between that river and the Petchora, which are still in use,
are mainly grounded on the work of the great northern expedition,
but that the bad repute of the Kara Sea also arose from the
difficulties to which these explorers were exposed, difficulties
owing in no small degree to the defective nature of the vessels, and
a number of mistakes which were made in connection with their
equipment, the choice of the time of sailing, &c.

[Illustration: AMMONITE WITH GOLD LUSTRE. From Novaya Zemlya.
_Ammonites alternans_. V. BUCH. ]

Like all distant unknown regions, Novaya Zemlya was of old renowned
for its richness in the noble metals. The report indeed has never
been confirmed, and probably was occasioned only by the occurrence
of traces of ore, and the beautiful gold-glancing film of pyrites
with which a number of the fossils found here are covered; but it
has, notwithstanding, given occasion to a number of voyages to
Novaya Zemlya, of which the first known is that of the mate
JUSCHKOV, in 1757. As the mate of a hunting-vessel he had observed
the stones glittering with gold and silver, and he succeeded in
convincing an Archangel tallow-merchant that they indicated great
riches in the interior of the earth. In order to get possession of
these treasures the tallow-merchant fitted out a vessel, promising
Juschkov at the same time a reward of 250 roubles for the discovery.
The whole undertaking, however, led to no result, because the
discoverer of these treasures died during the passage to Novaya
Zemlya (Lütke, p. 70).

Three years after, in 1760,[163] a hunting mate, SAVVA LOSCHKIN, a
native of Olonets, hit on the idea, which was certainly a correct
one, that the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was never visited
by hunters, ought to be richer in game than other parts of the
island. Induced by this idea, and probably also by the wish to do
something extraordinary, he undertook a hunting expedition thither.
Of this expedition we know only that he actually succeeded in
travelling round the whole island, thanks to the resolution which
led him to spend on this self-imposed task two winters and three
summers. It was proved by this journey that Novaya Zemlya is
actually an island, a fact which in the middle of last century was
still doubted by many geographers.[164]

Even after the failure of Juschkov's expedition the report of the
richness of Novaya Zemlya in metals still maintained itself, and
accordingly Lieutenant[165] ROSSMUISLOV was sent out with second
mate GUBIN, the Polar Sea pilot TSCHIRAKIN, and eleven men, to
search for the supposed treasures, and at the same time to survey
the unknown portions of the island. The vessel that was used in this
Polar Sea voyage must have been a very remarkable one. For shortly
before the start, leaks, which had to be stopped, were discovered at
many different places in it, and of its power of sailing Rossmuislov
himself says: "So long as the wind came from the stern the large
sail helped us exceedingly well, but, as soon as it turned and
became a head wind, we were compelled to hoist another smaller sail,
in consequence of which we were driven back to the point from which
we came." Rossmuislov appears to have been a very skilful man in his
profession. Without meeting with any obstacle from ice, but at all
events with difficulty enough in consequence of the unsuitableness
of the vessel, he arrived at Matotschkin Sound, which he carefully
surveyed and took soundings in. From a high mountain at its eastern
mouth he saw on the 10th Sept./30th Aug. the Kara Sea completely
free of ice--and the way to the Yenisej thus open; but his vessel
was useless for further sailing. He therefore determined to winter
at a bay named Tjulnaja Guba, near the eastern entrance to
Matotschkin Sound. To this place he removed a house which some
hunters had built on the sound farther to the west, and erected
another house, the materials of which he had brought from home,
on a headland jutting out into the sound a little more to the east.
The latter I visited in 1876. The walls were then still standing,
but the flat roof, loaded with earth and stones, had fallen in,
as is often the case with deserted wooden houses in the Polar regions.
The house was small, and had consisted of a lobby and a room with an
immense fireplace, and sleeping places fixed to the walls.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM MATOTSCHKIN SCHAR. (After a drawing by Hj
Théel. 1875.) ]

On the 1st Oct./20th Sept., Matotschkin Sound was frozen over, and
some days after the Kara Sea was covered with ice as far as the eye
could reach. Storms from the north-east, west, and north-west, with
drifting snow of such violence prevailed during the course of the
winter that one could scarcely go ten fathoms from the house. In its
neighbourhood a man was overtaken by such a storm of drifting snow
while hunting a reindeer. When he did not return after two days'
absence it was determined to note him in the journal as having
"perished without burial."

On the 28/17th April, 1769, there was a storm from the south-west,
with mist, rain, and hail as large as half a bullet. On the 2nd
June/22nd May a dreadful wind raged from the north-west, bringing
from the high mountains a "sharp smoke-like air,"--it was certainly
a _föhn_ wind. The painful, depressing effect of this wind is
generally known from Switzerland and from north-western Greenland.
At the latter place it rushes right down with excessive violence
from the ice-desert of the interior. But far from on that account
bringing cold with it, the temperature suddenly rises above the
freezing-point, the snow disappears as if by magic through melting
and evaporation, and men and animals feel themselves suffering from
the sudden change in the weather. Such winds besides occur
everywhere in the Polar regions in the neighbourhood of high
mountains, and it is probably on their account that a stay in the
hill-enclosed kettle-valleys is in Greenland considered to be very
unhealthy and to lead to attacks of scurvy among the inhabitants.

The crew remained during the winter whole days, indeed whole weeks
in succession, in their confined dwellings, carefully made tight,
without taking any regular exercise in the open air. We can easily
understand from this that they could not escape scurvy, by which
most of them appear to have been attacked, and of which seven died,
among them Tschirakin. It is surprising that any one of them could
survive with such a mode of life during the dark Polar night. The
brewing of _quass_, the daily baking of bread, and perhaps even the
vapour-baths, mainly contributed to this.

On the 29/18th July the ice on Matotschkin Schar broke up, and on
the 13th/2nd August the sound was completely free of ice. An attempt
was now made to continue the voyage across the Kara Sea, and an
endeavour was made for this purpose to put the vessel, defective
from the first, and now still further damaged by ice, in repair,
by stopping the leaks, as far as possible, with a mixture of clay and
decayed seaweed. "Floating coffins" have often been used in Arctic
voyages, and many times with greater success than the stateliest
man-of-war. This time, however, Rossmuislov, after having sailed
some few miles eastward from Matotschkin Sound, in order to avoid
certain loss, had to return to his winter quarters, where he
fortunately fell in with a Russian hunter, with whom he commenced
his return to Archangel. No precious metals were found, nor "any
pearl-mussels," but Tschirakin confided to Rossmuislov the secret
that at a certain place on the south coast he had found a block of
stone of such extraordinary beauty that in the light of day it shone
with the most splendid fire. After Tschirakin's death Rossmuislov
sought for the stone, but without success, and he therefore broke
out in violent reproaches of his deceased comrade. I can, however,
free him from the blame of deception; for, during my voyage in 1875,
I found in several of the blocks of schist in the region small veins
of quartz, crossing the mass of stone. The walls of these veins were
covered with hundreds of sharply-developed rock crystals with
mirror-bright faces. Tschirakin's precious stone was doubtless
nothing else than a druse of this shining but valueless mineral.

Once more, nearly fifty years after Rossmuislov's voyage, in the
year 1807, a miner, LUDLOW, was sent out to investigate more
thoroughly the supposed richness of the island in metals.
He returned without having found any ore, but with the first accounts
of the geological formation of the country; and we have his
companion POSPJELOV to thank for some careful surveys on the west
coast of Novaya Zemlya.

The next expedition to the island was equipped and sent out from the
naval dockyard at Archangel in 1819 under Lieutenant LASAREV, and
had, in comparison with its predecessors, very abundant resources.
But Lasarev was clearly unfit for the task he had undertaken, of
commanding an Arctic exploratory expedition. In the middle of summer
many of his crew were attacked by scurvy. Some few weeks after his
departure from Archangel, at a time when pools of excellent
drinking-water are to be found on nearly every large piece of
drift-ice, and rapid torrents of melted snow empty themselves
everywhere along the coast into the sea, he complains of the
difficulty of procuring fresh water, &c. The expedition accordingly
was altogether fruitless.

[Illustration: FRIEDRICH BENJAMIN VON LÜTKE. Born in 1797 in St.
Petersburg. ]

Of much greater importance were Captain-lieutenant (afterwards
Admiral Count) LÜTKE's voyages to Novaya Zemlya in the summers of
1821, 1822, 1823, and 1824, voyages conducted with special skill and
scientific insight. The narrative of them form one of the richest
sources of our knowledge of this part of the Polar Sea. But as he
did not penetrate in any direction farther than his predecessors, an
account of these voyages does not enter into the plan of the
historical part of this work.

Among Russian journeys the following may be noticed:--

Those of the mate IVANOV in 1822-28, during which he surveyed the
coast between the Kara river and the Petchora by overland travelling
in Samoyed sleighs.

PACHTUSSOV'S voyages in 1832-35.[166] W. BRANDT, merchant, and
KLOKOV, chief of the civil service, at Archangel, sent out in 1832
an expedition with very comprehensive aims from that town, for the
purpose of re-establishing the sea-route to the Yenisej, of surveying
the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, and of walrus-hunting there.
Three vessels were employed, viz., a "carbasse" manned by ten men,
including the Commander-lieutenant in the corps of mates Pachtussov,
who in previous voyages with Ivanov had become well acquainted
with land and people along the coasts of the Polar Sea;[167]
the schooner _Yenisej_ under Lieutenat KROTOV with ten men;
and a hunting _lodja_ commanded by the hunting mate GWOSDAREV.
Pachtussov was to undertake the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, Krotov
to sail through Matotschkin Sound and across the Kara Sea to the
Yenisej, and Gwosdarev to carry on hunting in order to cover part of
the costs of the expedition.

Pachtussov could not penetrate into the Kara Sea, but wintered the first
time on South Novaya Zemlya in 70° 36' N.L. and 59°32' E.L. (Greenwich),
in an old house which lie found there, and which according to an
inscription on a cross in its neighbourhood had been built in 1759. This
ruinous house was repaired with driftwood, which was found in great
abundance in that region. A separate bath-house was built, and was
connected with the dwelling-house by a passage formed of empty barrels
and covered with canvas. Eleven days were spent in putting the old house
into such repair that it could be occupied. It was afterwards kept so
warm that the inmates could stay there in their shirt-sleeves without
freezing. The Commander, clear-headed and specially fit for his post as
he was, did not permit his crew to fall into habits of idleness, dirt,
and laziness, but kept them to regular work, bathing and change of linen
twice a week. Every second hour meteorological observations were taken.
During the whole winter the crew remained in good health, but in spring
(March) scurvy broke out, notwithstanding the precautions that were
taken, and two men died of it in May. Many times during winter the ice
broke up, and at a short distance from the land the Kara Sea was open as
far as the eye could reach. A herd of reindeer numbering about 500 head
were seen in the end of September; a number of foxes were taken in
traps, and two Polar hears were killed. Geese were seen for the first
time in spring on the 27th/15th of May.

Next summer Pachtussov rowed up along the east coast to 71° 38' N.L.
On the west bank of a river, called Savina, he found a very
good harbour. He found there the remains of a hut, with a cross
erected beside it, on which was the inscription "Savva Th----anov
9th June 1742," which he considered to belong to the time of Savva
Loschkin's voyage. After his return from this boat journey
Pachtussov went on board his vessel and sailed along the east coast
north of Matotschkin Sound from the 23rd/11th July to the 25th/13th
August without meeting with any obstacle from ice. During this
voyage he passed a very good harbour in 72° 26' N.L., in a
bay, called Lütke's Bay. Pachtussov then returned through
Matotschkin Sound to the Petchora. Even along the east coast of
North Novaya Zemlya the sea was open, but the stock of provisions,
intended at their departure from Archangel for fourteen months, was
now so low, that the gallant Polar explorer could not avail himself
of this opportunity of perhaps circumnavigating the whole of Novaya
Zemlya.

Of the two other vessels that sailed from Archangel at the same time
as Pachtussov's, the _lodja_ returned heavily laden with the spoils
of the chase, but on the other hand nothing was ever heard of the
_Yenisej_. A concern, not without justification, for its fate, and
the desire to acquire as good knowledge of the east coast of the
North Island as had been obtained of that of the South, gave
occasion to Pachtussov's second voyage.

For this the Government fitted out two vessels, a schooner and a
"carbasse," which were named after the two officers of the
_Yenisej_, Krotov and Kasakov. The command of the former was
undertaken by Pachtussov, and of the latter by the mate ZIVOLKA.
This time they wintered in 1834-35 on the south side of Matotschkin
Sound at the mouth of the river Tschirakina, in a house built for
the purpose, for which they used, besides materials brought with
them, the remains of three old huts, found in the neighbourhood, and
the wreck of Rossmuislov's vessel which still lay on the beach. The
house was a palace in comparison with that in which Pachtussov
wintered before. It consisted of two rooms, one 21 feet by 16 feet,
intended for the crew (fourteen men), the other 12 feet by 10 feet,
for the officers and surgeon, with a bath-house in addition.
Matotschkin Sound was frozen over for the first time on the 28/16th
November. The thermometer never sank below the freezing-point of
mercury, and the cold of winter could be easily borne, because the
crew wore the Samoyed dress. But the snowstorms were so severe, that
sometimes it was impossible for eight days at a time to leave the
house, which was so snowed up that the opening in the roof for smoke
had several times to be used as a door. The house had no true
chimney, but was built like a Lapp hut. Eleven of the bears, who
came in large numbers to the hut, were killed, one of them on the
roof and another in the porch. During winter the crew were kept in
constant employment in killing foxes and at other work. Their state
of health was also very good for the circumstances of the time. Only
two men died. In spring Matotschkin Sound and part of the east coast
of the North Island were surveyed by means of sledge journeys, after
which an attempt was made during summer to circumnavigate the North
Island, but without success. Lightning accompanied by heavy rain was
observed on the 24/12th June. On the 15th/3rd September they sailed
back to Archangel. Unfortunately soon after his arrival there
Pachtussov fell ill of nervous fever and died on the 19/7th
November, 1835. It was a great loss, for by his devotion to the task
he had undertaken, by judgment, courage, and endurance, he takes one
of the foremost places among the Polar explorers of all countries.
Besides, few of the older Arctic expeditions have brought home such
a series of valuable astronomical determinations of position,
geodetical measurements, meteorological and tidal observations, &c.,
as Pachtussov.[168]

In 1837 the famous naturalist K.E. VON BAER undertook a voyage to Novaya
Zemlya, accompanied by Lieutenant ZIVOLKA, LEHMANN the geologist, RÖDER
the draughtsman, and PHILIPPOV the conservator.[169] They visited
Matotschkin Schar, penetrated by boat to its eastern end and found the
Kara Sea open, landing afterwards at Besimannaja Bay, Nechvatova, and on
an island in Kostin Schar. The expedition thus nowhere penetrated so far
as its predecessors, but it is of importance as the first examination of
the natural history of the Polar Sea surrounding Novaya Zemlya carried
out by actual men of science. With all the respect we must entertain for
von Baer's great name as a scientific man, it cannot be denied that,
through his papers on the natural history of the island, grounded on a
cursory inspection, a number of erroneous ideas regarding the natural
conditions of the eastern Polar Sea obtained a footing in scientific
literature.

In order to complete the survey of the island the Russian Government
sent out in 1838 a new expedition under Lieutenants Zivolka and
MOISSEJEV. They wintered in 1838-39 in Melkaja Guba on the west
coast of Novaya Zemlya in 73° 57' N.L.; but on this occasion
Pachtussov's judgment and insight were wanting, and the wintering
was very unfortunate. Of the twenty-five men belonging to the
expedition most were attacked during winter by scurvy; nine died,
among them Zivolka himself. During spring, excursions for the
purpose of surveying the neighbouring coasts had to be broken off
because they had not brought snow-glasses with them--a thing that
Pachtussov did not neglect, being accustomed besides to blacken the
under eyelid as a protection against the blinding brightness of the
snow. By the expedition, however, considerable stretches of the west
coast of Novaya Zemlya were surveyed, and valuable contributions to
a knowledge of the climatic conditions of this region obtained.
These turned out to be less severe than had been expected. During
winter the thermometer never sank below -33°; in July there
were only two nights of frost, and on two occasions + 18° was
observed in the shade; in August there were only three hours of
frost. All this depends of course on the neighbourhood of warm
marine currents and of a sea open all the year round at a short
distance from the coast.

With this unfortunate and to all appearance ill-arranged expedition
the Russian Novaya Zemlya voyages ceased for a long time. For before
the beginning of the Norwegian hunting we have only two other
Russian voyages to notice in our sketch of the history of the North
East passage.

[Illustration: AUGUST KARLOVITZ ZIVOLKA. Born in 1810 at Warsaw, died
in 1839 on Novaya Zemlya. (After a pen-and-ink drawing communicated by
Herr Paul Daschkoff.) ]

The first of these owed its origin to the desire of the captain of a
Russian man-of-war, PAUL VON KRUSENSTERN, to undertake a voyage in
the Polar Sea in a schooner, the _Yermak_, which belonged to him and
which was for the time lying at the Petchora, in order to survey the
coasts lying to the eastward. He intended himself to undertake the
command, and to take with him as second in command his son PAUL VON
KRUSENSTERN. lieutenant in the Russian marine. The latter was sent
before to equip the _Yermak_, which he did with wonderful judgment
and skill, in the best way possible, in a region where at that time
nearly every requisite for the equipment of a vessel was wanting.
The elder Krusenstern was unable to reach the place of sailing in
time, on which account the command was given to the son.

[Illustration: PAUL VON KRUSENSTERN, JUNIOR. Born at Revel in 1834;
died at Dorpat in 1871. ]

He left the mouth of the Petchora on the 10th Sept/29th Aug, 1860. Three
days after he reached the Kara port, which was completely free of ice,
as was the sea to the eastward. But the late season of the year, the
defective equipment of the _Yermak_, and, it would appear, the wording
of the orders he had received, compelled him to turn after he had
penetrated some distance into the Kara Sea. On the 19/7th September
accordingly he was again at the Petchora, without having reached his
goal. The attempt to penetrate eastwards from this river was resumed at
the instance of MICHAEL SIDOROFF, afterwards so well known as the
restless promoter of sea-communication between Siberia and Europe. The
_Yermak_ was repaired, along with a decked Norwegian pilot-boat,
which was named the _Embrio_. The command was undertaken by P. von
Krusenstern, junior. He left the anchorage Kuya on the Petchora on the
13th/1st August. On the 26th/14th August, the two small vessels sailed
into Yugor Schar, after having been long detained during their course by
storms and head-winds. Some huts erected by hunters were seen on the
right shore of the sound, and on both sides of it Samoyed "chums"
(tents of reindeer skin) and reindeer. The inhabitants had climbed up
on the roofs and indicated their astonishment by gesticulations. Both
vessels anchored in the neighbourhood of Vaygats Island. But a couple of
hours afterwards large masses of ice drove with an altered current into
the harbour, forced the _Yermak_ from its anchor and carried the vessel
into the Kara Sea. It was only with great trouble that it was released
from the ice and anchored in the eastern mouth of Yugor Schar.

[Illustration: MICHAEL KONSTANTINOVITSCH SIDOROFF. Born in 1823 at
Archangel. ]

On the 27/15th von Krusenstern again weighed anchor, either to sail
to the eastward or to search for a more secure anchorage than that
which he had been compelled for the time to make use of. But the
wind was so light that he could not hold a course independent of the
currents. It was, therefore, necessary to moor the vessel to a large
ice-field, and with this the _Yermak_ during the following days
drifted farther and farther. Soon the vessel was completely enclosed
by the ice, and thus rendered unmanageable. The weather was often
fine, the thermometer showed +4°, a strong aerial reflection
elevated images of the pieces of ice at the horizon, and gave them
the most wonderful and beautiful forms. Everywhere there were upon
the ice fresh-water pools, some of which were of great extent and of
no inconsiderable depth. Thus, on the ice-field lying nearest the
vessel there were different "lakes," one of which was used for
drinking, another for filling the water-casks, a third to supply
washing-water to the crew, and a fourth for washing their clothes.

On the 3rd Sept./22nd Aug. the ice began to be pressed together by a
light W.S.W. wind. Convinced that the vessel would soon be nipped, the
men on board began to save the stock of provisions and the boats, by
placing them on the ice, but the pressure soon ceased. There fell a
heavy rain, which afterwards, when the wind changed to north-west,
passed into snow. On the 7th Sept./26th Aug. the coast of Yalmal was
sighted. A fathom-thick ice-floe shot under the vessel and caused it to
heel over to starboard. The following day there was a storm from the
S.S.W. with snow. The ice forcing itself forward shook the vessel
several times so violently that the crew rushed up to save the
provisions, &c., on the ice. They were now in the neighbourhood of 70°
N.L. and 65° E.L. (Greenwich), almost right off the mouth of the Kara
river. The crew worked the whole day with axes and iron bars hewing off
the sharp projecting corners of the ice-blocks that were pressed against
the vessel. On the 11th Sept./20 Aug. there was warm weather with rain.
The ice was in so violent motion that it was impossible to walk upon it.
On the afternoon of the same day the _Yermak_ sustained several violent
concussions, and the hull was lifted one foot. On the 13th/1st
September, a violent storm broke out, which drove the vessel to the
north-east. It was expected every moment that the vessel would be
nipped, and a tent was accordingly pitched on the ice, in order that
part of the provisions from the hold might be placed in it. Wood even
was carried to it. It was Russia's thousand-years' day, and it was
celebrated with a festive ball and merry songs, although they every
instant expected their vessel to be crushed by the masses of ice that
were pressed together by the fearful storm. On the 14th/2nd September,
the stem of the vessel was forced five feet above the water-line, and
the whole night a continual cracking of timbers was heard in the hull.
The water rose rapidly to a depth of two feet. Every man left the
vessel and removed to the ice, but soon after the immense ice-field on
which the tent was pitched went in pieces, while the leak in the vessel
closed, and the crew in consequence went on board again. On the 15th/3rd
September, the vessel was again pressed so, that the deck at times was
bent to the form of a vault. On the 19th/7th September, von Krusenstern
called the crew together that they might choose from their number three
persons to advise with the commander on the best means of making their
escape, and two days after the vessel was abandoned, after a meal at
which the crew were literally offered all the house afforded. They then
broke up for a journey to land, which was exceedingly difficult on
account of the unevenness of the ice. They were soon obliged to leave
the boat, which they had at first endeavoured to drag along with them
over the ice, and take the most indispensable of the provisions on their
own backs. On leaving the ship a sailor had secretly got possession of
so much brandy, that during the first day's march he had the opportunity
of drinking himself dead drunk. To carry him along was not possible, to
wait was not advisable. He was left therefore to sleep off the drink;
and in order that he might do so as soon as possible they took off his
clothes and left him lying upon the ice with only his shirt on. Next
day, however, he got up with his comrades after following their track in
the darkness the whole night. Open places were often met with, which the
travellers had to cross on pieces of drift-ice rowed forward by
boat-hooks. Once when the shipwrecked men were ferrying themselves over
upon a piece of ice which was already fully loaded, six walruses were
seen in the neighbourhood. They showed a disposition to accompany the
seafarers on the piece of ice, which in that case would certainly have
sunk, and it was only after a ball had been sent through the leader's
head that the animals gave up their plan for resting, which gave
evidence of a gregariousness as great as their want of acquaintance with
mankind. After Krusenstern and his companions had for several days in
succession drifted backwards and forwards on a piece of ice in the
neighbourhood of land, and traversed long stretches by jumping from one
piece of ice to another, they at last reached the shore on the 28/16th
September. In the immediate neighbourhood they found an encampment,
whose inhabitants (Samoyeds) gave the shipwrecked men a friendly
reception, and entertained them with the luxuries of the reindeer
herd--raw and cooked reindeer flesh, reindeer tongues, reindeer
marrow--raw fish and goose-fat. After the meal was finished the
exhausted wanderers lay down to sleep in the Samoyed tents on the soft
reindeer skins; "all sorrows and difficulties were forgotten; we felt a
boundless enjoyment, as if we had come to paradise." Thence they
travelled in reindeer sledges to Obdorsk, everywhere received in a
friendly and hospitable manner by the wild tribes on the way, although
the hospitality sometimes became troublesome; as for instance when an
Ostyak compelled von Krusenstern to drink tea six times a day, and six
cups each time, and offered him as a special luxury an extract of
tobacco in brandy.[170]

Krusenstern's adventurous journey across the Kara Sea is one of the
many proofs that a Polar navigator ought above everything to avoid
being beset. The very circumstance that the ice-field, in which he
became fixed in the neighbourhood of Yugor Schar, could drift across
to the east coast of the Kara Sea, shows that it was for the most
part open, and that a steamer or a good sailing-vessel that year,
and probably also the preceding, might very readily have reached the
mouth of the Ob or the Yenisej. The narrative of von Krusenstern's
journey is besides the first complete sketch we have of a passage
from west to east over the Kara Sea. Little idea could any one then
have that within a single decade a number of vessels should sail
free and unhindered along this route.

Soon after the two voyages I have described above, and before they
became generally known in the geographical literature of Western
Europe, a new era began in the navigation of the Kara Sea, which was
brought about by the Norwegian hunters being compelled to seek for
new fields of sport on and beyond Novaya Zemlya.

The history of the Spitzbergen hunting has not yet been written in a
satisfactory way, and is in many respects very obscure. It is
supposed that after the discovery of Spitzbergen in 1596 by Barents,
the hunting in the Polar Seas began during BENNET'S first voyage in
1603, and that the whale-fishing was introduced by JONAS POOLE in
1610. But already in the following year Poole, whose vessel was then
wrecked on the west coast of Spitzbergen, found in Horn Sound a ship
from Hull, to which he gave charge of saving his cargo, and two
years after the English were compelled, in order to keep foreigners
from the fishing field they wished to monopolise, to send out six
men-of-war, which found there eight Spanish, and a number of Dutch
and French vessels (_Purchas_, iii. pp. 462, 716, &c.). Even in our
days the accounts of new sources of wealth do not spread so speedily
as in this case, unless, along with the history of the discovery
which was written by Hakluyt, Purchas, De Veer, &c., there had been
an unknown history of discovery and the whale-fishing, of which it
may still be possible to collect some particulars from the archives
of San Sebastian, Dunkirk, Hull, and other ports.

However this may be, it is certain that the English and Dutch
North-east voyages gave origin to a whale-fishery in the sea round
Spitzbergen, which increased by many millions the national wealth of
these rich commercial states. The fishing went on at first
immediately along the coasts, from which, however, the whales
were soon driven, so that the whale-fishers had to seek new
fishing-grounds, first farther out to sea between Spitzbergen and
Greenland, then in Davis' Strait, and finally in the South Polar
Sea, or in the sea on both sides of Behring's Straits.

Spitzbergen, when the whale-fishing ceased in its neighbourhood, was
mostly abandoned, until the Russians began to settle there,
principally for the hunting of the mountain fox and the reindeer. Of
their hunting voyages we know very little, but that they had been
widely prosecuted is shown by the remains of their dwellings or huts
on nearly all the fjords of Spitzbergen.

[Illustration: NORWEGIAN HUNTING SLOOP. The _Proeven_,
employed by the Swedish Expedition to the Yenisej in 1875. ]

They seem to have often wintered, probably because the defective
build of their vessels only permitted them to sail to and from
Spitzbergen during the height of summer, and they could not thus
take part without wintering in the autumn hunting, during which the
fattest reindeer are got; nor could the thick and valuable fur of
the winter-fox be obtained without wintering.[171] But the hunting
voyages of the Russians to Spitzbergen have also long ceased. The
last voyage thither took place in 1851-52, and had a very
unfortunate issue for most of those who took part in it, twelve men
dying out of twenty. On the other hand, the Norwegian voyages to
Spitzbergen for the seal and walrus-hunting, begun in the end of
last century, still go on. Their history, too, is, even here in the
North, very incompletely known, at least to 1858, when the Swedish
scientific expeditions began regularly to visit those regions, and
to include in the narratives of their voyages more or less complete
accounts of the Norwegian hunting, an example that has since been
followed, though by no means very completely or systematically, by
the editors of Norwegian and foreign journals, in the first place by
Petermann's _Mittheilungen_.[172]

Between 1860 and 1870 the game (walrus, seal, bear, and reindeer)
began to diminish in such a degree that the hunters were compelled
to seek for themselves new hunting-grounds. They turned to the north
and east, the less accessible parts of Spitzbergen, afterwards still
farther eastwards towards Novaya Zemlya, and beyond this island to
the Kara Sea, and they penetrated farther than all their
predecessors. In the history of the North-east Passage therefore
some pages must always be devoted to the bold voyages to Novaya
Zemlya of these small hunting sloops, provisioned only for the
summer.

[Illustration: ELLING CARLSEN. Born at Tromsoe in 1819. ]

The Norwegian hunter who first visited Novaya Zemlya was ELLING
CARLSEN, afterwards known as a member of the Austrian Polar
expedition. In 1868 he sailed in a sloop from Hammerfest on a
hunting voyage eastward, forced his way into the Kara Sea through
the Kara Port, but soon returned through Yugor Schar, and then
sailed northwards as far as Cape Nassau. Induced by the abundance of
game, he returned next year to the same regions, and then succeeded
in penetrating the Kara Sea as far as the neighbourhood of Beli
Ostrov, whence he returned to Norway through Matotschkin Schar.
Carlsen's lead was immediately followed by several Norwegian
hunters, one of whom, EDWARD JOHANNESEN, made a very remarkable
voyage, of which I will here give a brief account.

[Illustration: EDWARD HOLM JOHANNESEN. Born in 1844, at Balsfjord
Parsonage. ]

Johannesen anchored on the 31st May, 1869, at Meschduschar Island,
without having seen any drift-ice in the course of his voyage. He
then sailed up along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in nearly open
water past Matotschkin Sound to Cape Nassau, which was reached on
the 19th June. Hence he returned, following the coast toward the
south, until, on the 29th June, he sailed through the Kara Port into
the Kara Sea. This was passed in very open water, and after coming
to its eastern side he followed the coast of Yalmal towards the
north to Beli Ostrov. This island was reached on the 7th August, and
from it he steered south along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya to
the Kara Port, through which he returned to Norway.[173]

The same year, the English sportsman, Mr. JOHN PALLISER[174] sailed
across the Kara Sea, through Matotschkin Schar to Beli Ostrov. He
returned through Yugor Schar with abundance of booty[175] from the
hunting grounds where formerly the walruses tumbled undisturbed
among the drift-ice, and where the white bear has not yet met his
superior.[176]

These voyages are amongst the most remarkable that the history of
Arctic navigation can show. They at once overturned all the theories
which, on the ground of an often superficial study of preceding
unsuccessful voyages, had been set up regarding the state of the ice
east of Novaya Zemlya, and they thus form the starting-point of a
new era in the history of the North-east Passage.

After his return to Norway Johannesen sent to the Academy of
Sciences in Stockholm a paper on his voyage in 1869, and on his
hydrographical observations in the Kara Sea, for which he received a
silver medal. This I was commissioned to send him, and in the
correspondence which took place regarding it I on one occasion said
in jest that a circumnavigation of Novaya Zemlya would certainly
entitle him to a gold medal from the same famous scientific
institution that had given him the silver medal. I myself travelled
the following summer, in 1870, to Greenland, and returned thence
late in autumn. I then had the pleasure of receiving from Captain
Johannesen a new paper, afterwards inserted in the _Öfcersigt_, of
the transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the year 1871,
p. 157, "Hydro-grafiske Iakttagelser under en Fangsttour 1870 rundt
om Novaja Zemlja." Johannesen now as on the first occasion sailed
backwards and forwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, then
through the Kara Port, which was passed on the 12th July. He then
followed the east coast of Vaygats to Mestni Island, where he came
in contact with Samoyeds, in connection with which he makes the
remark, certainly quite unexpected by philologists, that in the
language of the Samoyeds "certain Norwegian words were recognised."
Their exterior was not at all attractive. They had flat noses, their
eyes were dreadfully oblique, and many had also oblique mouths. The
men received the foreigners drawn up in a row, with the women in the
second rank. All were very friendly. On the 11th August he was on
the coast of Yalmal in 71° 48' N.L., whence he sailed over to
Novaya Zemlya in order to take on board wood and water. He anchored
in the neighbourhood of Udde Bay in 73° 48' N.L., and saw
there twenty wild reindeer. Then he sailed again over the Kara Sea
to Yalmal.

During these cruisings in the Kara Sea the summer had passed.
Johannesen's vessel was now full, but notwithstanding this he
determined, at a season of the year when the walrus-hunters commonly
return to Norway, to see whether the offered prize could not be won
into the bargain. The course was shaped first to the north-east,
then westward to the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was reached
on the 3rd September. The whole sea here was open, which Johannesen,
on the ground of finding Norwegian fishing-net floats among the
driftwood, attributed to the action of the Gulf Stream. Hence he
returned to Norway, after having completed a voyage which some years
before all geographical authorities would have considered an
impossibility. I need scarcely mention that the Academy in Stockholm
redeemed the promise which one of its members had given without the
necessary authority. Johannesen was then twenty-six years old. Son
of a skilful hunter, he had from his childhood taken part in Arctic
voyages, and thus grown up in the employment to which he had devoted
himself.

The same year several other walrus-hunters also made remarkable
voyages in the Kara Sea. Captain E.A. ULVE first sailed along the
west coast of Novaya Zemlya to 76° 47' N.L., then back to
Matotschkin Schar, through which he passed on the 7th and 8th August
into the Kara Sea, which was completely free of ice, with the
exception of some few very scattered pieces. After sailing backwards
and forwards in different directions in the Kara Sea, he returned
through the Kara Port on the 24th August. Captain F.E. MACK made a
similar voyage. He sailed from the 28th June to the 8th July
northwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was free of
ice between the Petchora and the Admiralty peninsula, where fast ice
was found, and fourteen sailing vessels and two steamers were now
assembled. On the 8th and 9th June thunder was heard here. From the
Admiralty peninsula Mack sailed again, first to the south, and then,
on the 18th July, through Matotschkin Sound into the Kara Sea, which
was nearly free of ice. Captain P. QUALE, again, and A.O.
NEDREVAAG, sailing master, penetrated through Yugor Sound into the
Kara Sea, and sailed there to 75° 22' N.L., and 74° 35'
E.L. (Greenwich).[177]

Also in 1871 a number of walrus-hunters made remarkable voyages in
the Kara Sea. Of these, however, only one, Mack, in the schooner
_Pole Star_, penetrated eastwards farther than all his predecessors.
On the 14th June he sailed into the Kara Sea through the Kara Port,
but found the sea still covered with continuous fast ice, from 1.8
to 2 metres in thickness. He therefore turned and sailed northwards
along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya to the Gulf Stream Islands
(76° 10' N.L.), where he remained till the 3rd of August. The
temperature of the air rose here to +10.5°. The name, which
the Norwegian walrus-hunters have given these islands, owes its
origin to the large number of objects from southern seas which the
Gulf Stream carries with it thither, as floats from the Norwegian
fisheries, with their owner's marks frequently recognisable by the
walrus-hunters--beans of _Entada gigalobium_ from the West Indies,
pumice-stone from Iceland, fragments of wrecked vessels, &c. On the
3rd of August Mack passed the northernmost promontory of Novaya
Zemlya. Hence he sailed into the Kara Sea, where at first he fell
in with ice. Farther on, however, the ice disappeared completely,
and Mack on the 12th of September reached 75° 25' N.L. and 82°
30' E.L. (Greenwich) according to Petermann, but 81° 11' Long,
according to the _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_. He returned through Yugor
Schar, which was passed on the 26th September.[178] The same year E.
Johannesen, after long endeavouring without success to make his way
into the Kara Sea through the southern strait, sailed northwards
along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and did not leave Cape Nassau
until the 15th October.

From the same year too Petermann also publishes very remarkable
journals of the Norwegian walrus-hunting captains, S. TOBIESEN, H.
CH. JOHANNESEN, J.N. ISAKSEN, SÖREN JOHANNESEN, DOERMA, SIMONSEN,
and E. CARLSEN; but as none of these gallant seamen that year
penetrated to the north or east beyond the points which their
predecessors had reached, I may be allowed with regard to their
voyages to refer to _Mittheilungen_ for 1872 (pp. 386-391 and 395),
also to the maps which are inserted in the same volume of that
journal (pl. 19 and 20), and which are grounded on the working out
by Prof. H. MOHN, of Christiania, of his countrymen's observations.
With respect to Captain E. Carlsen's voyage, however, it may be
stated, that in the course of it a discovery was made, which has
been represented as that of an Arctic Pompeii, remarkably well
protected against the depredation of the tooth of Time, not indeed
by lava and volcanic ashes, but by ice and snow. For when Carlsen on
the 9th September landed on the north-east coast of Novaya Zemlya in
76° 7' N.L., he found there a house, 10 metres long and 6
metres wide, with the roof fallen in, long since abandoned and
filled with gravel and ice. From this frozen gravel were dug up a
large number of household articles, books, boxes, &c., which showed
that they were relics of Barents' winter dwelling, which now, almost
three hundred years after the place had been abandoned, came to the
light of day, so well preserved that they gave a lively idea of the
way in which the European passed his first winter in the true Polar
regions. When Carlsen had erected a cairn in which he placed a tin
canister containing an account of the discovery, he took on board
the most important of the articles which he had found and returned
to Norway. There he sold them at first for 10,800 crowns to an
Englishman, Mr. Ellis C. Lister Kay, who afterwards made them over
for the price he had paid for them to the Dutch Government. They are
now to be found arranged at the Marine Department at the Hague in a
model room, which is an exact reproduction of the interior of
Barents' house on Novaya Zemlya.[179]

After Carlsen, Barents' winter haven was visited in the year 1875 by
the Norwegian walrus-hunter, M. GUNDERSEN, who among other things
found there a broken chest containing two maps and a Dutch
translation of the narrative of Pet's and Jackman's voyages, and in
the year 1876 by Mr. CHARLES GARDINER, who through more systematic
excavations succeeded in collecting a considerable additional number
of remarkable things, among which were the ink-horn and the pens
which the Polar travellers had used nearly three centuries ago, and
a powder-horn, containing a short account, signed by Heemskerk and
Barents, of the most important incidents of the expedition.
Gundersen's _find_ is still, as far as I know, at Hammerfest;
Gardiner's has been handed over to the Dutch Government to be
preserved along with the other Barents relics at the Hague.

In 1872 the state of the ice both north of Spitzbergen and round
Novaya Zemlya was exceedingly unfavourable,[180] and several of the
scientific expeditions and hunting vessels, which that year visited
the Arctic Ocean, there underwent severe calamities and misfortunes.
Five of the best hunting vessels from Tromsoe were lost in the ice;
the Swedish expedition, which that year started for the north, could
not, as was intended, erect its winter dwelling on the Seven
Islands, but was compelled to winter at the more southerly Mussel
Bay; and the Austrian expedition under the leadership of Payer and
Weyprecht was beset by ice a few hours after its campaign had
commenced in earnest. It is well known how this carefully equipped
expedition afterwards for two winters in succession drifted about in
the Polar Sea, until it finally came to a standstill at a previously
unknown land lying north of Novaya Zemlya, which was named after the
Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef. These two expeditions, however, did
not touch the territory of the _Vega's_ voyage, on which account I
cannot here take any further notice of them.[181] But the same year
a wintering took place on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, of which
I consider that I ought to give a somewhat more detailed account,
both because in the course of it one of the most gallant Polar
voyagers of Norway met his fate, and because it shows us various
new, hitherto untouched sides of winter life in the High North.

SIVERT TOBIESEN was one of the oldest and boldest of the Norwegian
walrus-hunting skippers; he had with life and soul devoted himself
to his calling, and in it was exposed to many dangers and
difficulties, which he knew how to escape through courage and skill.
In 1864 he had sailed round the northeastern part of North-east
Land, and had been very successful in hunting; but as he was about
to return home, his vessel was beset by ice near the southern
entrance to Hinloopen Strait, where the same fate also overtook two
other hunting sloops, one of them commanded by the old hunting
skipper MATTILAS, who in the winter of 1872-73 died in a tent at
Grey Hook, the other by the skipper J. ÁSTROM. They were compelled
to save themselves in boats, in which they rowed through Hinloopen
Strait to the mouth of Ice Fjord, where the shipwrecked crews were
met and saved by the Swedish expedition of 1864. He passed the
winter of 1865-66 happily, in a house built for the purpose on Bear
Island, and communicated to the Swedish Academy of Sciences a series
of valuable meteorological observations, made during the
wintering.[182] After 1868 he had made several successful voyages to
Novaya Zemlya, some of which were also remarkable from a
geographical point of view, and in 1872 he was also on a hunting
expedition to the same regions.

[Illustration: SIVERT KRISTIAN TOBIESEN. Born at Tromsoe in 1821,
died on Novaya Zemlya in 1873. ]

As he could not enter the Kara Sea, he sailed up along the west
coast, where in the middle of September he was beset in the
neighbourhood of the Cross Islands. Hence seven of the crew
travelled south in a boat to seek for a vessel, but Tobiesen
himself, his son and two men, remained on board. Their stock of
provisions consisted of only a small barrel of bread, a sack of
corners and fragments of ship biscuit, a small quantity of coffee,
tea, sugar, syrup, groats, salt meat, salt fish, a few pounds of
pork, a couple of tin canisters of preserved vegetables, a little
bad butter, &c. There was abundance of wood on board and on the
land. Notwithstanding the defective equipment they went on bravely
and hopefully with the preparations for wintering, gathered
drift-wood in heaps on the beach, threw a tent of sails over the
vessel, threw up snow about its sides, covered the deck with, the
hides of the seals and walruses that had been captured during
summer, did what could be done to bring about good ventilation on
board, &c. A large number of bears came to the winter station at the
commencement of the wintering, affording an abundant supply of fresh
bears' flesh. So long as this lasted, the health of the party was
good, but when it came to an end at the new year, their food for
three weeks consisted mainly of ill-smelling salt bears' flesh.
Tobiesen and one of the men were now taken ill. The cold sank to
-39-1/2° C.[183] On the 29th April, 1873, Tobiesen died of
scurvy. In the month of May his son was also attacked, and died on
the 5th July. The two men also suffered from scurvy, but recovered.
They rowed south in the month of August, and were rescued by a
Russian hunting-vessel.

[Illustration: TOBIESEN'S WINTER HOUSE ON BEAR ISLAND. (After a sketch
by the Author.) ]

The seven men, the harpooner Henrik Nilsen, Ole Andreas Olsen, Axel
Henriksen, Amandus Hansen, Nils Andreas Foxen, Johan Andersson and
Lars Larsen, who rowed away in autumn, had an exceedingly remarkable
fate. When they left the vessel they could only take with them
fourteen ship biscuits, six boxes of lucifers, two guns, with
ammunition, a spy-glass, a coffeepot and an iron pot, but no winter
clothes to protect them from the cold. At first, in order to get to
open water, they had to drag the boat about seven kilometres over
the ice. They then steered southwards along the land. The journey
was made under circumstances of great difficulty and privation. The
darkness and cold increased, as did the storm, and what was worst of
all their stock of provisions was very soon consumed. On the second
day, however, they wore fortunate enough to shoot a bear; afterwards
they also succeeded in killing a pair of seals. Finally, after
having partly rowed and partly sailed about three weeks (they had no
almanac with them), and travelled nearly 400 kilometres, they came
to two small hunting or store houses, which the Russians had built
on the north side of Gooseland. In order to have at least a roof
over their heads the exhausted men settled there, though in the
house they found neither food, clothes, nor hunting implements. They
were all much enfeebled by hunger, thirst, cold, and the long boat
journey; their feet were swollen and partly frost-bitten.

They remained in the house three weeks, and during that time shot a
seal, two white foxes, and four reindeer, with which they kept in
their lives; but as it appeared that there were no more reindeer to
be had, and there were no more opportunities of shooting seals or
reindeer, they determined to leave the house and endeavour to get to
Vaygats Island. When they broke up, Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik
Nilsen took the guns and ammunition, while the other five commenced
the journey with some small sledges they had found at the house, on
which they loaded what they had of clothes and other articles. The
boat was left behind. Soon after they left the house Ole Andreas
Olsen and Henrik Nilsen were separated in a snowstorm from the
others who drew the sledges. The latter now agreed to determine by
lot whether they should return to the house or continue their
journey, and when the lot fell for the latter they allowed it to
settle the matter, and so went south.[184]

Their position was now desperate in the extreme. When they left the
house they had about half a pound of reindeer flesh and a little
blubber remaining. The weather was dreadful; they were badly
clothed, and they wanted water. In consequence they could make only
very short days' marches. At night they buried themselves in the
snow, and while the rest slept, one man kept constant watch, to
prevent the others from being snowed up and to keep the bears at a
distance. They all held out till the sixth night. Then Amandus
Hansen died. The rest were compelled to leave him in the snow and
continue their journey as well as they could, but they had by
degrees become so weak and exhausted that, after having traversed
probably about 100 kilometres, for the most part along the coast,
they had to leave even the sledges and the most of what they had
with them. The seventh or eighth day they caught sight of a little
pile of fuel, and the track of a sledge in the snow. By following
this track for about ten kilometres they found a small house,
inhabited by Samoyeds, who immediately gave them a friendly
reception, and entertained them in the most hospitable way. In
particular they showed much kindness to Nils Andreas Foxen, whose
toes were frost-bitten, and who was in other respects much
enfeebled.

These Samoyeds, three men, three women, and a boy, spoke Russian.
They had settled for the winter on the south part of Gooseland to
shoot the seal and the walrus. They had with them a large barge,
besides some small Samoyed boats, and were comparatively well
provided with reindeer flesh, meal, tea, sugar, &c. Their guns were
old flint-lock fowling-pieces, but they were good shots. With these
Samoyeds the four shipwrecked men remained the whole winter, and
were tolerably well off. When the weather permitted they assisted
the Samoyeds in capturing seals, and when the weather was bad they
passed the time as well as they could, the Samoyeds generally
employing themselves in playing cards or draughts. In order to avoid
scurvy the Samoyeds often took exercise in the open air, and ate
reindeer flesh, partly cooked and partly raw, and drank the blood.
They lived in the house until March was well advanced, when, for
want of fuel, they were obliged to hew it down. Instead they removed
into a tent of reindeer skin. These Samoyeds appear to have been
Christians in name, though they must have had strange ideas of their
new God. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it,
they shot at the sun, because they believed that God was angry with
them. They lived in a sort of marriage, but if the man became
unfriendly to the woman, or tired of her, he could take another;
they had no clocks, but, notwithstanding, had a tolerably good idea
of time by the help of the stars and the sun; instead of an almanac
they used a piece of wood, in which for every day they cut a notch.
Although they sometimes quarrelled with and threatened one another,
they were, however, on the whole friendly, and reasonable, and
showed much kindness to the four shipwrecked men, whom they provided
with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in
abundance, according to their circumstances, so that they did not
suffer any want.

Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen had, when they were separated in
the snowstorm from the sledge party, half a pound of flesh and their
guns, and nothing more. They did not succeed in finding any game,
and though they were not very far from the house, they required
three days and a half to get back to it. In the meantime, also,
these two comrades in misfortune had been separated. Henrik Nilsen
found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces
of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in
desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was
so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not
crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow
and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw
hides of reindeer he had previously shot. After having lain a while
in the boat he crept up to the house, where he found Henrik sleeping
by the fire, which was not yet quite extinguished. The following day
they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the
house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household
furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting
any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by
boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the
seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the
Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before
Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their lucifers were
now done, but they lighted a fire by loading their guns with a
mixture of which gunpowder formed a part, and firing into old ropes,
left behind by the Russians, which they picked asunder and dried.
One of the Russian huts they tore down and used as fuel. They had
neither axe nor saw, but they split up the fuel by means of a piece
of iron, which they took from the keel of the boat, and of which
they made, by hammering with stones, a sort of knife. Of some nails,
which they also took from the boat, they likewise forged needles by
means of stones; they used reindeer sinews for thread, and of the
hides they sewed clothes for themselves. They lived in the hut until
some time in April. During this time they shot eleven reindeer and a
bear, so that they did not actually suffer hunger; but in the middle
of April they had powder remaining for only three shots, and they
now saw the impossibility of supporting themselves longer at that
place, wherefore they determined to go farther south, in order, if
possible, to reach Vaygats Island. They went by land along the
sea-shore, leaving the boat behind. After the lapse of some days
they came to the same Samoyeds with whom the other four of the crew
were, and they now remained till the middle of June with the
Samoyeds, who gave them the same hospitable treatment as their
companions in misfortune. When at the time specified it was
determined to fetch the boat from the Russian hut, in order that
they might make their way southwards, Johan Andersson, a Swede by
birth, declared that he wished to remain with the Samoyeds, and was
not willing to accompany the other five on their homeward journey.

The latter now dragged the boat for two days over the ice but when it
became too heavy they had to cut it through the middle and leave a half
behind. Of a large sealskin, which they got from the Samoyeds, they made
a stern to the other half, which they continued to drag over the ice for
three days, until they came to open water. Then they rowed in the
truncated boat ten days, until they reached a fast ice-border at the
Vaygats Island, where they again fell in with Samoyeds. Even by these,
who could speak neither Russian nor Quaen, and by whom they could with
difficulty make themselves understood, they were well received. They
remained there eight days and got good entertainment. These Samoyeds had
tame reindeer, with which they sent the shipwrecked men on their way
southwards, till they fell in with a vessel, with which four returned to
Norway. Lars Larsen now did not wish to go home, preferring to remain
with the Samoyed family which he had last met with. Samoyed life,
however, must not be so pleasant after all, for in a year or two both
the men who had remained among the Samoyeds returned home. As a reward
for the hospitality which the shipwrecked walrus-hunters had received
from the Samoyeds on Gooseland, the Norwegian Government presented them
with a number of gifts, consisting of clothes, pearls, breechloaders,
with ammunition, &c., which were handed over to them with festive
speeches and toasts on the 17th July, 1880. During the entertainment
which took place on this occasion on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, toasts
were drunk in champagne, and it is said that this liquor was very much
relished by the Samoyeds.[185]

As little as Tobiesen could any other walrus-hunter make his way,
either in 1872 or 1873, into the Kara Sea, the entrances of which
were during these summers blocked by a compact belt of ice, which
extended along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island to
the mainland. In the belief of a large number of experienced
walrus-hunters, with whom I have conversed on the subject, this belt
of ice was only some few nautical miles broad, and it is therefore
probable that even in those years there would have been no obstacle
to prevent a passage eastwards by this route in autumn.

In 1874, on the contrary, the state of the ice became very
favourable, and many walrus-hunters again as formerly sailed in all
directions across the Kara Sea, which this year was also visited by
an Englishman, Captain J. WIGGINS. None of them, however, penetrated
farther to the east or north than Johannesen, Carlsen, Mack, and
others had done during the years 1869-70.

It was not until the following year that the North-east voyages took
a step forward, important both in a purely geographical as well as a
practical point of view, when I succeeded in a walrus-hunting sloop,
the _Proeven_, commanded by the walrus-hunting Captain Isaksen, in
sailing through Yugor Straits, which were passed on 2nd August, and
over the nearly ice-free Kara Sea as far as to the mouth of the
Yenisej. The _Proeven_ anchored there on the 15th August 1875, in,
or more correctly immediately off, the same splendid haven where the
_Vega_ expedition lay at anchor from the 6th to the 10th August,
1878. Hence I sailed under various difficulties along with Dr.
Stuxberg and Dr. Lundström and three men in a Nordland boat, up the
river to Saostrovskoj, where we fell in with a steamer, in which we
afterwards travelled to Yenisejsk. On leaving Port Dickson I handed
over the command to Dr. Kjellman, who along with Dr. Thëel returned
by sea to Europe across the Kara Sea and through Matotschkin Schar,
which was passed during the return voyage on the 4th to the 11th
September.

By this voyage of 1875 I was the first who succeeded in penetrating
from the Atlantic Ocean in a vessel to the mouths of the great
Siberian rivers. One of the objects which the old North-east
voyagers had aimed at was thus at last accomplished, and that in a
way that promised to be of immense practical importance for the
whole of Siberia. The voyage was also regarded in that light by
leading men in the great empire of the East, and our return journey
from Yenisejsk by Krasnojarsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg,
Nischni-Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg, became therefore a
journey from _fête_ to _fête_. But a number of voices were
simultaneously raised, which asserted that the success of the
_Proeven_ depended on an accidental combination of fortunate
circumstances, which would not soon occur again. In order to show
that this was not the case, and that I might myself bring the first
goods by sea to Siberia, I undertook my second voyage to the Yenisej
in 1876, in which I penetrated with the steamer _Ymer_, not only to
the mouth of the river, but also up the river to the neighbourhood
of Yakovieva in 71° N.L. Hence I returned the same year by sea
to Europe.[186] In the gulf of Yenisej a large island was
discovered, which I named after Mr. Alexander Sibiriakoff, who
defrayed the principal expenses of the expedition. Before starting
on this voyage, I visited the Philadelphia Exhibition, and it may
perhaps deserve to be mentioned, that leaving New York on the 1st
July by one of the ordinary steamers, and going on board my own
vessel in Norway, I reached the mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th
August, that is to say, in forty-six days.

The same year Captain Wiggins also undertook a voyage to the
Yenisej, in which he penetrated with a steamer up the river beyond
the labyrinth of islands lying between 70° and 71° N.L.
The vessel wintered there, but was lost the following spring at the
breaking up of the ice.[187]

The voyages of the _Proeven_ and the _Ymer_ led to several purely
commercial voyages to the Yenisej and the Ob, of which however I can
here with the greatest brevity mention only the following:

[Illustration: JOSEPH WIGGINS ]

The Swedish steamer _Fraser_, commanded by the German Captain
DALLMANN, after having been fitted out at Gothenburg on
Sibiriakoff's account, sailed in 1877 with a cargo from Bremen to
the Yenisej and back. The vessel left Hammerfest on the 9th August,
arrived at Goltschicha on the 21st August, commenced the return
voyage on the 14th September, and on the 24th of the same month was
back at Hammerfest.

The steamer _Louise_ commanded by Captain DAHL, with a cargo of
iron, olive oil, and sugar, the same year made the first voyage from
England to Tobolsk, starting from Hull on the 18th July and arriving
at Tobolsk on the 20th September.[188]

Captain SCHWANENBERG sailed in a half-decked sloop, the _Utrennaja
Saria_, from the Yenisej to Europe. To what has been already said of
this voyage, I may here add a few words more.

[Illustration: DAVID IVANOVITSCH SCHWANENBERG. Born in Courland in
1831. ]

During the inundation in the spring of 1877, which compelled the
mate Nummelin to betake himself for eight days to the roof of the
fragile dwelling in which he had passed the winter, the
Yenisejsk-built vessel, the _Aurora_ (or _Sewernoe Sianie_) was
lost. Schwanenberg, who soon afterwards came to the neighbourhood,
succeeded in purchasing from an Englishman, Mr. SEEBOHM, another
little vessel, which was also built at Yenisejsk by Mr. Boiling for
the purpose of transporting thither the goods which I had carried in
the _Ymer_ to Korepovskoj, a _simovie_ on the bank of the Yenisej in
71° 19' N.L. The goods however had been taken up the river by
a steamer, on which account the vessel was sold by Boiling to Mr.
Seebohm, who made an excursion in it to the lower courses of the
Yenisej for ornithological researches. He named the vessel the
_Ibis_. When Mr. Seebohm no longer required it, there was at first a
proposal that it should be taken over by Captain Wiggins, who, as
has been already stated, had the year before come to the Yenisej
with a small steamer, which wintered at the islands in the river,
and had now stranded during the breaking up of the ice. He wished to
carry his men on the _Ibis_ either home or to the Ob, but the
English seamen declared that they would not for all the world's
honour and riches sail in that vessel. Schwanenberg had thus an
opportunity of purchasing the vessel, whose name he altered to the
_Utrennaja Saria_ (the _Dawn_), and to the surprise of all
experienced seamen he actually made a successful passage to Norway.
The vessel was then towed along the coast to Gothenburg, and through
the Göta Canal to Stockholm, and finally crossed the Baltic to St.
Petersburg.

On the 13th August Schwanenberg hoisted the Russian flag on his
little vessel. During his outward passage he met, in the mouth of
the Yenisej, Sibiriakoff's steamer the _Fraser_, Captain Dallmann,
who in vain endeavoured to dissuade him from prosecuting the
adventurous voyage. He anchored at Beli Ostrov on the 24th August,
passed the Kara Port on the 30th August, and reached Vardoe on the
11th September. The _Utrennaja Saria_ arrived at Christiania on the
31st October, at Gothenburg on the 15th November, passed Motala on
the 20th, reached Stockholm on the 23rd November and St. Petersburg
on the 3rd December. Everywhere in Scandinavia the gallant seamen
met with the heartiest reception. Their vessel was the first that
sailed from the town of Yenisejsk to Europe, and is still, when this
is being written, the only one.

[Illustration: GUSTAF ADOLF NUMMELIN. Born at Viborg in 1853. ]

The _Dawn_ is 56 feet long, 14 feet beam, and draws 6 feet of water.
Aft there is a little cabin in which there is scant space for three
men. Cooking is done in the fore. The cargo consisted of a small
quantity of graphite, fish, furs, and other samples of the products
of Siberia.

The vessel was manned by Captain Schwanenberg, the mates Nummelin
and Meyenwaldt, and two exiled criminals, who in this unexpected way
returned to their native country. I take it for granted that by the
rare nautical exploit they took part in, they there won forgiveness
for former offences.

[Illustration: THE SLOOP UTRENNAJA SARIA. ]


[Footnote 159: Compare: "The names of the places that the Russes
sayle by, from Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey" (_Purchas_, III. p.
539): "The voyage of Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his
wintering there with Master William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson,
Anno 1611" (_loc. cit._ p. 541): "Extracts taken out of two letters
of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master Hakluyt, Prebend of
Westminster" (_loc. cit._ p. 546): "Other obseruations of the sayd
William Pursglove" (_loc. cit._ p. 550). The last paper contains
good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjäsina, Chatanga,
and Lena. ]

[Footnote 160: The stringent regulations regarding fasting of the
Russians, especially the Old Believers, if they be literally
observed, form an insuperable obstacle to the colonisation of
high-northern regions, in which, to avoid scurvy, man requires an
abundant supply of fresh flesh. Thus, undoubtedly, religious
prejudices against certain kinds of food caused the failure of the
colony of Old Believers which was founded in 1767 on Kolgujev
Island, in order that its members might undisturbed use their old
church books and cross themselves in the way they considered most
proper. The same cause also perhaps conduced to the failure of the
attempts which are said to have been made after the destruction of
Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible in 1570 by fugitives from that town to
found a colony on Novaya Zemlya (_Historische Nachrichten von den
Samojeden und den Lappländern_, Riga und Mietau, 1769, p. 28). This
book was first printed in French at Königsberg in 1762. The author
was Klingstedt, a Swede in the Russian service, who long lived at
Archangel. ]

[Footnote 161: The statement is incredible, and probably originated
in some mistake. To form such a heap of walruses at least 50,000
animals would have been required, and it is certain that fifteen men
could not have killed so many. If we assume that in the statement of
the length and breadth, feet ought to stand in place of fathoms, we
get the still excessive number of 1,500 to 3,000 killed animals.
Probably instead of 90 we should have 9, in which case the heap
would correspond to about 500 walruses and seals killed. The walrus
tusks collected weighed 40 pood, which again indicates the capture
of 150 to 200 animals. ]

[Footnote 162: _Witsen_, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty
soldiers with their wives and children were removed in 1648 to
Pustosersk, and that the vojvode there had so large an income that
in three or four years he could accumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles
(_Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden_, &c., p. 53). ]

[Footnote 163: According to Lütke, p. 70. Hamel, _Tradescant d.
ältere_, gives the date 1742-44. ]

[Footnote 164: Thus on the first map in an atlas published in 1737
by the St. Petersburg Academy, Novaya Zemlya is delineated as a
peninsula projecting from Taimur Land north of the Pjäsina. ]

[Footnote 165: Properly "Mate, with the rank of Lieutenant," from
which we may conclude that Rossmuislov wanted the usual education of
an officer. ]

[Footnote 166: These remarkable voyages were described for the first
time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer
in _Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St.
Petersburg_, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not
appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's
voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea
exploration has to show. ]

[Footnote 167: The carbasse was named, like the vessels of Lasarev
and Lütke, the _Novaya Zemlya_. It was forty-two feet long, fourteen
feet beam, and six feet deep, decked fore and aft, and with the open
space between protected by canvas from breakers. ]

[Footnote 168: The details of Pachtussov's voyages are taken partly
from von Baer's work already quoted, partly from Carl Svenske,
_Novaya Zemlya_, &c., St. Petersburg, 1866 (in Russian, published at
the expense of M.K. Sidoroff), and J. Spörer, _Nowaja Semlä in
geographischer, naturhistorischer und volkswirthschaftlicher
Beziehung, nach den Quellen bearbsitet_. Ergänz-Heft. No. 21 zu
Peterm. _Geogr. Mittheilungen_, Gotha, 1867. ]

[Footnote 169: _Bulletin scientifique publié par l'Académie Imp. de
St. Petersburg_, t. ii. (1837), p. 315; iii. (1838), p. 96, and
other places. ]

[Footnote 170: Paul von Krusenstern, _Skizzen aus sienem
Seemannsleben. Seinen Freunden gewidmet_. Hirschberg in Silesia,
without date. ]

[Footnote 171: Information regarding the mode of life of the Russian
hunters on the coasts of Spitzbergen is to be found in P.A. le Roy,
_Relation des avantures arrivées à quatre matelots Russes, &c._
1766; Tschitschagov's _Reise nach dem Eismeer_, St. Petersburg,
1793; John Bacstrom, _Account of a voyage to Spitzbergen_, 1780,
London, 1808 (as stated; I have not seen this work); B.M. Keilhau,
_Reise i Öst og Vest Finmarken, samt til Beeren-Eiland og
Spetsbergen i Aarene 1827 og 1828_, Christiania, 1831; A. Erman,
_Archiv für wissenschastliche Kunde von Russland_, Part 13 (1854),
p. 260; K. Chydenius, _Svenska expeditionen till Spetsbergen 1861_
(p. 435); Dunér and Nordenskiöld, _Svenska Expeditioner till
Spetsbergen och Jan Mayen 1863 och 1864_ (p. 101). ]

[Footnote 172: Before 1858 there is to be found in Petermann's
_Mittheilungen_ only a single notice of the Norwegian Spitzbergen
hunting, the existence of which was at the time probably known to no
great number of European geographers. ]

[Footnote 173: The first account of this voyage was published in
_Öfversigt af Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens forhandlingar_, 1870,
p. 111. ]

[Footnote 174: _Athenoeum_, 1869, p. 498. Petermann's
_Mittheilungen_, 1869, p. 391. ]

[Footnote 175: Palliser's game consisted of 49 walruses, 14 Polar
bears and 25 seals; that of the working hunters was many times
greater. All the vessels which went from Tromsoe that year captured
805 walruses, 2,302 seals, 53 bears, &c. ]

[Footnote 176: Sidoroff too started in 1869 on a north-east voyage
in a steamer of his own, the _George_. However, he only reached the
Petchora, and the statement that went the round of the press, that
the _George_ actually reached the Ob, is thus one of the many
mistakes which so readily find their way into the news of the day. ]

[Footnote 177: Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1871, p. 97. Along with
Ulve's, Mack's, and Quale's voyages, Petermann refers to a voyage
round Novaya Zemlya by T. Torkildsen. In this case, however,
Petermann was exposed to a possibly unintended deception.
Torkildsen, who visited the Polar Sea for the first time in 1870,
indeed made the voyage round Novaya Zemlya, but only as a rescued
man on Johannesen's vessel. Torkildsen's own vessel, the _Alfa_, had
been wrecked on the 13th July at the bottom of Kara Bay, after which
the skipper and six men were saved by Johannesen, yet by no means so
that Torkildsen, as is stated by Petermann, had the least command of
the vessel that saved him. (Cf. _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 23.) ]

[Footnote 178: _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 83; Petermann's
_Mittheilungen_, 1872, p. 384. ]

[Footnote 179: Cf. _The Three Voyages of William Barents_, by Gerrit
de Veer, 2nd Edition, with an Introduction by Lieutenant Koolemäns
Beynen. London, 1876 (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, No. 54). ]

[Footnote 180: The sea in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen on the
east was on the other hand very open that year, so that it was
possible for the same time to reach and circumnavigate the large
island situated to the east of Spitzbergen, which had been seen in
1864 by Dunér and me from the top of White Mount in the interior of
Stor Fjord. ]

[Footnote 181: Nor does space permit me to give an account of
various expeditions, which indeed concerned Novaya Zemlya, but did
not penetrate farther eastward than their predecessors; for
instance, the Rosenthal expedition of 1871, in which the well-known
African traveller and Spitzbergen voyager Baron von Heuglin, and the
Norwegian botanist Aage Aagaard, took part as naturalists; Payer and
Weyprecht's voyage of reconnaissance in the sea between Spitzbergen
and Novaya Zemlya in 1871, &c. ]

[Footnote 182: Kongl. _Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens
handlingar_, 1869. ]

[Footnote 183: At Mussel Bay, too, during the winter of 1872-73, the
greatest° of cold was the same; that is to say, at neither
place did it reach the freezing-point of mercury. At the _Vega's_
winter station, on the contrary, it was considerably greater. ]

[Footnote 184: It is very common that the hunters in cases of
importance and danger when it is difficult to settle what course
ought to be taken, permit the drawing of lots to determine the
choice. ]

[Footnote 185: The statements made here regarding the wintering of
Tobiesen and his companions are taken partly from a copy which I
caused to be made of his journal, partly from an account of the
adventures of the seven hunters, copied from _Finmarksposten_ into
_Aftonbladet_ for 1873, No. 220. Finally, the account of the
distribution of presents to the Samoyeds is copied from Norwegian
journals into _Aftonbladet_ for 1880, No. 197. ]

[Footnote 186: The dates of the _Ymer's_ voyage are as
follows:--Left the coast of Norway on the 26th July; stay at
Matotschkin Sound, through which I, on this occasion, steamed into
the Kara Sea from the 30th July to the 5th August; arrival at the
Yenisej on the 15th August; arrival at the anchorage at Goltschicha
on the 16th August; commenced the return voyage on the 1st
September, in the course of it passed Matotschkin Schar on the 7th
September. ]

[Footnote 187: Of Captain Wiggins' voyage I know only that his
original destination was the Ob, but that on account of currents and
shoals which, he encountered at the mouth of this river, he altered
his plan, and reached the Yenisej in the beginning of September. ]

[Footnote 188: _Deutsche Geographische Blätter_, Bremen, 1870, i. p.
216, and ii. p. 35. ]

[Illustration: Map of Port Dickson, by G. Bove. Map of Cape Bolvan on
Vaygats Island, by the author. The _Lena's_ cruise in Malygin Sound,
by A. Hovgaard. Map of Cape Chelyuskin, by G. Bove ]


CHAPTER VII.

    Departure from Port Dickson--Landing on a rocky island
    east of the Yenisej--Self-dead animals--Discovery of
    crystals on the surface of the drift-ice--Cosmic dust--
    Stay in Actinia Bay--Johannesen's discovery of the island
    Ensamheten--Arrival at Cape Chelyuskin--The natural state
    of the land and sea there--Attempt to penetrate right
    eastwards to the New Siberian Islands--The effect of the
    mist--Abundant dredging-yield--Preobraschenie Island--
    Separation from the _Lena_ at the mouth of the river Lena.


When on the morning of the 9th August the _Fraser_ and _Express_
sailed for the point higher up the river where their cargo was
lying, the _Vega_ and the _Lena_ were also ready to sail. I,
however, permitted the vessels to remain at Port Dickson a day
longer, in order to allow Lieutenant Bove to finish his survey, and
for the purpose of determining astronomically, if possible, the
position of this important place. In consequence of a continuous
fog, however, I had as little opportunity of doing so on this
occasion as during the voyage of 1875, which serves to show of what
sort the weather is during summer at the place where the warm water
of the Yenisej is poured into the Arctic Ocean. It was thus not
until the morning of the 10th August that the _Vega_ and the _Lena_
weighed anchor in order to continue their voyage. The course was
shaped for the most westerly of the islands, which old maps place
off the estuary-bay of the Pjäsina, and name Kammenni Ostrova (Stone
Islands), a name which seems to indicate that in their natural state
they correspond to the rocky islands about Port Dickson. The sky was
hid by mist, the temperature of the air rose to +10.4° C.;
that of the water was at first +10°, afterwards +8°; its
salinity at the surface of the sea was inconsiderable. No ice was
seen during the course of the day. Favoured by a fresh breeze from
the south-east, the _Vega_ could thus begin her voyage with all sail
set. Small rocky islands, which are not to be found on the chart,
soon reminded us of the untrustworthiness of the maps. This,
together with the prevailing fog, compelled Captain Palander to sail
forward with great caution, keeping a good outlook and sounding
constantly. Warm weather and an open sea were also favourable for
the next day's voyage. But the fog now became so dense, that the
_Vega_ had to lie-to in the morning at one of the many small islands
which we still met with on our way.

Dr. Kjellman, Dr. Almquist, Lieutenant Nordquist, and I, landed
here. The bare and utterly desolate island consisted of a low gneiss
rock, rising here and there into cliffs, which were shattered by the
frost and rather richly clothed with lichens. On the more low-lying
places the rock was covered with a layer of gravel, which, through
drying and consequent contraction, had burst into six-sided figures,
mostly from 0.3 to 0.5 metre in diameter. The interior of the
figures was completely bare of vegetation, only in the cracks there
was to be seen an exceedingly scanty growth of stunted mosses,
lichens, and flowering plants. Of the last-named group there were
found fifteen species,[189] which could with success, or more
correctly without succumbing, survive the struggle for existence on
the little poor archipelago, protected by no mountain heights, from
the storms of the Polar Sea; but of these species, perhaps a couple
seldom develop any flowers. The mosses, too, were in great part
without fruit, with the exception of those which grew on the margin,
formed of hard clay covered with mud, of a pool, filled with
brackish water and lying close to the sea-margin. A large number of
pieces of driftwood scattered round this pool showed that the place
was occasionally overflowed with sea-water, which thus appears to
have been favourable to the development of the mosses. Of lichens
Dr. Almquist found a number of species, well developed, and
occurring in comparative abundance. On the contrary, the sea,
although the surrounding rocky islands indicated a good bottom for
algæ, was so completely destitute of the higher algæ, that only a
single microscopic species was found by Dr. Kjellman. No mammalia
were seen, not even the usual inhabitant of the desolate rocky
islands of the Polar Sea, the Polar bear, who, in regions where he
has not made acquaintance with the hunter's ball or lance, in secure
reliance on his hitherto unvanquished might, seldom neglects to
scrutinise the newly arrived guests from the tops of high rocks or
ice-blocks. We saw here only six species of birds. The first of
these that attracted our attention was the snow-bunting, which had
left the more fertile mountain heights of the south to choose this
bare and desolate island in the Arctic Ocean for its breeding-place,
and now fluttered round the stone mounds, where it had its nest,
with unceasing twitter, as if to express its satisfaction with its
choice. Further, two species of waders, _Tringa maritima_ and
_Phalaropus fulicarius_, were observed running restlessly about the
beach to collect their food, which consists of insects. The birds
that were killed often had their crops full of the remains of
insects, although living at a place where the naturalist has to
search for hours to find a dozen gnats or their equals in size, a
circumstance that tells very favourably for these birds' powers of
vision, of locomotion, and of apprehension. It is difficult in any
case to understand what it is that attracts this insectivorous bird
to one of the regions that is poorest in insect life in the whole
world. The glaucous gulls' plunderer, the skua, and its chastiser
the bold tern, were also observed, as were a few barnacle geese. On
the other hand, no eiders were met with. All the birds named
occurred only in inconsiderable numbers, and there was nothing found
here resembling the life which prevails on a Spitzbergen
fowl-island. Finally, it may be mentioned that Lieutenant Nordquist
found under stones and pieces of drift-wood a few insects, among
them a beetle (a _staphylinid_). Dr. Stuxberg afterwards found a
specimen of the same insect species at Cape Chelyuskin itself. No
beetle is found on Spitzbergen, though the greater portion of that
group of islands is, in respect of climate, soil, and vegetation,
much better favoured than the region now in question. This seems to
me to show that the insect fauna of Spitzbergen, exceedingly
inconsiderable and limited in numbers as it is, has migrated thither
in comparatively recent times, and in how high a degree the
migration of beetles is rendered difficult by their inability to
pass broad expanses of water.

[Illustration: THE VEGA AND LENA MOORED TO AN ICE-FLOE. On the morning
of the 12th August, 1878. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

By afternoon the air had again cleared somewhat, so that we could
sail on. A piece of ice was seen here and there, and at night the
ice increased for a little to an unpleasant extent. Now, however, it
did not occur in such quantity as to prove an obstacle to navigation
in clear weather or in known waters.

On the 12th August we still sailed through considerable fields of
scattered drift-ice, consisting partly of old ice of large
dimensions, partly of very rotten year's ice. It formed, however, no
serious obstacle to our advance, and nearer the shore we would
probably have had quite open water, but of course it was not
advisable to go too near land in the fog and unknown waters, without
being obliged. A large number of fish (_Gadus polaris_) were seen
above the foot of a large block of ground ice, near which we lay-to
for some hours. Next day we saw near one of the islands, where the
water was very clear, the sea-bottom bestrewed with innumerable fish
of the same species. They had probably perished from the same cause,
which often kills fish in the river Ob in so great numbers that the
water is infected, namely, from a large shoal of fish having been
enclosed by ice in a small hole, where the water, when its surface
has frozen, could no longer by absorption from the air replace the
oxygen consumed, and where the fish have thus been literally
drowned. I mention this inconsiderable _find_ of some self-dead
fish, because self-dead vertebrate animals, even fish, are found
exceedingly seldom. Such _finds_ therefore deserve to be noted with
much greater care than, for instance, the occurrence of animal
species in the neighbourhood of places where they have been seen a
thousand times before. During my nine expeditions in the Arctic
regions, where animal life during summer is so exceedingly abundant,
the case just mentioned has been one of the few in which I have
found remains of recent vertebrate animals which could be proved to
have died a natural death. Near hunting-grounds there are to be seen
often enough the remains of reindeer, seals, foxes, or birds that
have died from gunshot wounds, but no self-dead Polar bear, seal,
walrus, white whale, fox, goose, auk, lemming or other vertebrate.
The Polar bear and the reindeer are found there in hundreds, the
seal, walrus, and white whale in thousands, and birds in
millions.[190] These animals must die a "natural" death in untold
numbers. What becomes of their bodies? Of this we have for the
present no idea, and yet we have here a problem of immense
importance for the answering of a large number of questions
concerning the formation of fossiliferous strata. It is strange in
any case that on Spitzbergen it is easier to find vertebræ of a
gigantic lizard of the Trias, than bones of a self-dead seal,
walrus, or bird, and the same also holds good of more southerly
inhabited lands.

On the 13th August we again sailed past a large number of small
rocks or islands. The sea was at first pretty free of ice, but was
afterwards bestrewed with even, thin pieces of drift-ice, which were
not forced up on each other, and thus had not been exposed in winter
to any ice-pressure. This ice did not cause any inconvenience to the
navigation, but at the same time all was wrapt in a very close mist,
which soon compelled us to anchor near the shore in a little bay. I
endeavoured without success to determine the position of the place
by astronomical observations. Along the shore there still remained
nearly everywhere a pretty high snow and ice-foot, which in the fog
presented the appearance of immense glaciers. The land besides was
free of ice. In respect of its geological formation and its animals
and plants it resembled completely the island I have just described.
But the sea-water here was clear and salt, and the dredging
therefore yielded to Dr. Kjellman some large algæ, and to Dr.
Stuxberg a large number of marine evertebrates.

When the fog lightened, we immediately steamed on, but we had
scarcely got to sea before we were again wrapped in so close a fog
that we were compelled to lie-to for the night beside a large piece
of drift-ice. The hempen tangles were used, and brought up a very
abundant yield of large, beautiful animal forms, a large number of
asterids, Astrophyton, Antedon, &c. There was besides made here an
exceedingly remarkable, and to me still, while I write, a very
enigmatical _find_.

For several years back I have been zealous for the examination of
all substances of the nature of dust which fall to the surface of
the earth with rain or snow, and I have proved that a portion of
them is of cosmic origin. This inconsiderable fall of dust is thus
of immense importance for the history of the development of our
globe, and we regard it, besides, with the intense interest which we
inevitably cherish for all that brings us an actual experience
regarding the material world beyond our globe. The inhabited
countries of the earth, however, are less suitable for such
investigations, as the particles of cosmic dust falling down here in
very limited quantity can only with difficulty be distinguished from
the dust of civilization, arising from human dwellings, from the
offal of industry, from furnaces and the chimneys of steam-engines.
The case is quite different on the snow and ice-fields of the High
North, remote from human habitations and the tracks of steamers.
Every foreign grain of dust can here he easily distinguished and
removed, and there is a strong probability that the offal of
civilization is here nearly wholly wanting. It is self-evident from
this that I would not be disposed to neglect the first opportunity
for renewed investigations in the direction indicated, our
involuntary rest at the drift-ice field offered.

[Illustration: HAIRSTAR FROM THE TAIMUR COAST. _Antedon Eschrichtii_,
J. MÜLLER. Three-fifths of the natural size. ]

Immediately after the _Vega_ lay-to, I therefore went down on the
ice in order to see whether here too some such metalliferous dust,
as I had before found north of Spitzbergen, was not to be found on
the surface of the ice. Nothing of the kind, however, was to be
seen. On the other hand, Lieutenant Nordquist observed small yellow
specks in the snow, which I asked him to collect and hand over for
investigation to Dr. Kjellman. For I supposed that the specks
consisted of diatom ooze. After examining them Dr. Kjellman however
declared that they did not consist of any organic substance, but of
crystallised grains of sand. I too now examined them more closely,
but unfortunately not until the morning after we had left the
ice-field, and then found that the supposed ooze consisted of pale
yellow crystals (not fragments of crystals) without mixture of
foreign matter. The quantity of crystals, which were obtained from
about three litres of snow, skimmed from the surface of the snow on
an area of at most 10 square metres, amounted to nearly 0.2 gram.
The crystals were found only near the surface of the snow, not in
the deeper layers. They were up to 1 mm. in diameter, had the
appearance shown in the accompanying woodcut, and appeared to belong
to the rhombic system, as they had one perfect cleavage and formed
striated prisms terminated at either end by truncated pyramids.
Unfortunately I could not make any actual measurements of them,
because after being kept for some time in the air they weathered to
a white non-crystalline powder. They lay, without being sensibly
dissolved, for a whole night in the water formed by the melting of
the snow. On being heated, too, they fell asunder into a tasteless
white powder. The white powder, that was formed by the weathering of
the crystals, was analysed after our return--21 months after the
discovery of the crystals--and was found to contain only carbonate
of lime.

[Illustration: FORM OF THE CRYSTALS. Found on the ice off the
Taimur coast. Magnified thirty to forty times. ]

The original composition and origin of this substance appears to me
exceedingly enigmatical. It was not common carbonate of lime, for the
crystals were rhombohedral and did not show the cleavage of calcite. Nor
can there be a question of its being arragonite, because this mineral
might indeed fall asunder "of itself," but in that case the newly-formed
powder ought to be crystalline. Have the crystals originally been a new
hydrated carbonate of lime, formed by crystallising out of the sea-water
in intense cold, and then losing its water at a temperature of 10° or
20° above the freezing-point? In such a case they ought not to have been
found on the surface of the _snow_, but lower down on the surface of the
_ice_. Or have they fallen down from the inter-planetary spaces to the
surface of the earth, and before crumbling down have had a composition
differing from terrestrial substances in the same way as various
chemical compounds found in recent times in meteoric stones? The
occurrence of the crystals in the uppermost layer of snow and their
felling asunder in the air, tell in favour of this view. Unfortunately
there is now no possibility of settling these questions, but at all
events this discovery is a further incitement to those who travel in the
High North to collect with extreme care, from snow-fields lying far from
the ordinary routes of communication, all foreign substances, though
apparently of trifling importance.

As this question can be answered with the greatest ease and
certainty by investigations in the Polar regions, I shall here, for
the guidance of future travellers, enumerate some discoveries of a
like nature which have been made by me, or at my instance.

1. In the beginning of December, 1871, there happened at Stockholm
an exceedingly heavy fall of snow, perhaps the heaviest which has
taken place in the memory of man. Several persons perished in the
snow in the immediate neighbourhood of Stockholm. During the last
days of the snowfall I had about a cubic metre of snow collected and
melted in a vessel. It left a residue of black powder, which
contained grains of metallic iron that were attracted by the magnet.

2. In the middle of March, 1872, a similar investigation was made by
my brother, KARL NORDENSKIÖLD, in a remote forest settlement, Evois,
in Finland. Here, too, was obtained, on the melting of the snow, a
small residuum, consisting of a black powder containing metallic
iron.

[Illustration: SECTION OF THE UPPER PART OF THE SNOW ON A DRIFT-ICE
FIELD IN 60° N.L. One-half the natural size. ]

3. On the 8th August and 2nd September of the same year, I examined,
north of Spitzbergen, in 80° N.L., and 13° to 15° E.L., the layer of
snow that there covered the ice. The nature of this layer is shown by
the accompanying woodcut, in which 1, is new-fallen snow; 2, a layer of
hardened old snow, eight mm. in thickness; 3, a layer of snow
conglomerated to a crystalline granular mass; and 4, common granular
hardened snow. Layer 3 was full of small black grains, among which were
found numerous metallic particles that were attracted by the magnet, and
were found to contain iron, cobalt, and possibly nickel also.

4. On the melting of 500 gram. hail, which fell in Stockholm in the
autumn of 1873, similar metallic particles containing cobalt
(nickel) were obtained, which, in this case, might possibly have
come from the neighbouring roofs, because the hail was collected in
a yard surrounded by houses roofed with sheet-iron painted red. The
black colour of the metallic particles enclosed in the hail, their
position in the hail, and finally, the cobalt they contained,
however, indicate in this case too, a quite different origin.

5. In a dust (kryokonite), collected on the inland ice of Greenland
in the month of July, 1870, there were also found mixed with it
grains of metallic iron, containing cobalt. The main mass consisted
of a crystalline, double-refracting silicate, drenched through with
an ill-smelling organic substance. The dust was found in large
quantities at the bottom of innumerable small holes in the surface
of the inland ice. This dust could scarcely be of volcanic origin,
because by its crystalline structure it differs completely from the
glass-dust that is commonly thrown out of volcanoes, and is often
carried by the wind to very remote regions, as also from the dust
which, on the 30th March, 1875, fell at many places in the middle of
Scandinavia, and which was proved to have been thrown out by
volcanoes on Iceland. For, while kryokonite consists of small
angular double-refracting crystal-fragments without any mixture of
particles of glass, the volcanic Haga-dust[191] consists almost
wholly of small microscopic glass bubbles that have no action on the
polarisation-planes of the light that passes through them.

Similar investigations have since been made, among others, by M.
TISSANDIER in Paris, and during NARES' English Polar Expedition.

It may appear to many that it is below the dignity of science to
concern one's self with so trifling an affair as the fall of a small
quantity of dust. But this is by no means the case. For I estimate
the quantity of the dust that was found on the ice north of
Spitzbergen at from 0.1 to 1 milligram per square metre, and
probably the whole fall of dust for the year far exceeded the latter
figure. But a milligram on every square metre of the surface of the
earth amounts for the whole globe to five hundred million kilograms
(say half a million tons)! Such a mass collected year by year during
the geological ages, of a duration probably incomprehensible by us,
forms too important a factor to be neglected, when the fundamental
facts of the geological history of our planet are enumerated. A
continuation of these investigations will perhaps show, that our
globe has increased gradually from a small beginning to the
dimensions it now possesses; that a considerable quantity of the
constituents of our sedimentary strata, especially of those that
have been deposited in the open sea far from land, are of cosmic
origin; and will throw an unexpected light on the origin of the
fire-hearths of the volcanoes, and afford a simple explanation of
the remarkable resemblance which unmistakably exists between
plutonic rocks and meteoric stones.[192]


On the 14th August, when the fog had lightened a little, we got up
steam, but were soon compelled to anchor again in a bay running into
Taimur Island from the north side of Taimur Sound, which I named
Actinia Bay, from the large number of actinia which the dredge
brought up there. It is, besides, not the only place in the Kara Sea
which might be named from the evertebrate life prevailing there, so
unexpectedly abundant.

[Illustration: GRASS FROM ACTINIA BAY. _Pleuropogon Sabini_, R. BR. ]

Unfavourable weather detained us in Actinia Bay, which is a good and
well-protected haven, till the 18th August, during which time
excursions were made in various directions, among others farther
into Taimur Sound, where a variable strong current was found to
prevail. The Sound is too shallow to be passed through by large
vessels. The rocks round Taimur Sound consist of gneiss strata,
which form low ridges that have been so shattered by the frost that
they have been converted into immense lichen-clad stone mounds.
Between these stretch extensive valleys and plains, now free of
snow, if we except a snow-drift remaining here and there in the
hollows. The plains were all covered with a very green continuous
vegetation, which however on a closer examination was found to be
not a true turf, but a mixture of grasses, allied plants, and a
large number of different kinds of mosses and lichens. Actual
flowers were found here only sparingly.[193] In this respect the
coast _tundra_ shows a remarkable difference from the coast lands on
Vaygats Island and Novaya Zemlya. On the other hand, the abundance
of luxuriant lichens and mosses was striking. The mosses along the
beach and the borders of the snow-drifts remaining here and there
bore fruit in abundance. Animal life on land was scanty; some few
reindeer were seen, a mountain fox was killed, and a lemming caught.

[Illustration: Sketch-Map of Taimur Sound; Map of Actinia Bay,
both by G. Bove. ]

Only the following birds were seen: owls (_Strix nyctea_) rather
numerous, of which one was killed; a species of falcon, which was
hunted unsuccessfully; snow buntings, breeding very generally in the
stone mounds; a covey of snow ptarmigan, of which some young birds
were shot; six species of waders, the most common birds of the
region, of which a large number were shot; two kinds of gulls
(_Larus glaucus_ and _tridactylus_); _Lestris parasitica_ and
_Buffonii_, the latter the more common of the two; _Anser bernicla_,
very common; and finally the long-tailed duck (_Harelda glacialis_)
in great flocks swimming in the Sound. Bird life, viewed as a whole,
was still scanty here, in comparison with that which we were
accustomed to see in the northern regions west of Novaya Zemlya.

In the sea the higher animal life was somewhat more abundant. A
walrus had been seen during the passage from the Yenisej, and on the
ice drifting about in the Sound a number of seals, both _Phoca
barbata_ and _Phoca hispida_, were observed. This gave rise to the
supposition that at the sea-bottom animal life was richer, which was
also confirmed by the dredging yield. Nowhere was seen on our
arrival any trace of man, but a cairn now indicates the place, off
which the _Vega_ and the _Lena_ were anchored.

In this sea never before visited by any vessel, however, we were nearly
coming in contact with a countryman. For while we lay at anchor in
Taimur Sound, Captain Edward Johannesen came into the neighbourhood of
the same place with his sailing vessel _Nordland_ from Tromsoe. He had
left Norway on the 22nd May 1878, had come to Gooseland in Novaya Zemlya
on the 6th June, and had reached the northernmost point of that island
on the 22nd July. Here loud thunder was heard on the 26th July. On the
10th August he steered eastwards from Novaya Zemlya across the Kara Sea
between 76° and 77° N.L. in open water. On the 16th he had the Taimur
country in sight. Here he turned, and steered first to the west, then to
the north. In 77° 31' N.L. and 86° E.L. from Greenwich he discovered and
circumnavigated a new island, which was named "Ensamheten" (Solitude).
The island was free of snow, but not overgrown with grass. The animals
that were seen were some bears and bearded seals, terns, fulmars, ivory
gulls, flocks of black guillemots, and a "bird with a rounded tail and
long bill," probably some wader. On the north-east side of the island a
strong northerly current prevailed. The remote position and desolate
appearance of the island gave occasion to the name proposed by
Johannesen. Hence Johannesen sailed with a great bend to the north,
which brought him to 78° N.L., back to the northern extremity of Novaya
Zemlya, and thence on the 12th September to Norway. During the return
voyage across the Kara Sea also scarcely any ice was met with.[194]

An exceedingly persistent fog prevailed during the whole of the time
we remained here, but at last on the 18th it lightened a little. We
immediately weighed anchor and steamed along the western shore of
Taimur Island. It is surrounded by a large number of islands that
are not given on the map, and possibly Taimur Island itself is
divided by sounds into several parts. During our voyage, however,
the fog that was still very close hindered us from mapping,
otherwise than in a very loose way, the islands, large and small,
between and past which the _Vega_ searched for a passage. So much we
could in any case see, that the northern extremity of Taimur Island
does not run so far north as the common maps show.

Ice we met with only in small quantity, and what we saw was very
rotten fjord or river ice. I scarcely believe that in the course of
the day we met with a single piece of ice large enough to flense a
seal upon. We had as yet seen no true old drift-ice such as is to be
met with north of Spitzbergen. In respect to the nature of the ice,
there is a complete dissimilarity between the Kara Sea and the sea
north and east of Spitzbergen. Another striking difference is the
scarcity of warm-blooded animals which prevails in this region,
hitherto exempted from all hunting. In the course of the day we had
not seen a single bird--something which never before happened to me
during a summer journey in the Arctic regions--and scarcely any
seals.

On the 19th August we continued to sail and steam along the coast,
mostly in a very close fog, which only at intervals dispersed so
much that the lie of the coast could be made out. In order that they
might not be separated, both vessels had often to signal to each
other with the steam-whistle. The sea was bright as a mirror.
Drift-ice was seen now and then, but only in small quantity and very
rotten; but in the course of the day we steamed past an extensive
unbroken ice-field, fast to the land, which occupied a bay on the
west side of the Chelyuskin peninsula. The ice, of which it
consisted, appeared in the mist immensely rough and high, although
in fact it was nearly as rotten as that of which the narrow belts of
ice were formed which we now and then met with out at sea.

The fog prevented all view far across the ice, and I already feared
that the northernmost promontory of Asia would be so surrounded with
ice that we could not land upon it. But soon a dark, ice-free cape
peeped out of the mist in the north-east. A bay open to the north
here cuts into the land, and in this bay both the vessels anchored
on the 19th August at 6 o'clock p.m.

We had now reached a great goal, which for centuries had been the
object of unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at
anchor off the northernmost cape of the old world. No wonder then
that the occurrence was celebrated by a display of flags and the
firing of salutes, and, when we returned from our excursion on land,
by festivities on board, by wine and toasts.

[Illustration: THE VEGA AND LENA SALUTING CAPE CHELYUSKIN.
(After a drawing by A. Hovgaard.) ]

As on our arrival at the Yenisej, we were received here too by a
large Polar bear, who, even before the vessel anchored, was seen to
go backwards and forwards on the beach, now and then turning his
glance and his nose uneasily out to sea in order to investigate what
remarkable guests had now for the first time come to his kingdom. A
boat was put off to kill him. Brusewitz was the chosen shot; but on
this occasion the bear took care not to form any closer acquaintance
with our guns. The firing of the salute put him so thoroughly to
flight, that he did not, as bears are wont, return the following
day.

[Illustration: VIEW AT CAPE CHELYUSKIN DURING THE STAY OF THE
EXPEDITION. (After a drawing by A. Hovgaard.) ]

The north point of Asia forms a low promontory, which a bay divides
into two, the eastern arm projecting a little farther to the north
than the western. A ridge of hills with gently sloping sides runs
into the land from the eastern point, and appears within sight of
the western to reach a height of 300 metres. Like the plains lying
below, the summits of this range were nearly free of snow. Only on
the hill-sides or in deep furrows excavated by the streams of melted
snow, and in dales in the plains, were large white snow-fields to be
seen. A low ice-foot still remained at most places along the shore.
But no glacier rolled its bluish-white ice-masses down the mountain
sides, and no inland lakes, no perpendicular cliffs, no high
mountain summits, gave any natural beauty to the landscape, which
was the most monotonous and the most desolate I have seen in the
High North.

As on the island off which we lay at anchor on the 11th August, the
ground was everywhere burst asunder into more or less regular
six-sided figures, the interior of which was usually bare of
vegetation, while stunted flowering-plants, lichens and mosses, rose
out of the cracks. At some few places, however, the ground was
covered with a carpet of mosses, lichens, grasses and allied plants,
resembling that which I previously found at Actinia Bay. Yet the
flowering-plants were less numerous here, and the mosses more
stunted and bearing fruit less abundantly. The lichen flora was
also, according to Dr. Almquist's examination, monotonous, though
very luxuriant. The plants were most abundant on the farthest
extremity of the Cape. It almost appeared as if many of the plants
of the Taimur country had attempted to migrate hence farther to the
north, but meeting the sea, had stood still, unable to go farther
and unwilling to turn. For here Dr. Kjellman found on a very limited
area nearly all the plants of the region. The species which were
distinctive of the vegetation here were the following: _Saxifraga
oppositifolia_ L., _Papaver nudicaule_ L., _Draba alpina_ L.,
_Cerastium alpinum_ L., _Stellaria Edwardsii_ R. BR., _Alsine
macrocarpa_ FENZL., _Aira coespitosa_ L., _Catabrosa algida_ (SOL.)
FR., and _Alopecurus alpinus_ SM. The following plants occurred less
frequently: _Eritrichium villosum_ BUNGE, _Saxifraga nivalis_ L.,
_S cernua_ L., _S. rivularis_ L., _S. stellaris_ L., _S. caspitesa_
L., _S. flagellaris_ WILLD., _S. serpyllifolia_ PURSH., _Cardamine
bellidifolia_ L., _Cochlearia fenestrata_ R. BR., _Oxyria digyna_
(L.) HILL., _Salix polaris_ WG, _Poa flexuosa_ WG., and _Lucula
hyperborea_ R. BR. There were thus found in all only twenty-three
species of inconsiderable flowering-plants, among them eight species
belonging to the Saxifrage family, a sulphur-yellow poppy, commonly
cultivated in our gardens, and the exceedingly beautiful,
forget-me-not-like Eritrichium. That the vegetation here on the
northernmost point of Asia has to contend with a severe climate is
shown, among other things, as Dr. Kjellman has pointed out, by most
of the flowering-plants there having a special tendency to form
exceedingly compact half-globular tufts.

[Illustration: DRABA ALPINA L. FROM CAPE CHELYUSKIN. Natural size. ]

[Illustration: THE BEETLE LIVING FARTHEST TO THE NORTH.
Micralymma Dicksoni MAKL. Magnified twelve times. ]

The only insects which occurred here in any large number were
poduræ, but some flies were also seen, and even a beetle, the
before-mentioned Staphylinid. Of birds, there were seen a large
number of sandpipers, an exceedingly numerous flock of barnacle
geese--evidently migrating to more southerly regions, perhaps from
some Polar land lying to the north of Cape Chelyuskin--a loom, some
kittiwakes and ivory gulls, and remains of owls. Mammalia were
represented by the bear already mentioned, and by the reindeer and
the lemming, whose traces and dung were seen on the plains. In the
sea, a walrus, several rough seals (_Phoca hispida_), and two shoals
of white whales were seen.

All rivers were now dried up, but wide, shallow river-beds indicated
that during the snow-melting season there was an abundant flow of
water. The rush of snow rivulets and the cry of birds then certainly
cause an interruption in the desolation and silence which were now
spread over the clay beds of the plains, nearly bare of all
vegetation. Probably, however, a little farther into the country, in
some valley protected from the winds of the Polar Sea, we might find
quite different natural conditions, a more abundant animal life, and
a vegetable world, in summer, as rich in flowers as that which we
meet with in the valleys of Ice Fjord or the "Nameless Bay"
(Besimannaja Bay). We saw no trace of man here. The accounts, which
were current as early as the sixteenth century, relating to the
nature of the north point of Asia, however, make it probable that
the Siberian nomads at one time drove their reindeer herds up
hither. It is even not impossible that Russian hunters from Chatanga
may have prosecuted the chase here, and that Chelyuskin actually was
here, of which we have evidence in the very correct way in which the
Cape, that now rightly bears his name, is laid down on the Russian
maps.[195]

The rocks consist of a clay-slate, with crystals resembling
chiastolite and crystals of sulphide of iron interspersed. At the
Cape itself the clay-slate is crossed by a thick vein of pure white
quartz. Here, according to an old custom of Polar travellers, a
stately cairn was erected.

[Illustration: OPHIURID FROM THE SEA NORTH OF CAPE CHELYUSKIN.
_Ophlacantha bidentata_, RETZ. One and one-third of the natural size. ]

In order to get a good astronomical determination of the position of
this important point I remained there until the 20th August at noon.
The _Lena_ was ordered to steam out to dredge during this time.
Eight minutes north of the bay, where we lay at anchor, heavy and
very close ice was met with. There the depth of the sea increased
rapidly. Animal life at the sea-bottom was very abundant, among
other things in large asterids and ophiurids.


According to the plan of the voyage I now wished to steam from this
point right eastwards towards the New Siberian Islands, in order to
see if we should fall in with land on the way. On the 20th and 21st
we went forward in this direction among scattered drift-ice, which
was heavier and less broken up than that which we had met with on
the other side of Taimur Land, but without meeting with any serious
obstacles. We fell in also with some very large ice-floes, but not
with any icebergs. We were besides again attended by so close a mist
that we could only see ice-fields and pieces of ice in the immediate
neighbourhood of the vessel. Besides species of Lestris and
kittiwakes we now also saw looms, birds that are almost wanting in
the Kara Sea. Johannesen was of opinion that the presence of these
birds showed that the sea is not completely frozen over in winter,
because it is not probable that the loom in autumn and spring would
fly across the frozen Kara Sea to seek in this distant region their
food and their breeding-haunts.

The night before the 22nd we steamed through pretty close ice. The
whole day so thick a fog still prevailed that we could not see the
extent of the ice-fields in the neighbourhood of the vessel. Towards
noon we were, therefore, compelled to take a more southerly course.
When we found that we could not advance in this direction, we lay-to
at a large ice-floe, waiting for clear weather, until in the
afternoon the fog again lightened somewhat, so that we could
continue our voyage. But it was not long before the fog again became
so thick that, as the sailors say, you could cut it with a knife.
There was now evidently a risk that the _Vega_, while thus
continuing to "box the compass" in the ice-labyrinth, in which we
had entangled ourselves, would meet with the same fate that befell
the _Tegetthoff_. In order to avoid this, it became necessary to
abandon our attempt to sail from Cape Chelyuskin straight to the New
Siberian Islands, and to endeavour to reach as soon as possible the
open water at the coast.

When it cleared on the morning of the 23rd, we therefore began again
to steam forward among the fields of drift-ice, but now not with the
intention of advancing in a given direction, but only of getting to
open water. The ice-fields we now met with were very much broken up,
which was an indication that we could not be very far from the edge
of the _pack_. But notwithstanding this, all our attempts to find
penetrable ice in an easterly, westerly, or southerly direction were
unsuccessful. We had thus to search in a northerly direction for the
opening by which we had sailed in. This was so much the more
unpleasant as the wind had changed to a pretty fresh N.W. breeze, on
which account, with the _Vega's_ weak steam-power, we could make way
only slowly. It was not until 6.30 p.m. that we at last came to the
sack-formed opening in the ice through which we had sailed in at
noon of the previous day.

One can scarcely, without having experienced it, form any idea of
the optical illusions, which are produced by mist, in regions where
the size of the objects which are visible through the fog is not
known beforehand, and thus does not give the spectator an idea of
the distance. Our estimate of distance and size in such cases depend
wholly on accident. The obscure contours of the fog-concealed
objects themselves, besides, are often by the ignorance of the
spectator converted into whimsical fantastic forms. During a boat
journey in Hinloopen Strait I once intended to row among drift-ice
to an island at a distance of some few kilometres. When the boat
started the air was clear, but while we were employed, as best we
could, in shooting sea-fowl for dinner, all was wrapt in a thick
mist, and that so unexpectedly, that we had not time to take the
bearings of the island. This led to a not altogether pleasant row by
guess among the pieces of ice that were drifting about in rapid
motion in the sound. All exerted themselves as much as possible to
get sight of the island, whose beach would afford us a safe
resting-place. While thus occupied, a dark border was seen through
the mist at the horizon. It was taken for the island which we were
bound for, and it was not at first considered remarkable that the
dark border rose rapidly, for we thought that the mist was
dispersing and in consequence of that more of the land was visible.
Soon two white snow-fields, that we had not observed before, were
seen on both sides of the land, and immediately after this was
changed to a sea-monster, resembling a walrus-head, as large as a
mountain. This got life and motion, and finally sank all at once to
the head of a common walrus, which lay on a piece of ice in the
neighbourhood of the boat; the white tusks formed the snow-fields
and the dark-brown round head the mountain. Scarce was this illusion
gone when one of the men cried out "Land right a head--high land!"
We now all saw before us a high Alpine region, with mountain peaks
and glaciers, but this too sank a moment afterwards all at once to a
common ice-border, blackened with earth. In the spring of 1873
Palander and I with nine men made a sledge journey round North-east
Land. In the course of this journey a great many bears were seen and
killed. When a bear was seen while we were dragging our sledges
forward, the train commonly stood still, and, not to frighten the
bear, all the men concealed themselves behind the sledges, with the
exception of the marksman, who, squatting down in some convenient
place, waited till his prey should come sufficiently within range to
be killed with certainty. It happened once during foggy weather on
the ice at Wahlenberg Bay that the bear that was expected and had
been clearly seen by all of us, instead of approaching with his
usual supple zigzag movements, and with his ordinary attempts to
nose himself to a sure insight into the fitness of the foreigners
for food, just as the marksman took aim, spread out gigantic wings
and flew away in the form of a small ivory gull. Another time during
the same sledge journey we heard from the tent in which we rested
the cook, who was employed outside, cry out: "A bear! a great bear!
No! a reindeer, a very little reindeer!" The same instant a
well-directed shot was fired, and the bear-reindeer was found to be
a very small fox, which thus paid with its life for the honour of
having for some moments played the part of a big animal. From these
accounts it may be seen how difficult navigation among drift-ice
must be in unknown waters.

On the two occasions on which the vessel was anchored to ice-floes
the trawl-net was used, and the hempen tangles. The net was drawn
forward slowly with the ice which was drifting to the north-west
before a fresh S.E. breeze which was blowing at the time. The yield
of the trawling was extraordinarily abundant; large asterids,
crinoids, sponges, holothuria, a gigantic sea-spider (Pycnogonid),
masses of worms, crustacea, &c. _It was the most abundant yield that
the trawl-net at any one time brought up during the whole of our
voyage round the coast of Asia_, and this from the sea off the
northern extremity of that continent.

[Illustration: SEA SPIDER (PYCNOGONID) FROM THE SEA EAST OF
CAPE CHELYUSKIN. Half the normal size. ]

Among the forms collected here we may specially refer to the large
sea-spider, of which a drawing is given (p. 349); and three specimens of
small stalked crinoids. The depth varied between 60 and 100 metres. The
temperature of the water was at the surface +0° to--0.6°; at the
bottom--1.4° to 1.6°; its salinity was considerable, both at the bottom,
where it was very nearly equal to that of the other great oceans, and at
the surface, where it was indeed about a fifth-part less, but yet much
greater than that of the surface-water in the Kara Sea.

It is singular that a temperature under the freezing-point of pure
water should be advantageous for the development of an animal life
so extremely rich as that which is found here, and that this animal
life should not suffer any harm from the complete darkness, which
during the greater portion of the year prevails at the bottom of the
ice-covered sea.

When we got out of the ice we steamed towards the land, which was
sighted on the 23rd at 8.45 p.m. The land was low and free from
snow; the depth of the sea at a distance of ten kilometres from the
coast varied between thirteen and fifteen metres. The coast here
stretched from north to south. We followed it at a distance of seven
to ten kilometres. A north-westerly breeze here carried the vessel,
without the help of steam, rapidly forward over a completely smooth
sea.

On the 24th August we still sailed along the land towards the south.
The depth of the sea now increased to thirty-three metres at a
distance of ten kilometres from land. The land rose gradually, and
some distance from the coast beautiful mountain chains were seen,
which, judging by the eye, rose to a height of from 600 to 900
metres. They were, like the plains along the coast, quite free from
snow. Only in the clefts of the mountains there remained some few
collections of snow or ice, which at two places appeared to form
true glaciers, which however terminated at a considerable height
above the sea. The snow-free slopes between the foot of the mountain
and the shore bank, thirty to sixty metres high, formed an even
plain, covered by a brownish-green turf, probably of the same nature
as that we saw on Taimur Island.

During the forenoon we had splendid clear weather, and often we
could see from the vessel no trace of ice. We saw a large number of
walruses, and to judge by the fire which this sight kindled in the
eyes of our hunters, it will not be long till the Norwegian hunting
voyages are extended to the sea north and east of the north point of
Asia. We saw besides a large number of looms and black guillemots,
the former accompanied by young of the year, as large as rotges.
About noon we sighted "land ahead to larboard." It was evidently
Preobraschenie Island. I determined to land on it for a few hours to
carry on researches in natural history, and to fix the position of
the place by astronomical observations, if the weather should
permit. The distance of this high-lying island was however greater
than we expected. So that it was not until six o'clock in the
evening that we could anchor off its south-west side, near the
almost perpendicular face of cliffs abounding in sea-fowl.

During the last two days we had been sailing over a region, which on
recent maps is marked as land. This shows that a considerable change
must be made on the map of North Siberia, and I shall therefore
quote here the observations on which the determination of our course
is grounded.

                                           Latitude. Longitude
  Cape Chelyuskin[196].................    77° 36.8' 103° 17.2'
  On board the _Vega_[197] at noon of the
                                 21st Aug. 77° 25'   109° 12'
  ,,    ,,     ,,     ,,     ,,  22nd Aug. 76° 33'   116°  9'
  ,,    ,,     ,,     ,,     ,,  23rd Aug. 76° 48'   115°  0'
  ,,    ,,     ,,     ,,     ,,  24th Aug. 73°  0'   113° 33'

At the last mentioned point we had laud to starboard of us at an
estimated distance of 4'. Preobraschenie Island lay S. 21° W.
17.5' off. It is on the ground of these data and of the courses
recorded in the log, that the track of the _Vega_ has been laid down
on the map, and no doubt can arise that the position of the east
coast of Taimur peninsula, as indicated by us, is in the main
correct.

Preobraschenie Island forms a pretty even grassy plain, lying from
thirty to sixty metres above the sea-level, which in the north-west
terminates towards the sea with an almost perpendicular rocky wall,
but to the south-east sinks gradually down to two sand-banks which
run far out to sea. At the time of our visit the island was free of
snow and covered with a carpet of mosses mixed with grass, which was
exceedingly abundant, especially on the south-west slopes of the
island, protected as they were from the north winds. Here we
encountered anew the Arctic animal world in all its profusion. The
ledges of the perpendicular shore-cliffs of the island formed the
breeding-place of numberless looms and kittiwakes, to which a few
black guillemots attached themselves. Along the farthest margin of
the beach waders ran busily backwards and forwards in order to
collect their food. At the summits of the cliffs a flock of glaucous
gulls were breeding, and on the slopes of the low land the white
mountain owl was seen lying in wait for its prey, quiet and
motionless for hours, but as usual it was wary and shy, so that it
was only with difficulty that the hunter could get within range of
it. At some places there extended between the foot of the "loomery"
and the sea a stone-bestrewn beach, which at high water was mostly
covered by the sea, and at low water was full of shallow salt-water
pools. Here had settled two Polar bears that were soon killed, one
by Lieutenant Brusewitz, the other by Captain Johannesen. The bears
had evidently been on the hunt for looms, which along with their
young, large as rotges and already able to swim, were swimming in
the pools of water at the foot of the "loomery," and above all
perhaps they were lying in wait for birds which by some accident
happened to fall down from the breeding-place. In the sea no small
number of seals were seen, and but a few hours before our arrival at
the island we had sailed past herds of walrus.

[Illustration: PREOBRASCHENIE ISLAND. (After a sketch by O. Nordquist.) ]

Vegetation was much more luxuriant and richer in species than at
Cape Chelyuskin, and naturally bore a more southern stamp, not only
in consequence of the more southerly position of the island, but
also on account of its shores being washed by the water of the
Chatanga river, which is warm during summer.[198]

Unfortunately, on account of the advanced season of the year I could
only allow the _Vega_ to remain a few hours off this interesting
island, and at 10.30 p.m. accordingly the anchor was weighed and our
voyage along the coast resumed.

On the 25th, 26th and 27th August we had for the most part calm,
fine weather, and the sea was completely free of ice. The
temperature of the water again rose to +5.8°, and its salinity
diminished considerably. But the depth now decreased so much, that,
for instance, on the night before the 26th we had great difficulty
in getting past some shoals lying west of the delta of the Lena, off
the mouth of the Olonek.

It had originally been my intention to let the _Vega_ separate from
the _Lena_ at some anchorage in one of the mouth-arms of the Lena
river. But on account of the shallowness of the water, the
favourable wind and the ice-free sea, that now lay before us to the
eastward, I determined to part from the _Lena_ in the open sea off
Tumat Island. This parting took place on the night between the 27th
and 28th August, after Captain Johannesen had been signalled to come
on board the _Vega_, to receive orders, passport,[199] and letters
for home. As a parting salute to our trusty little attendant during
our voyage round the north point of Asia some rockets were fired, on
which we steamed or sailed on, each to his destination.

During our passage from Norway to the Lena we had been much troubled
with fog, but it was only when we left the navigable water along the
coast to the east of Cape Chelyuskin that we fell in with ice in
such quantity that it was an obstacle to our voyage. If the coast
had been followed the whole time, if the weather had been clear and
the navigable water sufficiently surveyed, so that it had been
possible to keep the course of the vessel near the land, the voyage
of the _Vega_ to the mouth of the Lena _would never have been
obstructed by ice_, and I am convinced that this will happen year
after year during the close of August, at least between the Yenisej
and the Lena. For I believe that the place where ice-obstacles will
perhaps be met with most frequently will not be the north point of
Asia, but the region east of the entrance to the Kara Sea.


[Footnote 189: Namely, according to Dr. Kjellman's determination,
the following:

 Saxifraga oppositifolia L.
 Saxifraga rivularis L.
 Saxifraga cæspitosa L.
 Cardamine bellidifolia L.
 Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.
 Ranunculus hyperboreus ROTTB.
 Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.
 Cerastium alpinum L.
 Alsine macrocarpa FENZL.
 Sagina nivalis FR.
 Salix polaris WG.
 Glyceria vilfoidea (ANDS.) TH. FR.
 Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
 Aira cæspitosa L.
 Juncus biglumis L. ]

[Footnote 190: I can remember only one other instance of finding
self-dead vertebrate animals, viz. when in 1873, as has already been
stated (p. 110), I found a large number of dead rotges on the
ice at the mouth of Hinloopen Strait. ]

[Footnote 191: I use this name because the ash-rain of March 1875
was first observed at Haga palace near Stockholm, and thus at the
outer limit of the known area of distribution of the dust. It was
first through the request which in consequence of this observation
was published in the newspapers, that communications regarding
singular observations in other quarters should be sent to the
Swedish Academy of Sciences, that it became known that a similar
rain had about the same time taken place over a very large part of
middle Sweden and Norway. The dust however did not fall evenly, but
distributed in spots, and at several different times. The distance
from Stockholm of the volcanoes, where the outbreak took place, is
nearly 2000 kilometres. ]

[Footnote 192: Namely, by showing that the principal material of the
plutonic and volcanic rocks is of cosmic origin, and that the
phenomena of heat, which occur in these layers, depend on chemical
changes to which the cosmic sediment, after being covered by thick
terrestrial formations, is subjected. ]

[Footnote 193: Dr. Kjellman has given the following list of the
flowering plants collected by him in this region:--

 Cineraria frigida RICHARDS.
 Potentilla emarginata PURSH.
 Saxifraga stellaris L. f. comosa.
 Saxifraga nivalis L.
 Saxifraga cernua L.
 Saxifraga rivularis L.
 Chrysosplenium alternifolium L.
 Cardamine bellidifolia L.
 Draba corymbosa R. BR.
 Papaver nudicaule L.
 Ranunculus pygmæus WG.
 Ranunculus hyperboreus ROTTB.
 Ranunculus sulphureus SOL.
 Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.
 Cerastium alpinum L.
 Alsine macrocarpa FENZL.
 Salix polaris WG.
 Poa arctica R. BR.
 Arctophila peudulina (LAEST.) ANDS.
 Catabrosa algida (Sol.) FR.
 Colpodium latifolium R. BR.
 Dupontia Fisheri R. BR.
 Pleuropogon Sabini R. BR.
 Aira cæspitosa L.
 Hierochloa pauciflora R. BR.
 Calamagrostis lapponica (WG.) HN.
 Alopecurus alpinus SM.
 Eriophorum angustifolium ROTH.
 Eriophorum Scheuchzeri HOPPE.
 Carex aquatilis WG.
 Carex rigida GOOD.
 Juncus biglumis L.
 Luzula hyperborea R. BR.
 Luzula arctica BL. ]

[Footnote 194: _H. Mohn._ Die Insel Einsamkeit, &c., with a map
(Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1879, p. 57). ]

[Footnote 195: This has been doubted by Russian geographers. Von
Baer for instance says:--

"Daruber ist gar kein Zweifel, dass dieses Vorgebirge nie umsegelt
ist, und dass es auf einem Irrthum beruhte, wenn Laptew auf einer
Seefahrt die Bucht, in welche der Taimur sich mündet, erreicht zu
haben glaubte. Seine eigenen späteren Fahrten erwiesen diesen
Irrthum. Die Vergleichung der Berichte und Verhältnisse lässt mich
aber auch glauben, dass selbst zu Lande man das Ende dieses
Vorgebirges nie erreicht habe; sondern Tscheljuskin, um dieser, man
kann wohl sagen, grässlichen Versuche endlich überhoben zu seyr,
sich zu der ungegründeten Behauptung entschloss, er habe das Ende
gesehen, und sich überzeugt, Sibirien sei nach Norden überall vom
Meere umgränzt," [statement by von Baer in _Neueste Nachrichten über
die nördlichste Gegend von Siberien_; von Baer and von Helmersen,
_Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches_. IV. St. Petersburg,
1841, p. 275]. In the following page in the same paper von Baer
indeed says that he will not lay any special weight on Strahlenberg's
statement that Siberia and Novaya Zemlya hang together, but he appears
to believe that they are connected by a bridge of perpetual ice. ]

[Footnote 196: According to an observation with an artificial
horizon on land. ]

[Footnote 197: According to an observation on board. The
observations for longitude that were made some hours before or after
noon, are reduced to noon. ]

[Footnote 198: The following 65 species were collected here by Dr.
Kjellman.--Saussurea alpina DC. Gymnandra Stelleri CHAM. &c.
SCHLECHT. Pedicularis hirsuta L. Eritrichium villosum BUNGE.
Myosotis silvatica HOFFM. Phaca frigida L. Dryas octopetala L.
Sieversia glacialis R. BR. Potentilla emarginata PURSH. Saxifraga
oppositifolia L. Saxifraga bronchialis L. Saxifraga flagellaris
WILLD. Saxifraga Hirculus L. Saxifraga serpyllifolia PURSH.
Saxifraga stellaris L.f. comosa. Saxifraga nivalis L. Saxifraga
hieraciifolia WALDST. &c. KIT. Saxifraga punctata L. Saxifraga cernua
L. Saxifraga rivularis L. Saxifraga cæspitosa L. Chrysosplenium
alternifolium L. Eutrema Edwardsii R. BR. Parrya macrocarpa R. BR.
Cardamine bellidifolia L. Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR. Draba alpina
L. Papaver nudicaule L. Ranunculus pygmæus WG. Ranunculus
hyperboreus ROTTB. Ranunculus nivalis L. Ranunculus sulphurous SOL.
Caltha palustris L. Wahlbergella apetala (L.) FR. Stellaria humifusa
ROTTB. Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR. Cerastium alpinum L. Alsine
macrocarpa FENZL. Alsine rubella WG. Sagina nivalis FR. Oxyria
digyna (L.) HILL. Polygonum viviparum L. Salix arctica PALL. Salix
reticulata L. Salix polaris WG. Poa arctica R. BR. Poa pratensis L.
Glyceria angustata R. BR. Glyceria vilfoidea (ANDS.) TH. FR.
Arctophila pendulina (LAEST.) AND. Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
Colpodium latifolium R. BR. Dupontia Fisheri R. BR. Aira cæspitosa
L. Hierochloa pauciflora R. BR. Alopecurus alpinus SM. Eriophorum
angustifolium ROTH. Eriophorum russeolum FR. Eriophorum Scheuchzeri
HOPPE. Carex ursina DESV. Carex aquatilis WG. Juncus biglumis L.
Luzula hyperborea R. BR. Luzula arctica BL. Lloydia serotina (L.)
REICHENB. ]

[Footnote 199: Before our departure, I had through the Swedish
Foreign Office obtained from the Russian Government letters patent
in which the Russian authorities with whom we might come in contact
were instructed to give us all the assistance that circumstances
might call for. ]



CHAPTER VIII.

    The voyage of the _Fraser_ and the _Express_ up the Yenisej
    and their return to Norway--Contract for the piloting of
    the _Lena_ up the Lena river--The voyage of the _Lena_
    through the delta and up the river to Yakutsk--The natural
    state of Siberia in general--The river territories--The
    fitness of the land for cultivation and the necessity for
    improved communications--The great rivers, the future
    commercial highways of Siberia--Voyage up the Yenisej in
    1875--Sibiriakoff's Island--The _tundra_--The primeval
    Siberian forest--The inhabitants of Western Siberia:
    the Russians, the Exiles, the "Asiatics"--Ways of travelling
    on the Yenisej: dog-boats, floating trading stores propelled
    by steam--New prospects for Siberia.


I have mentioned in the Introduction that the _Vega_ during the
first part of the voyage was accompanied by three other vessels,
which together with the principal vessel of the Expedition stood at
my disposal and under my orders, and I have stated in passing that
their voyages too deserve a place in the history of navigation. Now,
when we were parted from the vessel which had accompanied the _Vega_
farthest in her route eastwards, it may be the proper place to give
a brief account of the close of the voyages of the _Fraser_, the
_Express_, and the _Lena_ and give reasons for what I have said of
the importance of these voyages.

[Illustration: THE STEAMER "FRASER." ]

On the 9th August at 10 a.m., after Mr. Serebrenikoff had gone on
board the _Express_ to take command, as Sibiriakoff's commissioner,
of the two vessels bound for the Yenisej, the _Fraser_, with the
_Express_ in tow, started from Port Dickson for the river. The
voyage passed without other adventures than that in consequence of
unacquaintance with the navigable waters the vessel sometimes gently
grounded. On the 11th August Korepovskoj was reached, the same place
where I laid up in 1876 the goods which I had brought with me in the
_Ymer_. Here my old friend from my voyages of 1875 and 1876, the
Cossack Feodor, was taken on board. He however proved now as
unskilful a pilot as before. Notwithstanding his experience in 1876,
when, he several times ran the _Ymer_ aground, he had not yet got a
clear idea of the difference between the build of an ocean vessel
and of the common flat-bottomed Yenisej lighters, and his conception
of the responsibility of a pilot was expressed by his seeking, when
he was allowed to take his own course, to forget in the arms of
sleep all dangers and difficulties. Mr. Serebrenikoff and the
captains of the vessels were therefore themselves compelled by means
of frequent soundings, which were commonly made from a steam launch
in advance, to endeavour to find out the proper course. The
navigable water between the level islands covered with bushy
thickets and rich grassy meadows was often very narrow, but appears
to have been pretty deep, as, even when the vessels went forward
without the guidance of a skilful pilot, there was a depth of from 5
to 30 metres; and after a fisher, who knew the river better than
Feodor, had been taken on board, it was found possible to go at full
speed between the more southerly of the Briochov Islands[200] in a
depth of 30 to 50 metres. On 14th August the vessels reached
Tolstojnos, where a very well preserved _simovie_ is situated about
70° 10' N.L., 370 kilometres south of Port Dickson. On the
15th August they anchored in a good haven at Saostrovskoj, a
_simovie_ lying 100 kilometres farther up the river at the limit of
trees, where the goods were to be discharged and another cargo taken
on board. After a jetty had been constructed on the 16th, the
landing of the goods began on the 17th, and was finished on the
20th. The _Fraser_ went still farther up the river to Dudino, in
order to load various goods laid up there--tallow, wheat, rye, and
oats. On the 2nd September the steamer returned to Saostrovskoj,
where in the meantime the _Express_ had taken on board her cargo.

Dudino is a church village, situated at the point where the river
Dudinka flows into the Yenisej. Here live two priests, a _smotritel_ (a
police official), a couple of exiles, some Russian workmen, and a number
of natives, as well as the owner of the place, the influential merchant
SOTNIKOFF. This active and able man is in an economical point of view
ruler over the whole of the surrounding region, all whose inhabitants
are in one way or other dependent upon him. He exchanges grain, brandy,
sugar, tea, iron goods, powder and lead, cloth and leather, for furs,
fish, mammoth-ivory, &c.; and these goods are sent by steamer to
Yenisejsk to be forwarded from thence to China, Moscow, St. Petersburg,
&c. Among other things he is also the owner of very thick coal-seams in
the Noril Mountains lying about 60 kilometres from Dudino. This simple
and unostentatious man has been very obliging to all the scientific men
who have visited the region. His dwelling, situated in the neighbourhood
of the limit of trees, is probably the stateliest palace of the Siberian
_tundra_, admired by natives from far and near. It is built of large
logs, consists of two stories, has a roof painted green, many windows
with decorated frames painted white and blue; the rooms are warm,
provided with carpets of furs, pot-flowers in the windows, numerous
sacred pictures, photographs, and copper engravings.

On the 7th September all was ready for departure. The _Fraser_ and
_Express_ weighed anchor to commence the return voyage down the
river. At Tolstojnos two days after they met the steamer
_Moskwa_[201] of Bremen, Captain Dallmann, having on board the crew
of the Norwegian steamer _Zaritza_, Captain Brun, which had stranded
at the mouth of the Yenisej and been abandoned by the crew. In the
case of this stranding, however, the damage done had not been
greater than that, when the _Fraser_ fell in with the stranded
_Zaritza_, it could be pumped dry, taken off the shoal, and, the
engine having first been put in order, carried back to Norway. On
the 19th September all the three vessels arrived at Matotschkin
Sound, where they lay some days in Beluga Bay in order to take in
water and trim the cargo and coal; after which on the 22nd of the
same month they sailed through the sound to the west, and on the
26th anchored at Hammerfest in good condition and with full
cargoes.[202] The goods, which now for the first time were carried
from the Yenisej to Europe, consisted of about 600 tons--tallow,
wheat, rye and oats. The goods imported into Siberia consisted
mainly of 16 tons nails, 8 tons horseshoes, 4 tons horsenails,
16-1/2 tons bar iron, 33 tons tobacco, 60 tons salt, 24 casks
petroleum, an iron lighter in pieces with the necessary adjuncts of
anchors, &c.[203]


Before I begin to give an account of the voyage of the _Lena_ I must
briefly mention the steps which Mr. Sibiriakoff took for her safety
during her voyage from the mouth of the river, where she was to part
from the _Vega_, to her proper destination, the town of Yakutsk. It
is naturally very difficult for a vessel to seek her way without a
pilot through an extensive delta completely unknown in a
hydrographic respect, and crossed by a large number of deeper or
shallower river arms. Mr. Sibiriakoff had therefore arranged that a
river pilot should meet the _Lena_ at the north point of the delta,
and had through Mr. Kolesoff negotiated with him the following
contract, which I reproduce here in full, because it gives in
several respects a very graphic picture of various social relations
in these remote regions. The copy of the contract which has been
communicated to me when translated runs thus:--

    At Yakutsk, in the year one thousand eight hundred and
    seventy-eight on the 18th February, I, the undersigned
    Yakut AFONASII FEODOROFF WINOKUROFF, have concluded the
    following contract with IVAN PLATONOWITSCH KOLESOFF,
    merchant of the second guild in the town of Yakutsk.

    1. I, Winokuroff bind myself as pilot to carry the vessel
    of Professor Nordenskiöld's expedition up the river Lena
    from the village Tas-Ary, which lies about 150 versts
    below the village Bulun. From Tumat Island, which is
    situated in the northeastern part of the Lena delta, I
    bind myself for the piloting of the same vessel to procure
    at my own cost among the inhabitants of the place a pilot
    who knows well the deepest channel of the Lena river as
    far as the village Tas-Ary. This pilot the chief of the
    expedition shall discharge at the village Tas-Ary.

    2. As I am not master of the Russian language I bind
    myself to bring along with me a Yakut interpreter, who
    knows the Russian language and is able to write. In May of
    this year, I, Winokuroff, with the interpreter shall
    travel from the town of Yakutsk down the Lena river to
    Tumat Island and there along with the interpreter wait for
    the expedition.

    3. During the passage down the river I am bound to hire
    among the inhabitants of the regions a competent guide,
    who shall accompany us in my own boats to the island by
    the deepest channel in the Lena delta. During the passage
    from the village Tas-Ary I shall take soundings and record
    the depth of the fairway.

    4. Between the village Bulun and Tumat Island, I bind
    myself to seek for two places for the wintering of the
    vessel, which are quite suitable for the purpose, and
    protected from ice. I shall further lay before the
    commander of the expedition a journal containing
    everything which I can find that it would be advantageous
    to know for the safety of navigation and for the wintering
    of the vessels, also accounts of the places which are
    dangerous or unsuitable for navigation.

    5. On my arrival at Tumat Island I shall make it my first
    duty to find a deep and convenient haven for the seagoing
    vessels on the western side of the island. For this
    purpose I bind myself to have with me two boats, which, if
    necessary, shall be given over to the expedition. At the
    haven when found I bind myself to erect on some eminence
    near the shore of the island, which can be seen from Cape
    Olonek, a signal tower of driftwood or earth, like a
    Cossack mound, not lower than seven feet. On this
    foundation I shall raise a pyramidal frame of three or
    more thick logs, on the top of which I shall fix a
    flagstaff with a pulley block for the flag. The flag is to
    be flown at least 42 feet from the ground. I shall guard
    the landmark thus erected until the river freezes. For
    this purpose Herr Kolesoff has provided me with a
    ready-made flag, a pulley block and a line. And when the
    nights become dark I shall light two or three large fires
    or hang up lanterns on the landmark itself, so that these
    fires or lanterns may be seen from the sea.

    6. From the village Tas-Ary I shall carry the vessel of
    the expedition to the town of Yakutsk, inasmuch as I shall
    show the proper fairway on the Lena river. The interpreter
    shall be at my side during the whole journey.

    7. During the whole time from the day when I start from
    Yakutsk, up to the close of my time of service in
    Nordenskiöld's expedition we, I, Winokuroff, and my
    interpreter, must be always sober (never intoxicated),
    behave faithfully and courteously, and punctually comply
    with the captain's orders.

    8. For all these obligations Herr Kolesoff has to pay me
    900 roubles.

    9. After the arrival of the expedition at Yakutsk I will
    not be allowed to leave the ship without the permission of
    the chief, but shall still remain on board. If the captain
    finds it necessary that I accompany him back to the mouth
    of the Lena, I shall conform to his wish in consideration
    of an extra fee of 300 roubles. During this latter passage
    I am not bound to have with me any interpreter.

    10. If the arrival of the expedition at Tumat Island is
    delayed by any circumstance to the month of November, I
    have the right to betake myself along with my interpreter
    to Yakutsk and here to produce to Herr Kolesoff an
    official certificate given by Commandant Baschleff or any
    other local official that I had erected a landmark on
    Tumat Island and remained there until the river was frozen
    over, and that I did not leave until the expedition was no
    longer to be expected. Then Herr Kolesoff on the ground of
    this contract must settle with me by paying me the whole
    sum of 900 roubles, together with 200 roubles for my
    return journey.

    11. If the vessel of the expedition arrive at Tumat Island
    so late that the voyage becomes impossible, we, I and my
    interpreter, shall winter with the expedition until the
    river becomes open in 1879. And in this case we, I and my
    interpreter, shall live at our own expense, and serve the
    expedition as belonging to its crew. After the
    commencement of navigation in 1879 I shall conduct the
    vessel from the wintering station to the town of Yakutsk.
    On this account I have to receive, besides the 900 roubles
    coming to me, 800 roubles more. If during this voyage too
    it should be necessary to accompany the vessels from
    Yakutsk back to the mouth of the Lena, I shall do that,
    and receive on that account 300 roubles. But if the
    vessels winter at Yakutsk, I shall be free during winter,
    and only during next year's voyage, if so required,
    accompany them to the mouth of the Lena. In that case I
    have to receive 300 roubles.

    12. Of this sum agreed upon Herr Kolesoff shall pay me in
    advance on the conclusion of this contract 300 roubles, in
    the month of May at my departure 150 roubles, and at the
    village Bulun 250 roubles, for my payment to my companions
    and pilot and other expenses. The balance shall be paid to
    me after my return to Yakutsk.

    13. In the month of May, at the time for starting, if I be
    prevented by illness from betaking myself to Tumat Island,
    I shall repay to Herr Kolesoff the sum paid to me at the
    conclusion of this contract, with the exception of the
    money I have paid to the interpreter as pocket-money and
    for the boats. Should I not be able to repay the sum, I,
    Winokuroff, shall work out the amount not repaid at Herr
    Sibiriakoff's gold mines.

    14. All this are we, the two contracting parties, bound to
    observe in full and without infringement.

A note to the copy further informs us that to this contract the Yakut
Afonasii Feodoroff Winokuroff had, in place of his signature, attached
his own seal, which the Yakut Alexii Zassimoff Mironoff had engraved,
and that the conditions had been approved by the merchant Ivan Kolesoff,
and the whole registered at the police-office of the Yakutsk circle.

The contract had been entered into with the friendly co-operation of the
Governor and Bishop of Yakutsk, who were much interested in the proposed
voyage. The latter knew the coast of the Polar Sea from his own
experience. But notwithstanding all this, the affair was attended with
no better success than that the pilot celebrated the receipt of the
large sum of money by getting thoroughly intoxicated, and while in that
state he broke one of the bones of the fore-arm. He was thus unable ever
to reach the appointed rendezvous, and Johannesen was allowed to manage
by his own hand, as best he could, his little steamer.

[Illustration: THE STEAMER "LENA." ]

After the _Lena_ had parted with the _Vega_ during the night between
the 27th and 28th August, she steamed towards land, and came the
same day to the northernmost cape of the Lena delta, situated in 73°
47' N.L.[204] It was here that the pilot's landmark was to
have been erected, but there was no pilot here, and no flagstaff was
visible. In order to fall in with this landmark Johannesen sailed
forty kilometres westward along the shore, but as his search in this
direction was not attended with success, he turned back to the
first-mentioned place and landed there. On the shore stood a very
old hut, already completely filled with earth. It probably dated
from some of the expeditions which visited the region in the
beginning of the century. Wild reindeer were seen in large numbers.
As according to the contract which has been quoted the landmark was
to be visible from Cape Olonek, Johannesen steamed once more to the
west, running as close to the land as possible. But as the water
here became shallower and shallower without any signal-tower being
visible, Johannesen had to find his way himself through the delta;
and for this purpose he determined to search for the easternmost arm
of the river, which, on the maps, is drawn as being very broad,
and also appears to have been made use of by the vessels of
"the great northern expeditions."[205]

[Illustration: HANS CHRISTIAN JOHANNESEN.
Captain of the "Lena." Born in 1846. ]

Forty kilometres east of the northern extremity of the Lena delta
Johannesen encountered three sandbanks, which he sailed round. After
passing these the water became deeper, so that he could advance at a
distance of five kilometres from land. On the 1st September Johannesen
anchored in a bay on the mainland in the neighbourhood of the Bychov
mouth, whence on the 3rd September, at 2.30 a.m., he continued his
course up the river, but by 10 o'clock the _Lena_ was aground. The water
was falling, and did not begin to rise until an hour after midnight. It
was not, therefore, until 8 a.m. the following day that the _Lena_ was
got off, and that with great difficulty. The sailing through the delta
was rendered difficult by the maps, which were made 140 years ago, being
now useless. For the delta has undergone great alterations since then.
Where at that time there were sandbanks, there are now large islands,
overgrown with wood and grass. At other places again whole islands have
been washed away by the river.

While the vessel was aground nine Tunguses came on board. They rowed in
small boats, which were made of a single tree stem, hollowed out, and
could just carry a man each. Johannesen endeavoured in vain to induce
some of the Tunguses to pilot the steamer; he did not succeed in
explaining his wish to them, notwithstanding all the attempts of the
Russian interpreter, a proof of the slight contact these Tunguses had
had with the rulers of Siberia, and also of the difficulty and
unwillingness with which the savage learns the language of the civilised
nations.

It was not until the 7th September that the delta was finally
passed, and the _Lena_ steamed in the river proper, where the
fairway became considerably better. Johannesen says in his
account of the voyage that it is improbable that any of the
western arms of the Lena are of importance, partly because the
mass of water which flows in an easterly direction is very
considerable in comparison with the whole quantity of water in
the river, partly because the western and northern arms which
Johannesen visited contained only salt water, while the water
in the eastern arm was completely free from any salt taste. On
the 8th, early in the morning, the first fixed dwelling-place on
the Lena, Tas-Ary, was reached. Here the voyagers landed to
get information about the fairway, but could not enter into
communication with the natives, because they were Tunguses.
In the afternoon of the same day they came to another river
village, Bulun. Impatient to proceed, and supposing that it
too was inhabited wholly by "Asiatics,"[206] Johannesen intended
to pass it without stopping. But when the inhabitants saw the
steamer they welcomed it with a salute from all the guns that
could be got hold of in haste.[207] The _Lena_ then anchored. Two
Crown officials and a priest came on board, and the latter
performed a thanksgiving service.

Even at that remote spot on the border of the _tundra_ the Asiatic
comprehended very well the importance of vessels from the great oceans
being able to reach the large rivers of Siberia. I too had a proof of
this in the year 1875. While still rowing up the river in my own
Nordland boat with two scientific men and three hunters, before we got
up with the steamer _Alexander_ we landed, among others, at a place
where a number of Dolgans were collected. When they understood clearly
that we had come to them, not as brandy-sellers or fish-buyers from the
south, but from the north, _from the ocean_, they went into complete
ecstasies. We were exposed to unpleasant embraces from our skin-clad
admirers, and finally one of us had the misfortune to get a bath in the
river in the course of an attempt which the Dolgans in their excitement
made to carry him almost with violence to the boat, which was lying in
the shallow water some distance from the shore. At Dudino, also, the
priests living there held a thanksgiving service for our happy arrival
thither. Two of them said mass, while the clerk, clad in a sheepskin
caftan reaching to his feet, zealously and devoutly swung an immense
censer. The odour from it was at first not particularly pleasant, but it
soon became so strong and disagreeable that I, who had my place in front
of the audience, was like to choke, though the ceremony was performed in
the open air. Soon the clerk was completely concealed in a dense cloud
of smoke, and it was now observed that his skin cloak had been set fire
to at the same time as the incense. The service, however, was not
interrupted by this incident, but the fire was merely extinguished by a
bucket of water being thrown, to the amusement of all, over the clerk.

At nine in the morning the _Lena_ continued her voyage up the river with
the priest and the Crown officials on board, but they had soon to be
landed, because in their joy they had become dead drunk. On the 13th
September Schigansk was reached, and samples of the coal found there
were taken on board, but these proved unserviceable,[208] and on the
21st September the _Lena_ reached Yakutsk. The first vessel which,
coming from the ocean, reached the heart of Siberia was received with
great goodwill and hospitality, both by the authorities and the common
people. But when Johannesen did not find here Sibiriakoff's
representative, Kolesoff, he continued his voyage up the river, until,
on the 8th October, he came to the village Njaskaja, 220 versts from
Vitim, in about 60° N.L. Here he turned back to Yakutsk and laid up the
steamer in winter quarters a little to the south of that town.

[Illustration: YAKUTSK IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (After Witsen.) ]

Both the _Fraser_ and _Express_ and the _Lena_ had thus fully
answered the purposes intended before the departure of the
expedition, and their voyages will always form an important
link in the chain of the attempts through which navigation in
the Siberian Polar Sea has been opened.

In order to give an idea of the influence which this sea-route
may have on the commerce of the world, and the new source of
fortune and prosperity which thereby maybe rendered accessible
to millions, I shall in a few words give an account of the nature
of the territory which by means of this sea-communication
will be brought into contact with the old civilised countries
of Europe.

[Illustration: YAKUTSK IN OUR DAYS. (After a recent Russian drawing.) ]

If we take Siberia in its widest sense, that is to say, if we
include under that name not only Siberia proper, but also the parts
of High Asia which lie round the sources of the great Siberian
rivers, this land may very well be compared in extent, climate,
fertility, and the possibility of supporting a dense population,
with America north of 40° N.L. Like America, Siberia is
occupied in the north by woodless plains. South of this region,
where only the hunter, the fisher, and the reindeer nomad can find a
scanty livelihood, there lies a widely extended forest territory,
difficult of cultivation, and in its natural conditions, perhaps,
somewhat resembling Sweden and Finland north of 60° or 61°
N.L. South of this wooded belt, again, we have, both in
Siberia and America, immeasurable stretches of an exceedingly
fertile soil, of whose power to repay the toil of the cultivator the
grain exports during recent years from the frontier lands between
the United States and Canada have afforded so striking evidence.
There is, however, this dissimilarity between Siberia and America,
that while the products of the soil in America may be carried easily
and cheaply to the harbours of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the
best part of Siberia, that which lies round the upper part of the
courses of the Irtisch-Ob and the Yenisej, is shut out from the
great oceans of the world by immense tracts lying in front of it,
and the great rivers which in Siberia cross the country and appear
to be intended by nature to form not only the arteries for its inner
life, but also channels of communication with the rest of the world,
all flow towards the north and fall into a sea which, down to the
most recent times, has been considered completely inaccessible.

[Illustration: Map of the River System of Siberia. ]

Of these rivers the double river, Ob-Irtisch, with its numerous
affluents, occupies an area of more than 60,000 geographical square
miles, the Yenisej-Angara, not quite 50,000, and the Lena, somewhat
over 40,000.[209] As the map of the river system of Siberia, which
accompanies this work, shows, but a small part of these enormous
territories lies north of the Arctic Circle, and only very
inconsiderable portions of it are occupied by woodless _tundra_,
which is explained by the fact that the greater part of the
coast-land bordering on the Arctic Ocean is drained by small rivers
of its own, and therefore cannot be considered to belong to the
river territories now in question. If we draw the northern boundary
of the land that may be cultivated with advantage at 60° N.L.,
there remains a cultivable area of 90,000 geographical square miles.
Perhaps a third part of this is occupied by rocky country which is
wooded, and probably capable of being cultivated only with
considerable difficulty, but the rest consists for the most part of
easily cultivated grassy plains, with little wood, and covered with
the most luxuriant vegetation. The soil, in many places resembling
the black earth or _tscherno-sem_ of Russia, recompenses with
abundant harvests even the slightest labour of cultivation.
Notwithstanding this, these regions now support only an exceedingly
sparse population, but many, many millions may without difficulty
find their subsistence there when once cultivation has developed the
rich natural resources of the country.

It is a circumstance specially fortunate for the future development
of Siberia that its three great rivers are already navigable for the
greater part of their course. The Ob is navigable from Biisk (52-1/2°
N.L.), and the Irtisch at least from Semipalitinsk (50°
18' N.L.). The Yenesej, again, which, after leaving the region of
its sources in China, crosses with its two main arms the whole of
Siberia from north to south, from the forty-sixth to the
seventy-third degree of latitude, and thus traverses a territory
which corresponds in length to the distance between Venice and the
North Cape, or between the mouth of the Mississippi and the north
part of Lake Winnipeg, and is already navigable by nature from the
sea to Yenisejsk. To this town goods are already transported _down_
both the main arms from Minusinsk and the region of Lake Baikal. It
is said that the Angara might be made quite navigable during its
whole course at an expenditure trifling in comparison with the
advantages that would thus be gained, as well as its continuation,
the Selenga, in its lower part between the Chinese frontier and Lake
Baikal. In this way a river route would be opened for the conveyance
of the products of North China and South Siberia to a sea which an
ordinary steamer would cross in five or six days to the White Sea or
the North Cape. A similar communication with the Atlantic may be
opened on the double river Ob-Irtisch with Western Siberia and High
Asia as far as to Chinese Dsungaria, where the Irtisch begins its
course as a small river, the Black Irtisch, which falls into Lake
Saisan, and rises south of the Altai Mountains in the neighbourhood
of the Selenga, the source-river of the Yenisej. At several places
the river territories of the Ob and the Yenesej nearly reach hands
to one another through affluents, which rise so close to each other
that the two river systems might easily be connected by canals. This
is also the case with the affluents of the Yenesej and the Lena,
which at many places almost meet, and the Lena itself is, according
to Latkin's statement, navigable from the village of Kotschuga to
the sea. We see from this how extraordinarily advantageous is the
natural system of interior communication which Siberia possesses,
and at the same time that a communication by sea between this
country and the rest of the world is possible only by the Arctic
Ocean. It is on this that the enormous importance of the navigation
of the Siberian Polar Sea depends. If this can be brought about,
Siberia, with an inconsiderable expenditure in making canals, will
not only become one of the most fortunate countries of the globe in
respect of the possibility of the cheap transport of goods, but the
old proposal of a north-eastern commercial route to China may even
become a reality. If, on the other hand, navigation on the Polar Sea
be not brought about, Siberia will still long remain what it is at
present--a land rich in raw materials, but poor in all that is
required for the convenience and comfort with which the civilised
man in our days can with difficulty dispense.

Many perhaps believe that the present want of commercial
communication may be removed by a railway running across Russia and
Southern Siberia. But this is by no means the case. On the contrary,
communication by sea is an indispensable condition of such a railway
being profitable. For it can never come in question to carry on a
railway the products of the forest or the field over the stretch of
three to five thousand kilometres which separates the fertile river
territory of the Ob-Irtisch from the nearest European port. Even if
we suppose that the railway freight, inclusive of all costs, could
be reduced to a farthing the kilometre-ton, it would in any case
rise, from the grain regions of Siberia to a harbour on the Baltic,
to from 4_l_. to nearly 7_l_. per ton. So high a freight, with the
costs of loading in addition, none of the common products of
agriculture or forestry can stand, as may easily be seen if we
compare this amount with the prices current in the markets of the
world for wheat, rye, oats, barley, timber, &c. But if the Siberian
countryman cannot sell his raw products, the land will continue to
be as thinly peopled as it is at present, nor can the sparse
population which will be found there procure themselves means to
purchase such products of the industry of the present day as are
able to bear long railway carriage. In the absence of contemporaneous
sea-communication the railway will therefore be without traffic, the
land such as it is at present, and the unprosperous condition of the
European population undiminished.

In order to give the reader an idea of the present natural
conditions, and the present communication on a Siberian river, I
shall, before returning to the sketch of the voyage of the _Vega_,
give some extracts from notes made during my journey up the Yenesej
in 1875, reminding the reader, however, that the natural conditions
of the Ob-Irtisch and the Lena differ considerably from those of the
Yenisej, the Ob-Irtisch flowing through lower, more fertile, and
more thickly peopled regions, the Lena again through a wilder, more
beautiful, but less cultivated country.

When one travels up the river from Port Dickson, the broad sound
between Sibiriakoff's Island and the mainland is first passed, but
the island is so low that it is not visible from the eastern bank of
the river and which is usually followed in sailing up or down the
river. The mainland, on the other hand, is at first high-lying, and
in sailing along the coast it is possible to distinguish various
spurs of the range of hills, estimated to be from 150 to 200 metres
high, in the interior. These are free of snow in summer. A little
south of Port Dickson they run to the river bank, where they form a
low rock and rocky island projecting into the river, named after
some otherwise unknown Siberian Polar trapper, Yefremov Kamen.

Sibiriakoff's Island has never, so far as we know, been visited by
man, not even during the time when numerous _simovies_ were found at
the mouth of the Yenesej. For no indication of this island is found
in the older maps of Siberia, although these, as appears from the
fac-simile reproduced at page 192, give the names of a number of
_simovies_ at the mouth of the Yenisej, now abandoned. Nor is it
mentioned in the accounts of the voyages of the great northern
expeditions. The western strand of the island, the only one I have
seen, completely bore the stamp of the _tundra_ described below.
Several reindeer were seen pasturing on the low grassy eminences of
the island, giving promise of abundant sport to the hunter who first
lands there.

Still at Yefremov Kamen we saw in 1875 three Polar bears who
appeared to pasture in all peacefulness among the rocks, and did not
allow themselves to be disturbed by the enormous log-fire of
driftwood we lighted on the strand to make our coffee. Here were
found for the last time during our journey up the river actual
marine animals: Appendicularia, Olio, medusæ, large beroids, &c.
Large bushy plants were still completely wanting, but the vegetable
world already began to assume a stamp differing from the Arctic
Ocean flora proper. A short distance south of Yefremov Kamen begins
the veritable _tundra_, a woodless plain, interrupted by no mountain
heights, with small lakes scattered over it, and narrow valleys
crossing it, which often make an excursion on the apparently level
plain exceedingly tiresome.

[Illustration: RIVER VIEW ON THE YENISEJ. (From a drawing by A.N.
Lundström.) ]

As is the case with all the other Siberian rivers running from south
to north,[210] the western strand of the Yenisej, wherever it is
formed of loose, earthy layers, is also quite low and often marshy,
while on the other hand the eastern strand consists of a steep bank,
ten to twenty metres high, which north of the limit of trees is
distributed in a very remarkable way into pyramidal pointed mounds.
Numerous shells of crustacea found here, belonging to species which
still live in the Polar Sea, show that at least the upper earthy
layer of the _tundra_ was deposited in a sea resembling that which
now washes the north coast of Siberia.[211]

The _tundra_ itself is in summer completely free of snow, but at a
limited depth from the surface the ground is continually frozen. At
some places the earthy strata alternate with strata of pure, clear
ice. It is in these frozen strata that complete carcases of
elephants and rhinoceroses have been found, which have been
protected from putrefaction for hundreds of thousands of years. Such
_finds_, however, are uncommon, but on the other hand single bones
from this primeval animal world occur in rich, abundance, and along
with them masses of old driftwood, originating from the Mammoth
period, known by the Russian natives of Siberia under the
distinctive name of "Noah's wood." Besides there are to be seen in
the most recent layer of the Yenesej _tundra_, considerably north of
the present limit of actual trees, large tree-stems with their roots
fast in the soil, which show that the limit of trees in the Yenesej
region, even during our geological period, went further north than
now, perhaps as far as, in consequence of favourable local
circumstances, it now goes on the Lena.

[Illustration: SUB-FOSSIL MARINE CRUSTACEA FROM THE TUNDRA. ]

On the slopes of the steep _tundra_ bank and in several of the _tundra_
valleys there is an exceedingly rich vegetation, which already, only 100
kilometres south of Yefremov Kamen, forms actual thickets of flowering
plants, while the _tundra_ itself is overgrown with an exceedingly
scanty carpet, consisting more of mosses than of grasses. Salices of
little height go as far north as Port Dickson (73° 30' N.L.), the dwarf
birch (_Betula nana_, L.) is met with, though only as a bush creeping
along the ground, at Cape Schaitanskoj (72° 8' N.L.); and here in 1875,
on the ice-mixed soil of the _tundra_, we gathered ripe cloudberries.
Very luxuriant alders (_Alnaster fruticosus_, LEDEB.) occur already at
Mesenkin (71° 28' N.L.), and the Briochov Islands (70° to 71° N.L.), are
in several places covered with rich and luxuriant thickets of bushes.
But the limit of trees proper is considered to begin first at the great
bend which the river makes in 69° 40' N.L., a little north of Dudino.
Here the hills are covered with a sort of wood consisting of
half-withered, grey, moss-grown larches (_Larix sibirica_), which seldom
reach a height of more than seven to ten metres, and which much less
deserve the name of trees than the luxuriant alder bushes which grow
nearly 2° farther north. But some few miles south of this place, and
still far north of the Arctic Circle, the pine forest becomes tall. Here
begins a veritable forest, the greatest the earth has to show, extending
with little interruption from the Ural to the neighbourhood of the Sea
of Ochotsk, and from the fifty-eighth or fifty-ninth degree of latitude
to far north of the Arctic Circle, that is to say, about one thousand
kilometres from north to south, and perhaps four times as much from east
to west. It is a primeval forest of enormous extent, nearly untouched by
the axe of the cultivator, but at many places devastated by extensive
forest fires.

On the high eastern bank of the Yenisej the forest begins
immediately at the river bank. It consists principally of pines: the
cembra pine (_Pinus Cembra_, L.), valued for its seeds, enormous
larches, the nearly awl-formed Siberian pine (_Pinus sibirica_,
LEDEB.), the fir (_Pinus obovata_, TURCZ.), and scattered trees of
the common pine (_Pinus sylvestris_, L.). Most of these already
north of the Arctic Circle reach a colossal size, but in such a case
are often here, far from all forestry, grey and half-dried up with
age. Between the trees the ground is so covered with fallen branches
and stems, only some of which are fresh, the others converted into a
mass of wood-mould held together only by the bark, that there one
willingly avoids going forward on an unbroken path. If that must be
done, the progress made is small, and there is constant danger of
breaking one's bones in the labyrinth of stems. Nearly everywhere
the fallen stems are covered, often concealed, by an exceedingly
luxuriant bed of mosses, while on the other hand tree-lichens,
probably in consequence of the dry inland climate of Siberia, occur
sparingly. The pines, therefore, want the shaggy covering common in
Sweden, and the bark of the birches which are seen here and there
among the pines is distinguished by an uncommon blinding whiteness.

The western bank of the Yenesej consists, like the innumerable
islands of the river, for the most part of lowlying and marshy
stretches of land, which at the season of the spring floods are
overflowed by the river and abundantly manured with its mud. In this
way there is formed here a fertile tract of meadow covered partly
with a grassy turf untouched by the scythe, partly with a very
peculiar bush vegetation, rising to a height of eight metres, among
which there are to be found a number of families of plants well
known by us in Sweden, as Impatiens, Urtica, Sonchus, Heracleum,
&c., but in gigantic forms unknown at home. Often a dense thicket of
a willow (_Salix vitellenia_, L.), whose straight, branchless stems
resemble at a distance the bamboo woods of the south, alternates
with level, grassy carpets of a lively green and small streams in
such a way as gives the whole the appearance of the most smiling
park carefully kept free of fallen branches and dry grass. It is the
river water which in spring has played the gardener's part in these
parks, seldom trodden by the foot of man and endlessly rich in the
most splendid greenery. Near the river there are also to be found
carpets of a uniform green, consisting of a short kind of Equisetum,
unmixed with any other plants, which forms a "gazon," to which no
nobleman's country seat can show a match. The drawback is, that a
stay in these regions during summer is nearly rendered impossible by
the enormous number of mosquitoes with which the air is infested.

A table drawn up by Dr. Arnell, to be found in _Redogörelse för de
svenska expeditionerna till mynningen of Jenisej år 1876_,[212]
shows the distribution of the most important varieties of trees.
From it we see that on the Yenesej the birch (_Betula odorata_,
BECHST.), the fir (_Pinus obovata_, TURCZ.), the larch (_Pinus
larix_, L.), and the juniper (_Juniperus communis_, L.), go to 69°
35' N.L. (that is to say to the latitude of Tromsoe); the
sallow (_Salix caprea_, L.) to 68° 55'; the bird's cherry
(_Prunus padus_, L.), and the Siberian pine (_Pinus sibirica_,
LEDEB.), to 66° 30'; the aspen (_Populus tremula_, L.) to 65° 55'
(the latitude of Haparanda); the pine (_Pinus sylvatica_,
L.) to 65° 50', &c.

In the middle of the forest belt the wood appears to cover the whole
land without interruption, there being, unless exceptionally, no
open places. But towards the north the forest passes into the
treeless _tundra_ through bare spots occurring here and there, which
gradually increase, until trees grow only in valleys and sheltered
places, and finally disappear completely. Similar is the passage of
the forest to treeless regions (steppes), which at first are here
and there bestrewed with more or less detached groups of
broad-leaved trees, until they wholly disappear, and the land forms
an endless plain, out of whose fertile soil the warm summer sun
calls forth a great variety of luxuriant vegetable forms, whose
many-hued flowers, often large and splendid, clothe the fields with
the richest splendour of colour. Here is the true homeland of many
of the show-plants in the flower-gardens of Europe, as, for
instance, the peony, the Siberian robinia, the blue iris, &c.

If the Siberian wooded belt forms the most extensive forest in the
world, this flower-steppe forms the world's greatest cultivable
field, in all probability unequalled in extent and fertility.
Without manure and with an exceedingly small amount of labour
expended on cultivation, man will year by year draw forth from its
black soil the most abundant harvests. For the present, however,
this land, with its splendid capabilities for cultivation, has an
exceedingly scanty population; and this holds good in a yet higher
degree of the forest belt, which is less susceptible of cultivation.
At a considerable distance from the rivers it is for the most part
an unknown land, where the European seldom or never sets his foot,
and where only the native nomad or hunter wanders about. These
forests, however, are by no means so rich in game as might be
expected, perhaps because the mosquitoes in summer are unendurable
by warm-blooded animals.

The main population in the forest belt consists of native nomad or
hunting tribes, of which Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Tunguses, and Yakuts are
the most numerous. Only along the rivers do we find Russian villages
and peasant settlements, placed there for trading with the natives,
for fishing, and at some places for washing gold. Not till we come
to the middle of the country is the Russian population more
numerous, here it spreads out in a broad belt over the whole of the
immense expanse between the Ural and the Angara.

[Illustration: SIBERIAN RIVER BOAT. Used by the Norwegian traveller
Chr. Hansteen on the river Angara. ]

In the farthest north the Russian dwelling-places consist of single
cabins built of logs or planks from broken-up lighters,[213] and
having flat, turf-covered roofs. Such carvings and ornaments as are
commonly found on the houses of the well-to-do Russian peasant, and
whose artistic outlines indicate that the inhabitants have had time
to think of something else than the satisfaction of the wants of the
moment, are here completely wanting; but further south the villages
are larger, and the houses finer, with raised roofs and high gables
richly ornamented with wood-carvings. A church, painted in bright
colours, generally shows that one of the inhabitants of the village
has become rich enough to be at the expense of this ornament to his
native place. The whole indicates a degree of prosperity, and the
interiors of the houses, if we except the cockroaches, which swarm
everywhere, are very clean. The walls are ornamented with numerous,
if not very artistic, photographs and lithographs. Sacred pictures,
richly ornamented, are placed in a corner, and before them hang
several small oil-lamps, or small wax-lights, which are lighted on
festive occasions. The sleeping place is formed of a bedstead near
the roof, so large that it occupies a half or a third of the room,
and at such a height from the floor that one can stand upright under
it. There a tropical heat commonly prevails, the occupant of the bed
accordingly enjoying an almost constant sweat-bath, which does not
prevent him from going out immediately into the open air at a
temperature at which mercury freezes. Food is cooked in large baking
ovens, which are fired daily for that purpose, and at the same time
heat the cabin. Fresh bread is baked every day, and even for the
poor a large tea-urn (_samovar_) is an almost indispensable
household article. The foreigner is certain to receive a hearty and
friendly welcome when he crosses the threshold, and if he stays a
short time in the cabin he will generally, whatever time of the day
it be, find himself drinking a glass of tea with his host. The dress
everywhere closely resembles the Russian: for the rich, wide velvet
trousers stuck into the boots, a shirt showily embroidered with
silver thread, and a large caftan often lined with fur; for the
poor, if not too ragged, the same cut, but the cloth inferior,
dirty, and torn. During winter, however, for going out of doors, the
Samoyed _pesk_ is said to be common to high and low, Russian and
native, settled and nomad.

In my journey up the Yenesej in 1875 I met with only a few persons
in these regions who had been exiled thither for political reasons,
but on the other hand very many exiled criminals of the deepest
dye--murderers, thieves, forgers, incendiaries, &c. Among them were
also some few Fins and even a Swede, or at least one who, according
to his own statement in broken Swedish, had formerly served in the
King's Guard at Stockholm. Security of person and property was in
any case complete, and it was remarkable that there did not appear
to be any proper distinction of caste between the Russian-Siberian
natives and those who had been exiled for crime. There appeared even
to be little interest in ascertaining the crime--or, as the
customary phrase appears to be here, the "misfortune"--which caused
the exile. On making inquiry on this point I commonly got the
answer, susceptible of many interpretations, "for bad behaviour." We
found a peculiar sort of criminal colony at Selivaninskoj, a very
large village situated on the eastern bank of the Yenesej in about
the latitude of Aavasaksa. My journal of the expedition of 1875
contains the following notes of my visit to this colony.

The orthodox Russian church, as is well known, is tolerant towards
the professors of foreign religions--Lutherans, Catholics, Jews,
Mohammedans, Buddhists, Shamans, &c.; but, on the other hand, in
complete correspondence with what took place in former times within
the Protestant world, persecutes sectaries within its own pale, with
temporal punishments here upon earth and with threatenings of
eternal in another world. Especially in former times a great many
sectaries have been sent to Siberia, and therefore there are
sometimes to be found there peculiar colonies enjoying great
prosperity, exclusively inhabited by the members of a certain sect.
Such is the Skopt colony at Selivaninskoj, in connection with which,
however, it may be remarked that the nature of the religious
delusion in this case accounts for the severity of the law or the
authorities. For, on the ground of a text in the Gospel of Matthew
interpreted in a very peculiar way, all Skoptzi subject themselves
to a mutilation, in consequence of which the sect can only exist by
new proselytes; and remarkably enough, these madmen, notwithstanding
all persecution, or perhaps just on that account, actually still
gain followers. A large number of the Skoptzi were Fins from
Ingermanland, with whom I could converse without difficulty. They
had, through industry and perseverance, succeeded in creating for
themselves a certain prosperity, were hospitable and friendly, and
bore their hard fate with resignation. They would not themselves
kill any warm-blooded animal, for it was "a sin to kill what God had
created;" which did not hinder them from catching and eating fish,
and from selling to us, who in any case were lost beings, a fine fat
ox, on condition that our own people should slaughter it. Their
abstinence from some kinds of animal food had besides the good
result of inducing them to devote themselves to the cultivation of
the soil. Round about their cabins accordingly there were patches of
land growing potatoes, turnips, and cabbage, which at least that
year yielded an abundant crop, though lying under the Arctic circle.
Farther south such plots increase in size, and yield rich crops, at
least, of a very large potato. There is no proper cultivation of
grain till we come to Sykobatka, situated in 60° N.L., but in
a future, when forests and mosses are diminished, a profitable
agriculture will be carried on far to the northward.

[Illustration: OSTYAK TENT. (After a Photograph.) ]

[Illustration: TOWING WITH DOGS ON THE YENISEJ. The boat _Luna_
with the Swedish Land Expedition of 1876 on board. (After a
drawing by Hj Théel.) ]

Along with the dwellings of the Russians, the tents of the natives,
or, as the Russians call them, "the Asiatics," are often to be met
with. They have the same shape as the Lapp "kota." The Samoyed tent
is commonly covered with reindeer skins, the Ostyak tent with birch
bark. In the neighbourhood of the tent there are always large
numbers of dogs, which during winter are employed for general
carrying purposes, and in summer for towing boats up the river--a
means of water transport which greatly astonished the Norwegian
sailors with whom I travelled up the river in 1875. To see people
travelling in a boat drawn by dogs appeared to them more remarkable
than the Kremlin of Moscow, or the bells of Kiev. For such a journey
a sufficient number of dogs are harnessed to a long line, one end of
which is fastened to the stem of the boat. The dogs then go along
the level bank, where they make actual footpaths. The boat being of
light draught is kept afloat at a sufficient distance from land
partly by means of the rudder which is managed by a person sitting
in the stern of the boat, and partly by poling from the fore. Small
boats are often hollowed out of a single tree-stem, and may
notwithstanding, thanks to the size which some of the pines attain
in those regions, be very roomy, and of a very beautiful shape. The
dogs strongly resemble the Eskimo dogs in Greenland, which are also
used as draught animals.

[Illustration: FISHING BOATS ON THE OB. (After a Photograph.) ]

Most of the natives who have come into close contact with the
Russians are said to profess the Christian religion. That many
heathen customs, however, still adhere to them is shown, among other
things, by the following incident: At a _simovie_ where we landed
for some hours on the 16th Sept. we found, as is common, a
burying-place in the forest near the dwelling houses. The corpses
were placed in large coffins above ground, at which almost always a
cross was erected. In one of the crosses a sacred picture was
inserted, which must be considered a further proof that a Christian
rested in the coffin. Notwithstanding this, we found some clothes,
which had belonged to the departed, hanging on a bush beside the
grave, together with a bundle containing food, principally dried
fish. At the graves of the richer natives the survivors are even
said to place along with food some rouble notes, in order that the
departed may not be altogether without ready money on his entrance
into the other world.

[Illustration: GRAVES IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST OF SIBERIA. (After a
drawing by Hj. Théel.) ]

Right opposite the village Nasimovskoj is a gold-digger's deserted
"residence," named Yermakova after the first conqueror of Siberia.
The building owed its origin to the discovery of sand-beds rich in
gold, occupying a pretty extensive area east of the Yenisej, which
for a time had the repute of being the richest gold territory in the
world. Here in a short time enormous fortunes were made; and
accounts of the hundreds of poods which one or another yearly reaped
from the sand-beds, and the fast reckless life led by those to whom
fortune dealt out the great prizes in the gold-digging lottery,
still form a favourite topic of conversation in the region. A rise
in the value of labour and a diminished production of the noble
metal have, however, since led to the abandonment of a large number
of the diggings that formerly were most productive; others now
scarcely pay the expense of the working. Many of the gold-diggers
who were formerly rich, in the attempt to win more have been
impoverished, and have disappeared; others who have succeeded in
retaining their "pood of gold"--that is the mint unit which the
gold-diggers prefer to use in their conversation--have removed to
Omsk, Krasnojarsk, Moscow, Petersburg, Paris, &c. The gold-diggers'
residences stand, therefore, now deserted, and form on the eastern
bank of the river a row of half-decayed wooden ruins surrounded by
young trees, after which in no long time only the tradition of the
former period of prosperity will be found remaining. In one respect
indeed the gold-diggers have exerted a powerful influence on the
future of the country. For it was through them that the first
pioneers were scattered in the wilderness, the first seed sown of
the cultivation of the region.

In 1875 there were only two steamers on the Yenisej. These were
neither passenger nor cargo boats, but rather movable commercial
stores, propelled by steam. The fore-saloon formed a shop provided
with a desk, and shelves on which were to be seen cloths, iron
wares, guns, ammunition, tobacco, tea, matches, sugar, brightly
coloured copper engravings or lithographs, &c. In the after-saloon
was enthroned, among brandy casks, purchased furs, and other
precious or delicate wares, he who had the command on board, a kind
and friendly merchant, who evidently did not concern himself much
with the work of the sailors, but rather with trade and the making
of bargains, and who was seldom called by the crew captain
(_kapitan_), but generally master (_hosain_). After the steamer, or
floating commercial store, there was towed one or two _lodjas_,
which served as magazines, in which meal and salt and other heavy
goods were stored, the purchased fish were salted and looked after,
fresh bread baked for the numerous crew, &c. And as there was not a
single jetty to be found the whole way between Yenisejsk and the
sea, both the steamer and the _lodjas_, in order to be able to load
and deliver goods at any point, had a large number of boats and
lighters in tow. No place was set apart for passengers, but
travellers were received in a friendly and hospitable manner when
they came on board, where they were then allowed to look out for
themselves as best they could. The nautical command was held by two
mates or pilots of a stately and original appearance, who, clad in
long caftans, sat each in his watch on a chair at the wheel,
generally without steering, mostly smoking a cigarette made of
coarse paper and, with the most careless appearance in the world,
exchanging jests with those who were going down the river. The
prohibition of taking away the attention of the steersman from his
work by conversation was thus not in force hereabouts. A man stood
constantly in the fore, uninterruptedly testing the depth with a
long pole. For in order to avoid the strong current of the main
stream the course was always shaped as near the shore as possible,
often so near that one could almost jump ashore, and my own Nordland
boat, which was towed by the side of the steamer, was occasionally
drawn over land. It will be seen from this of how light draught the
steamer was.

Siberia, especially the river territory of the Yenisej and the Lena,
possesses rich coal seams, which probably extend under considerable
portions of the Siberian plain, but are yet unworked and have
attracted little attention. The river steamers accordingly are
fired, not with coal, but with wood, of which, if I remember right,
180 fathoms went to the voyage of the steamer _Alexander_ up the
river. As the vessel could carry only a small portion of this
quantity of wood at one time, frequent halts were necessary, not
only for trading with the natives, but also for taking fuel on
board. In addition to this, the weak engine, _although the safety
valves were overloaded when necessary with lead weights_, was
sometimes unable to make head with all the vessels in tow against a
current which at some places was very rapid, and often, in the
attempt to find still water near the river bank, the steamer ran
aground, notwithstanding the continual "ladno" cry of the poling
pilot standing in the fore. It made so slow progress on this account
that the passage from Saostrovskoj to Yenisejsk occupied a whole
month.

[Illustration: CHUKCH VILLAGE ON A SIBERIAN RIVER. (After a
Photograph.) ]

The two main arms into which the Yenisej is divided south of
Yenisejsk are too rapid for the present Yenisej steamers to ascend
them, while, as has been already stated, there is no difficulty in
descending these rivers from the Selenga and the Baikal Lake on the
one hand, and from the Minusinsk region abounding in grain on the
other. The banks here consist, in many places, of high rocky ridges
covered with fine forests, with wonderfully beautiful valleys
between them, covered with luxuriant vegetation.

What I have said regarding the mode of travelling up the Yenisej
refers to the year 1875, in which I went up the river accompanied by
two Swedish naturalists and three Norwegian seamen. It was then by
no means unknown, for scientific men such as HANSTEEN (1829),
CASTRÉN (1846), MIDDENDORFF (winter journeys in 1843 and 1844), and
SCHMIDT (1866), had travelled hither and communicated their
observations to the scientific world in valuable works on the nature
and people of the region. But the visits of the West-European still
formed rare exceptions; no West-European commercial traveller had
yet wandered to those regions, and into the calculations of the
friendly masters of the Yenisej river steamers no import of goods
from, or export of goods to, Europe had ever entered. All at once a
new period seemed to begin. If the change has not gone on so fast as
many expected, life here, however, is more than it was at one time,
and every year the change is more and more noticeable. It is on this
account that I consider these notes from the journey of 1875 worthy
of being preserved.


[Footnote 200: With this name, for want of another, I denote all the
innumerable islands which lie in the Yenisej between 69° 45'
and 71° N.L. ]

[Footnote 201: The _Moskwa_ was the first steamer which penetrated
from the Atlantic to the town of Yenisejsk. The principal dates of
this voyage may therefore be quoted here.

Baron Knoop, along with several Russian merchants, had chartered in
1878 a steamer, the _Louise_; but this vessel stranded on the coast
of Norway. The _Zaritza_, another Norwegian steamer, was chartered
instead to carry the _Louise's_ goods to their destination. But this
vessel too stranded at the mouth of the Yenisej, and was abandoned
by the crew, who were rescued by a small steamer, the _Moskwa_,
which accompanied the _Zaritza_. In this steamer Captain Dallmann,
the Bremen merchant Helwig Schmidt, and Ehlertz, an official in the
Russian finance office, now travelled up the river. The _Moskwa_ had
a successful voyage, arriving on the 4th September at Goltschicha,
passing Turuchansk in consequence of a number of delays only on the
24th September, reaching Podkamenaja Tunguska on the 1st October,
and on the 14th of the same month its destination, a winter harbour
on the Tschorna river, some miles north of Yenisejsk. (Fahrt auf dem
Yenisse; von der Mündung bis Yenisejsk im Sommer 1878; Petermann's
_Mittheilungen_, 1879, p 81.) ]

[Footnote 202: The particulars of the voyages of these vessels are
taken from a copy which I have received of Captain Emil Nilsson's
log. ]

[Footnote 203: The goods carried by me and by Wiggins to the
Yenisej; in 1876, and those which Schwanenberg carried thence in
1877, were properly only samples on a somewhat large scale. I have
no knowledge of the goods which the _Zaritza_ had on board when she
ran aground at the mouth of the Yenisej. ]

[Footnote 204: According to Johannesen's determination. On Wrangel's
map the latitude of this cape is given as 73° 30'. Johannesen
found the longitude to be 125° 31' instead of 127°. ]

[Footnote 205: According to Latkin (Petermann's _Mittheilungen_,
1879, p. 92), the Lena delta is crossed by seven main arms, the
westernmost of which is called Anatartisch. It debouches into the
sea at a cape 58 feet high named Ice Cape (Ledjanoi). Next come the
river arm Bjelkoj, then Tumat, at whose mouth a landmark erected by
Laptev in 1739 is still in existence. Then come the other three main
arms, Kychistach, Trofimov, and Kischlach, and finally the very
broad eastmost arm, Bychov. Probably some of the smaller river arms
are to be preferred for sailing up the river to this broad arm,
which is fouled by shoals. ]

[Footnote 206: A common name used in Siberia for all the native
races. ]

[Footnote 207: This has been incorrectly interpreted as if they shot
at the vessel. ]

[Footnote 208: A coal seam is often unfit for use near the surface,
where for centuries it has been uncovered and exposed to the action
of the atmosphere, while farther down it may yield very good coal.
It is probable besides that the layers of shale, which often
surround the coal seams, have in this case been mistaken for the
true coal. For those who are inexperienced in coal-mining to make
such a mistake is the rule and not the exception. ]

[Footnote 209: In order not to write without due examination about
figures which have been written about a thousand times before, I
have, with the help of Petermann's map of North and Middle Asia in
Stieler's Hand-Atlas, calculated the extent of the areas of the
Siberian rivers, and found them to be:--

                                     Square        Geographical
                                     kilometres.   square miles.
 River area of the Ob (with the Tas) 3,445,000     62,560
 River area of the Yenisej           2,712,000     49,250
 River area of the Lena              2,395,000     43,500

Of these areas 4,966,000 square kilometres, or about 90,000
geographical square miles, lie south of 60° N.L. ]

[Footnote 210: For the northern hemisphere it is the general rule
that where rivers flow through loose, earthy strata in a direction
deviating considerably from that of the parallels of latitude, the
right bank, when one stands facing the mouth of the river, is high,
and the left low. The cause of this is the globular form of the
earth and its rotation, which gives rivers flowing north a tendency
towards the east, and to rivers flowing south a tendency to the west
This tendency is resisted by the bank, but it is gradually eaten
into and washed away by degrees, so that the river bed, in the
course of thousands of years, is shifted in the direction indicated. ]

[Footnote 211: As specimens of the sub-fossil mollusc fauna of the
_tundra_ some of the common species are delineated on the opposite
page. These are:--1. _Mya arenaria_, Lin. 2/3 of natural size. 2.
_Mya truncata_, Lin. var. _Uddevallensis_, Forbes. 2/3 3. _Saxicava
pholadis_, Lin. 2/3. 4. _Tellina lata_, Gmel. 2/3 5. _Cardium
ciliatum_, Fabr. 2/3. 6. _Leda pernula_, Müll. var. _buccata_,
Steenstr. Natural size. 7. _Nucula expansa_, Reeve. Nat. size. 8.
_Fusus Kroyeri_, Möll. 2/3. 9. _Fusus fornicatus_, Reeve. 1/2. 10.
_Fusus tornatus_, Gould. 2/3. 11. _Margarita elegantissima_, Bean.
Natural size. 12. _Pleurotoma plicifera_, Wood. Natural size. 13.
_Pleurotoma pyramidalis_, Ström. 1-1/2. 14. _Trichotropis borealis_,
Brod. 1-1/2. 15. _Natica helicoides_, Johnst. Nat. size. ]

[Footnote 212: _Bihang till Vet. Akad. Handl._ Bd. iv. No. 11,
p. 42. ]

[Footnote 213: Provisions and wares intended for trade with the
natives are transported on the Yenisej, as on many other Siberian
rivers, down the stream in colossal lighters, built of planks like
logs. It does not pay to take them up the river again, on which
account, after their lading has been taken out of them, they are
either left on the bank to rot or broken up for the timber. ]



CHAPTER IX.

    The New Siberian Islands--The Mammoth--Discovery of Mammoth
    and Rhinoceros mummies--Fossil Rhinoceros horns--Stolbovoj
    Island--Liachoff's Island--First discovery of this island--
    Passage through the sound between this island and the
    mainland--Animal life there--Formation of ice in water above
    the freezing point--The Bear Islands--The quantity and
    dimensions of the ice begin to increase--Different kinds of
    sea-ice--Renewed attempt to leave the open channel along
    the coast--Lighthouse Island--Voyage along the coast to
    Cape Schelagskoj--Advance delayed by ice, shoals, and fog--
    First meeting with the Chukches--Landing and visits to Chukch
    villages--Discovery of abandoned encampments--Trade with
    the natives rendered difficult by the want of means of
    exchange--Stay at Irkaipij--Onkilon graves--Information
    regarding the Onkilon race--Renewed contact with the Chukches
    --Kolyutschin Bay--American statements regarding the state
    of the ice north of Behring's Straits--The _Vega_ beset.


After the parting the _Lena_ shaped her course towards the land; the
_Vega_ continued her voyage in a north-easterly direction towards
the new Siberian Islands.

These have, from the time of their discovery, been renowned among
the Russian ivory collectors for their extraordinary richness in
tusks and portions of skeletons of the extinct northern species of
elephant known by the name of _mammoth_.

We know by the careful researches of the academicians PALLAS, VON
BAER, BRANDT, VON MIDDENDORFF, FR. SCHMIDT, &c., that the mammoth
was a peculiar northern species of elephant with a covering of hair,
which, at least during certain seasons of the year, lived under
natural conditions closely resembling those which now prevail in
middle and even in northern Siberia. The widely extended grassy
plains and forests of North Asia were the proper homeland of this
animal, and there it must at one time have wandered about in large
herds.

The same, or a closely allied species of elephant, also occurred in
North America, in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and North
Russia. Indeed, even in Sweden and Finland inconsiderable mammoth
remains have sometimes been found.[214] But while in Europe only some
more or less inconsiderable remains of bones are commonly to be found,
in Siberia we meet not only with whole skeletons, but also whole animals
frozen in the earth, with solidified blood, flesh, hide, and hair. Hence
we may draw the conclusion that the mammoth died out, speaking
geologically, not so very long ago. This is besides confirmed by a
remarkable antiquarian discovery made in France. Along with a number of
roughly worked flint flakes, pieces of ivory were found, on which, among
other things, a mammoth with trunk, tusks, and hair was engraved in
rough but unmistakable lineaments, and in a style resembling that which
distinguishes the Chukch drawings, copies of which will be found further
on in this work. This drawing, whose genuineness appears to be proved,
surpasses in age, perhaps a hundredfold, the oldest monuments that Egypt
has to show, and forms a remarkable proof that the mammoth, the original
of the drawing, lived in Western Europe contemporaneously with man. The
mammoth remains are thus derived from a gigantic animal form, living in
former times in nearly all the lands now civilized, and whose carcase is
not yet everywhere completely decomposed. Hence the great and intense
interest which attaches to all that concerns this wonderful animal.

If the interpretation of an obscure passage in Pliny be correct,
mammoth ivory has, from the most ancient times, formed a valued
article of commerce, which, however, was often mistaken for the
ivory of living elephants and of the walrus. But portions of the
skeleton of the mammoth itself are first described in detail by
WITSEN, who during his stay in Russia in 1686 collected a large
number of statements regarding it, and at least in the second
edition of his work gives good drawings of the under jaw of a
mammoth and the cranium of a fossil species of ox, whose bones are
found along with the remains of the mammoth (WITSEN, 2nd. edit. p.
746). But it appears to have escaped Witsen, who himself considered
mammoth bones to be the remains of ancient elephants, and who well
knew the walrus, that in a number of the accounts which he quotes,
the mammoth and the walrus are clearly mixed up together, which is
not so wonderful, as both are found on the coast of the Polar Sea,
and both yielded ivory to the stocks of the Siberian merchants. In
the same way all the statements which the French Jesuit, AVRIL,
during his stay in Moscow in 1686, collected regarding the
amphibious animal, _Behemoth_, occurring on the coast of the
Tartarian Sea, (Polar Sea) refer not to the mammoth, as some
writers, HOWORTH[215] for example, have supposed, but to the walrus.
The name mammoth, which is probably of Tartar origin, Witsen appears
to wish to derive from Behemoth, spoken of in the fortieth chapter
of the Book of Job. The first mammoth tusk was brought to England in
1611, by JOSIAS LOGAN. It was purchased in the region of the
Petchora, and attracted great attention, as appears from Logan's
remark in a letter to Hakluyt, that one would not have dreamed to
find such wares in the region of the Petchora (_Purchas_, iii p.
546). As Englishmen at that time visited Moscow frequently, and for
long periods, this remark appears to indicate that fossil ivory
first became known in the capital of Russia some time after the
conquest of Siberia.

[Illustration: MAMMOTH SKELETON IN THE IMPERIAL MUSEUM OF THE
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN ST PETERSBURG. After a Photograph communicated
by the Academician Friedrich Schmidt in St. Petersburg. ]

[Illustration: RESTORED FORM OF THE MAMMOTH After JUKES,
_The Student's Manual of Geology_, Edinburgh, 1862. ]

I have not, indeed, been successful during the voyage of the _Vega_
in making any remarkable discovery that would throw light on the
mode of life of the mammoth,[216] but as we now sail forward between
shores probably richer in such remains than any other on the surface
of the globe, and over a sea, from whose bottom our dredge brought
up, along with pieces of driftwood, half-decayed portions of mammoth
tusks, and as the savages with whom we came in contact, several
times offered us very fine mammoth tusks or tools made of mammoth
ivory, it may not perhaps be out of place here to give a brief
account of some of the most important mammoth _finds_ which have
been preserved for science. We can only refer to the discovery of
mammoth _mummies_,[217] for the _finds_ of mammoth tusks
sufficiently well preserved to be used for carving are so frequent
as to defy enumeration. Middendorff reckons the number of the tusks,
which yearly come into the market, as at least a hundred pairs,[218]
whence we may infer, that during the years that have elapsed since
the conquest of Siberia useful tusks from more than 20,000 animals
have been collected.

The discovery of a mammoth-_mummy_ is mentioned for the first time
in detail in the sketch of a journey which the Russian ambassador
EVERT YSSBRANTS IDES, a Dutchman by birth, made in 1692 through
Siberia to China. A person whom Yssbrants Ides had with him during
his journey through Siberia, and who travelled every year to collect
mammoth ivory, assured him that he had once found a head of this
animal in a piece of frozen earth which had tumbled down. The flesh
was putrefied, the neck-bone was still coloured by blood, and some
distance from the head a frozen foot was found.[219] The foot was
taken to Turuchansk, whence we may infer that the _find_ was made on
the Yenisej. Another time the same man found a pair of tusks
weighing together twelve poods or nearly 200 kilogram. Ides'
informant further stated, that while the heathen Yakuts, Tunguses,
and Ostyaks, supposed that the mammoth always lived in the earth and
went about in it, however hard the ground might be frozen, also that
the large animal died when it came so far up that it saw or smelled
the air; the old Russians living in Siberia were of opinion that the
mammoth was an animal of the same kind as the elephant, though with
tusks somewhat more bent and closer together; that before the Flood
Siberia had been warmer than now, and elephants had then lived in
numbers there; that they had been drowned in the Flood, and
afterwards, when the climate became colder, had frozen in the river
mud.[220]

The folk-lore of the natives regarding the mode of life of the
mammoth under ground is given in still greater detail in J.B.
MÜLLER'S _Leben und Gewonheiten der Ostiaken unter dem Polo arctico
wohnende_, &c. Berlin, 1720 (in French in _Recueil de Voiages au
Nord_, Amsterdam, 1731-38, Vol. VIII. p. 373). According to the
accounts given by Muller, who lived in Siberia as a Swedish prisoner
of war,[221] the tusks formed the animal's horns. With these, which
were fastened above the eyes and were movable, the animal dug a way
for itself through the clay and mud, but when it came to sandy soil,
the sand ran together so that the mammoth stuck fast and perished.
Muller further states, that many assured him that they themselves
had seen such animals on the other side of Beresovsk in large
grottos in the Ural mountains (_loc. cit._ p. 382).

KLAPROTH received a similar account of the mammoth's way of life
from the Chinese in the Russo-Chinese frontier and trading town
Kyachta. For mammoth ivory was considered to be tusks of the giant
rat _tien-shu_, which is only found in the cold regions along the
coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the light, and lives in dark holes in
the interior of the earth. Its flesh is said to be cooling and
wholesome. Some Chinese literati considered that the discovery of
these immense earth rats might even explain the origin of
earthquakes.[222]

It was not until the latter half of the last century that a European
scientific man had an opportunity of examining a similar _find_. In
the year 1771 a complete rhinoceros, with flesh and hide, was
uncovered by a landslip on the river Wilui in 64° N.L. Its
head and feet are still preserved at St. Petersburg. All the other
parts were allowed to be destroyed for want of means of transport
and preservation.[223] What was taken away showed that this primeval
rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros antiquitatis_ Blumenbach) had been covered
with hair and differed from all now living species of the same
family, though strongly resembling them in shape and size. Already,
long before the horns of the fossil rhinoceros had attracted the
attention of the natives, pieces of these horns were used for the
same purposes for which the Chukches employ strips of whalebone,
viz. to increase the elasticity of their bows. They were considered
at the same time to exert a like beneficial influence on the arrow,
tending to make it hit the mark, as, according to the hunter's
superstition among ourselves in former days, some cat's claws and
owl's eyes placed in the bullet mould had on the ball. The natives
believed that the crania and horns of the rhinoceros found along
with the remains of the mammoth belonged to gigantic birds,
regarding which there were told in the tents of the Yakut, the
Ostyak and the Tunguse many tales resembling that of the bird Roc in
the _Thousand and One Nights_. Ermann and Middendorff even suppose
that such _finds_ two thousand years ago gave occasion to Herodotus'
account of the Arimaspi and the gold-guarding dragons (_Herodotus_,
Book IV. chap. 27). Certain it is that during the middle ages such
"grip-claws" were preserved, as of great value, in the treasuries
and art collections of that time, and that they gave rise to many a
romantic story in the folk-lore both of the West and East. Even in
this century Hedenström, the otherwise sagacious traveller on the
Siberian Polar Sea, believed that the fossil rhinoceros' horns were
actual, "grip-claws." For he mentions in his oft-quoted work, that
he had seen such a claw 20 verschoks (0.9 metre) in length, and when
he visited St. Petersburg in 1830, the scientific men there did not
succeed in convincing him that his ideas on this subject were
incorrect.[224]

[Illustration: SIBERIAN RHINOCEROS HORN. Preserved in the Museum
at St. Petersburg. ]

A new _find_ of a mammoth _mummy_ was made in 1787, when the natives
informed the Russian travellers SARYTSCHEV and MERK, that about 100
versts below the village Alasejsk, situated on the river Alasej
running into the Polar Sea, a gigantic animal had been washed out of
the sand beds of the beach in an upright posture, undamaged, with
hide and hair. The _find_, however, does not appear to have been
thoroughly examined.[225]

In 1799 a Tunguse found on the Tamut Peninsula, which juts out into
the sea immediately south-east of the river-arm by which the _Lena_,
steamed up the river, another frozen-in mammoth. He waited patiently
five years for the ground thawing so much as that the precious tusks
should be uncovered. The softer parts of the animal accordingly were
partly torn in pieces and destroyed by beasts of prey and dogs, when
the place was closely examined in 1806 by ADAMS the Academician.
Only the head and two of the feet were then almost undamaged. The
skeleton, part of the hide, a large quantity of long hair and woolly
hair a foot and a half long were taken away. How fresh the carcase
was may be seen from the fact that parts of the eye could still be
clearly distinguished. Similar remains had been found two years
before, a little further beyond the mouth of the Lena, but they were
neither examined nor removed.[226]

A new _find_ was made in 1839, when a complete mammoth was uncovered
by a landslip on the shore of a large lake to the west of the mouth
of the Yenisej, seventy versts from the Polar Sea. It was originally
almost entire, so that even the trunk appears to have been
preserved, to judge by the statement of the natives that a black
tongue as long as a month-old reindeer calf was hanging out of the
mouth; but it had, when it was removed in 1842, by the care of the
merchant TROFIMOV, been already much destroyed.[227]

Next after Trofimov's mammoth come the mammoth-_finds_ of
Middendorff and Schmidt. The former was made in 1843 on the bank of
the river Tajmur, under 75° N.L.; the latter in 1866 or the
Gyda _tundra_, west of the mouth of the Yenisej in 70° 13'
N.L. The soft parts of these _finds_ were not so well preserved as
those just mentioned. But the _finds_ at all events had a greater
importance for science, from the localities having been thoroughly
examined by competent scientific men. Middendorff arrived at the
result that the animal found by him had floated from more southerly
regions to the place where it was found. Schmidt on the other hand
found that the stratum which contained the mammoth rested on a bed
of marine clay, containing shells of high northern species of
crustacea which still live in the Polar Sea, and that it was covered
with strata of sand alternating with beds, from a quarter to half a
foot thick, of decayed remains of plants, which completely
correspond with the turf beds which are still formed in the lakes of
the _tundra_. Even the very beds of earth and clay in which the
bones, pieces of hide, and hair of the mammoth _mummy_ were
enclosed, contained pieces of larch, branches and leaves of the
dwarf birch (_Betulct nana_), and of two northern species of willow
(_Salie glauca_, and _herbacea_).[228] It appears from this that the
climate of Siberia at the time when these mammoth-carcases were
imbedded, was very nearly the same as the present, and as the stream
in whose neighbourhood the find was made is a comparatively
inconsiderable _tundra_ river, lying wholly to the north of the
limit of trees, there is no probability that the carcase drifted
with the spring ice from the wooded region of Siberia towards the
north. Schmidt, therefore, supposes that the Siberian elephant, if
it did not always live in the northernmost parts of Asia,
occasionally wandered thither, in the same way that the reindeer now
betakes itself to the coast of the Polar Sea. VON BRANDT, VON
SCHMALHAUSEN, and others, had besides already shown that the remains
of food which were found in the hollows of the teeth of the Wilui
rhinoceros consisted of portions of leaves and needles of species of
trees which still grow in Siberia.[229]

Soon after the mammoth found on the Gyda _tundra_ had been examined
by Schmidt, similar _finds_ were examined by GERHARD VON MAYDELL, at
three different places between the rivers Kolyma and Indigirka,
about a hundred kilometres from the Polar Sea. With respect to these
_finds_ I can only refer to a paper by L. VON SCHRENCK in the
_Bulletin_ of the St. Petersburg Academy, T. XVI. 1871, p. 147.

Under the guidance of natives I collected in 1876 at the confluence
of the river Mesenkin with, the Yenisej, in 71° 28' N.L., some
fragments of bones and pieces of the hide of a mammoth. The hide was
20 to 25 millimetres thick and nearly tanned by age, which ought not
to appear wonderful, when we consider that, though the mammoth lived
in one of the latest periods of the history of our globe, hundreds
of thousands, perhaps millions of years have, however, passed since
the animal died to which these pieces of skin once belonged. It was
clear that they had been washed by the neighbouring river Mesenkin
out of the tundra-bank, but I endeavoured, without success, to
discover the original locality, which was probably already concealed
by river mud. In the neighbourhood was found a very fine cranium of
the musk ox.

A new and important _find_ was made in 1877 on a tributary of the
Lena, in the circle Werchojansk, in 69° N.L. For there was
found there an exceedingly well preserved carcase of a rhinoceros
(_Rhinoceros Merckii_, Jaeg.), a different species from the Wilui
rhinoceros examined by Pallas. However, before the carcase was
washed away by the river, there had only been removed the
hair-covered head and one foot.[230] From the _find_ Schrenck draws
the conclusion that this rhinoceros belonged to a high-northern
species, adapted to a cold climate, and living in, or at least
occasionally wandering to, the regions where the carcase was found.
There the mean temperature of the year is now very low,[231] the
winter exceedingly cold (-63.3° has been registered) and the
short summer exceedingly warm. Nowhere on earth does the temperature
show extremes so widely separated as here. Although the trees in
winter often split with tremendous noise, and the ground is rent
with the cold, the wood is luxuriant and extends to the
neighbourhood of the Polar Sea, where besides, the winter is much
milder than farther in the interior. With respect to the possibility
of these large animals finding sufficient pasture in the regions in
question, it ought not to be overlooked that in sheltered places
overflowed by the spring inundations there are found, still far
north of the limit of trees, luxuriant bushy thickets, whose
newly-expanded juicy leaves, burned up by no tropical sun, perhaps
form a special luxury for grass-eating animals, and that _even the
bleakest stretches of land in the high north are fertile in
comparison with many regions where at least the camel can find
nourishment, for instance the east coast of the Red Sea_.

The nearer we come to the coast of the Polar Sea, the more common
are the remains of the mammoth, especially at places where there
have been great landslips at the river banks when the ice breaks up
in spring. Nowhere, however, are they found in such numbers as on
the New Siberian Islands. Here Hedenström in the space of a verst
saw ten tusks sticking out of the ground, and from a single sandbank
on the west side of Liachoff's Island the ivory collectors had, when
this traveller visited the spot, for eighty years made their best
tusk harvest. That new _finds_ may be made there year by year
depends on the bones and tusks being washed by the waves out of the
sandbeds on the shore, so that after an east wind which has lasted
some time they may be collected at low water on the banks then laid
dry. The tusks which are found on the coast of the Polar Sea are
said to be smaller than those that are found farther south, a
circumstance which possibly may be explained by supposing that,
while the mammoth wandered about on the plains of Siberia, animals
of different ages pastured in company, and that the younger of them,
as being more agile and perhaps more troubled by flies than the
older, went farther north than these.

Along with bones of the mammoth there are found on the New Siberian
Islands, in not inconsiderable numbers, portions of the skeletons of
other animal forms, little known, but naturally of immense
importance for ascertaining the vertebrate fauna which lived at the
same time with the mammoth on the plains of Siberia, and the New
Siberian group of islands is not less remarkable for the
"wood-hills," highly enigmatical as to their mode of formation,
which Hedenström found on the south coast of the northernmost
island. These hills are sixty-four metres high, and consist of thick
horizontal sandstone beds alternating with strata of fissile
bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other to the top of the hill.
In the lower part of the hill the tree stems lie horizontally, but
in the upper strata they stand upright, though perhaps not
rootfast.[232] The flora and fauna of the island group besides are
still completely unknown, and the fossils, among them ammonites with
exquisite pearly lustre, which Hedenström brought home from the rock
strata on Kotelnoj Island, hold out inducement to further
researches, which ought to yield the geologist valuable information
as to the former climate and the former distribution of land and sea
on the surface of the globe. The knowledge of the hydrography of
this region is besides an indispensable condition for judging of the
state of the ice in the sea which washes the north coast of Asia.
Here lies the single available starting-point for the exploration of
the yet altogether unknown sea farther to the north, and from hills
on the two northernmost islands Hedenström thought that across the
sea to the north-west and north-east he saw obscure outlines of new
land, on which no man had yet set his foot. All these circumstances
confer on this group of islands an uncommon interest in a scientific
and geographical respect, and therefore no long time can elapse
until a scientific expedition be sent to these regions. Just for
this reason I now desired, as a preparation for a future voyage, to
wander about here for a couple of days, partly on foot, partly by
boat.

[Illustration: STOLBOVOJ ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

The air was calm, but for the most part clouded, the temperature as
high as +4°, the sea clear of ice, the salinity of the water
1.8 per cent, with a temperature of +2° to +3°. At first
we made rapid progress, but after having in the afternoon of the
28th August sighted the westernmost islands, Semenoffskoj and
Stolbovoj, the sea became so shallow that for long stretches we were
compelled to sail in six to seven metres water. Some very rotten
ice, or rather ice sludge, was also met with, which compelled us to
make tedious _détours_, and prevented the _Vega_ from going at full
speed.

The animal life was among the scantiest I had seen during my many
travels in the Polar Seas. A few seals were visible. Of birds we saw
some terns and gulls, and even far out at sea a pretty large number
of phalaropes--the most common kind of bird on the coast of the
Asiatic Polar Sea, at least in autumn. Stolbovoj Island was,
especially on the north side, high with precipitous shore-cliffs
which afforded splendid breeding-places for looms, black guillemots
and gulls. At all such cliffs there breed on Spitzbergen millions of
sea fowl, which are met with out on the surrounding sea in great
flocks searching for their food. Here not a single loom was seen,
and even the number of the gulls was small, which indeed in some
degree was to be accounted for by the late season of the year, but
also by the circumstance that no colony of birds had settled on the
rocky shores of the island.

The sea bottom consisted at certain places of hard packed sand, or
rather, as I shall endeavour to show farther on, of _frozen_ sand,
from which the trawl net brought up no animals. At other places
there was found a clay, exceedingly rich in _Idothea entomon_ and
_Sabinei_ and an extraordinary mass of bryozoa, resembling
collections of the eggs of mollusca.

It was not until the 30th of August that we were off the west side
of Ljachoff's Island, on which I intended to land. The north coast,
and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was clear, of ice,
but the winds recently prevailing had heaped a mass of rotten ice on
the west coast. The sea besides was so shallow here, that already at
a distance 15' from land we had a depth of only eight metres. The
ice heaped against the west coast of the island did not indeed form
any very serious obstacle to the advance of the _Vega_, but in case
we had attempted to land there it might have been inconvenient
enough, when the considerable distance between the vessel and the
land was to be traversed in a boat or the steam launch, and it might
even, if a sudden frost had occurred, have become a fetter, which
would have confined us to that spot for the winter. Even a storm
arising hastily might in this shallow water have been actually
dangerous to the vessel anchored in an open road. The prospect of
wandering about for some days on the island did not appear to me to
outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main object of
the expedition. I therefore gave up for the time my intention of
landing. The course was shaped southwards towards the sound, of so
bad repute in the history of the Siberian Polar Sea, which separates
Ljachoff's Island from the mainland.

[Illustration: IDOTHEA ESTOMON, LIN. From the sea north of the
mouth of the Lena. (Natural size.) ]

[Illustration: IDOTHEA SABINEI, KRÖYER. From the sea off the
mouth of the Lena. (Natural size.) ]

So far as we could judge at a distance from the appearance of the rocks,
Stolbovoj consisted of stratified rocks, Ljachoff's Island, on the
contrary, like the mainland opposite, of high hills, much shattered,
probably formed of Plutonic stone-masses. Between these there are
extensive plains, which, according to a statement by the land surveyor
CHVOINOFF, who by order of the Czar visited the island in 1775, are
formed of ice and sand, in which lie imbedded enormous masses of the
bones and tusks of the mammoth, mixed with the horns and skulls of some
kind of ox and with rhinoceros' horns. Bones of the whale and walrus are
not mentioned as occurring there, but "long small screw-formed bones,"
by which are probably meant the tusks of the narwhal.[233]

All was now clear of snow, with the exception of a few of the deeper
clefts between the mountains. No traces of glaciers were visible,
not even such small collections of ice as are to be found everywhere
on Spitzbergen where the land rises a few hundred feet above the
surface of the sea. Nor, to judge by the appearance of the hills,
have there been any glaciers in former times, and this is certainly
the case on the mainland. The northernmost part of Asia in that case
has never been covered by such an ice-sheet as is assumed by the
supporters of a general ice age embracing the whole globe.

The large island right opposite to Svjatoinos was discovered in 1770
by LJACHOFF, whose name the island now bears. In 1788 Billings'
private secretary, MARTIN SAUER, met with Ljachoff at Yakutsk, but
he was then old and infirm, on which account, when Sauer requested
information regarding the islands in the Polar Sea, he referred him
to one of his companions, ZAITAI PROTODIAKONOFF. He informed him
that the discovery was occasioned by an enormous herd of reindeer
which Ljachoff, in the month of April 1770, saw going from
Svjatoinos towards the south, and whose track came over the ice from
the north. On the correct supposition that the reindeer came from
some land lying to the north, Ljachoff followed the track in a
dog-sledge, and thus discovered the two most southerly of the New
Siberian Islands, a discovery which was rewarded by the Czarina
Catherine II. with the exclusive right to hunt and collect ivory on
them.[234]

[Illustration: LJACHOFF'S ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

Ljachoff states the breadth of the sound between the mainland and
the nearest large island at 70 versts or 40'. On Wrangel's map again
the breadth is not quite 30'. On the mainland side it is bounded by
a rocky headland projecting far into the sea, which often formed the
turning point in attempts to penetrate eastwards from the mouth of
the river Lena, and perhaps just on that account, like many other
headlands dangerous to the navigator on the north coast of Russia,
was called _Svjatoinos_ (the holy cape), a name which for the oldest
Russian Polar Sea navigators appears to have had the same
signification as "the cape that can be passed with difficulty." No
one however now thinks with any apprehension of the two "holy
capes," which in former times limited the voyages of the Russians
and Fins living on the White Sea to the east and west, and this, I
am quite convinced, will some time be the case with this and all
other holy capes in the Siberian Polar Sea.

The sea water in the sound was much mixed with river water and had a
comparatively high temperature, even at a depth of nine to eleven
metres. The animal life at the sea bottom was poor in species but
rich in individuals, consisting principally of _Idothea entomon_, of
which Dr. Stuxberg counted 800 specimens from a single sweep of the
dredge. There were obtained at the same time, besides a few
specimens of _Idothea Sabinei_, sponges and bryozoa in great
abundance, and small mussels, crustacea, vermes, &c. Various fishes
were also caught, and some small algæ collected. The trawl-net
besides brought up from the bottom some fragments of mammoth tusks,
and a large number of pieces of wood, for the most part sticks or
branches, which appear to have stood upright in the clay, to judge
from the fact that one of their ends was often covered with living
bryozoa. These sticks often caused great inconvenience to the
dredgers, by tearing the net that was being dragged along the
bottom.

On the night preceding the 31st of August, as we steamed past
Svjatoinos, a peculiar phenomenon was observed. The sky was clear in
the zenith and in the east; in the west, on the other hand, there was a
bluish-grey bank of cloud. The temperature of the water near the surface
varied between +1° and +1.6°, that of the air on the vessel between
+1.5° and +1.8°. Although thus both the air and the water had a
temperature somewhat above the freezing-point, ice was seen to form on
the calm, mirror-bright surface of the sea. This ice consisted partly of
needles, partly of a thin sheet. I have previously on several occasions
observed in the Arctic seas a similar phenomenon, that is to say, have
observed the formation of ice when the temperature of the air was above
the freezing-point. On this occasion, when the temperature of the
uppermost stratum of water was also above the freezing-point, the
formation of ice was clearly a sort of hoar-frost phenomenon, caused by
radiation of heat, perhaps both upwards towards the atmosphere and
downwards towards the bottom layer of water, cooled below the
freezing-point.

The whole day we continued our voyage eastwards with glorious
weather over a smooth ice-free sea, and in the same way on the 1st
September, with a gentle southerly wind, the temperature of the air
at noon in the shade being +5.6°. On the night before the 2nd
September the wind became northerly and the temperature of the air
sank to -1°. Little land was seen, though we were still not
very far from the coast. Near to it there was a broad ice-free, or
nearly ice-free, channel, but farther out to sea ice commenced. The
following night snow fell, so that the whole of the deck and the
Bear Islands, which we reached on the 3rd September, were sprinkled
with it.

Hitherto, during the whole time we sailed _along the coast_, we had
scarcely met with any fields of drift-ice but such as were formed of
rotten, even, thin and scattered pieces of ice, in many places
almost converted into ice-sludge, without an "ice-foot" and often
dirty on the surface. No iceberg had been seen, nor any large
glacier ice-blocks, such as on the coasts of Spitzbergen replace the
Greenland icebergs. But east of Svjatoinos the ice began to increase
in size and assume the same appearance as the ice north of
Spitzbergen. It was here, besides, less dirty, and rested on a hard
ice-foot projecting deep under water and treacherous for the
navigator.

The ice of the Polar Sea may be divided into the following
varieties:--

1. _Icebergs._ The true icebergs have a height above the surface of
the water rising to 100 metres. They often ground in a depth of 200
to 300 metres, and have thus sometimes a cross section of up to 400,
perhaps 500 metres. Their area may amount to several square
kilometres. Such enormous blocks of ice are projected into the North
Polar Sea only from the glaciers of Greenland, and according to
Payer's statement, from those of Franz-Josef Land also; but not, as
some authors (GEIKIE, BROWN, and others) appear to assume and have
shown by incorrect ideal drawings, from glaciers which project into
the sea and there terminate with a perpendicular evenly-cut border,
but from very uneven glaciers which always enter the sea in the
bottoms of deep fjords, and are split up into icebergs long before
they reach it. It is desirable that those who write on the origin of
icebergs, should take into consideration the fact that icebergs are
only formed at places where a violent motion takes place in the mass
of the ice, which again within a comparatively short time results in
the excavation of the deep ice-fjord. The largest iceberg, which, so
far as I know, has been _measured_ in that part of the Polar Sea
which lies between Spitzbergen and Wrangel Land, is one which
Barents saw at Cape Nassau on the 17/7th August 1596. It was sixteen
fathoms high, and had grounded in a depth of thirty-six fathoms. In
the South Polar Sea icebergs occur in great numbers and of enormous
size. If we may assume that they have an origin similar to those of
Greenland, it is probable that round the South Pole there is an
extensive continent indented by deep fjords.

2. _Glacier Ice-blocks._ These, which indeed have often been
called icebergs, are distinguished from true icebergs not only
by their size, but also by the way in which they are formed.
They have seldom a cross section of more than thirty or forty
metres, and it is only exceptionally that they are more than ten
metres high above the surface of the water. They originate from the
"calving" of glaciers which project into the sea with a straight and
evenly high precipitous border. Such glaciers occur in large numbers
on the coasts of Spitzbergen, and they are there of the same height
as similar evenly-cut glaciers on Greenland. According to the
statement of the Dane PETERSEN, who took part both in KANE'S
expedition in 1853-55 and in Torell's in 1861, the glaciers, for
instance, at Hinloopen Strait in Spitzbergen, are fully equal, with
respect to their size and the height of their borders above the
sea-level, to the enormous and much bewritten Humboldt glacier in
Greenland. In Spitzbergen too we find at two places miniatures of
the Greenland ice-currents, for instance the glacier which filled
the North Haven in Bell Sound, another glacier which filled an old
Dutch whaling haven between Recherche Bay and Van Keulen Bay, a
glacier on the north side of Wablenberg Bay and perhaps at that part
of the inland ice marked in my map of the expedition of 1872 as a
bay on the east coast of North-east Land. It is even possible that
small icebergs may be projected from the last-mentioned place, and
thence drift out into the sea on the east coast of Spitzbergen.

Glacier-ice shows a great disposition to fall asunder into smaller
pieces without any perceptible cause. It is full of cavities,
containing compressed air, which, when the ice melts, bursts its
attenuated envelope with a crackling sound like that of the electric
spark. It thus behaves in this respect in the same way as some
mineral salts which dissolve in water with slight explosions.
Barents relates that on the 20/10th August 1596 he anchored his
vessel to a block of ice which was aground on the coast of Novaya
Zemlya. Suddenly, and without any perceptible cause, the rock of ice
burst asunder into hundreds of smaller pieces with a tremendous
noise, and to the great terror of all the men on board. Similar
occurrences on a smaller scale I have myself witnessed. The cause to
which they are due appears to me to be the following. The ice-block
while part of the glacier is exposed to very severe pressure, which
ceases when it falls into the sea. The pressure now in most cases
equalises itself without any bursting asunder, but it sometimes
happens that the inner strongly compressed portions of the ice-block
cannot, although the pressure has ceased, expand freely in
consequence of the continuous ice-envelope by which they are still
surrounded. A powerful internal tension must thereby arise in the
whole mass, which finally leads to its bursting into a thousand
pieces. We have here a Prince Rupert's drop, but one whose diameter
may rise to fifty metres, and which consists not of glass but of
ice.

Glacier ice-blocks occur abundantly on the coasts of Spitzbergen and
north Novaya Zemlya, but appear to be wanting or exceedingly rare
along the whole north coast of Asia, between Yugor Schar and Wrangel
Land. East of this they again occur, but not in any great numbers.
This appears to show that the Western Siberian Polar Sea is not
surrounded by any glacial lands. The glacier ice is commonly of a
blue colour. When melted it yields a pure water, free of salt.
Sometimes however it gives traces of salt, which are derived from
the spray which the storms have carried high up on the surface of
the glacier.

3. Pieces of ice from the ice-foot formed along the sea beach or the
banks of rivers. They rise sometimes five or six metres above the
surface of the water. They consist commonly of dirty ice, mixed with
earth.

4. _River Ice_, level, comparatively small ice fields, which, when
they reach the sea, are already so rotten that they soon melt away
and disappear.

5. The walrus-hunters' _Bay Ice_; by which we understand level
ice-fields formed in fjords and bays along the coast, and which have
there been exposed to a comparatively early summer heat. The bay ice
therefore melts away completely during summer, and it is not
commonly much pressed together. When all the snow upon it has
disappeared, there is to be seen above the surface of the water a
little ice of the same colour as the water, while under water very
considerable portions of unmelted hard ice are still remaining. This
has given rise to the walrus-hunters' statement, which has been
warmly maintained, that the ice in autumn finally disappears by
sinking. Nearly all the ice we met with in the course of our voyage
belonged to this variety.

6. _Sea Ice_, or heavy ice, which often exhibits traces of having
been much pressed together, but has not been exposed to any early
summer heat. The walrus-hunters call it sea ice, wishing, I imagine,
to indicate thereby that it is formed in the sea farther up towards
the north. That it has drifted down from the north is indeed
correct, but that it has been formed far from land over a
considerable depth in the open sea is perhaps uncertain, as the ice
that is formed there cannot, we think, be very thick. It has rather
perhaps drifted down from the neighbourhood of some yet unknown
Polar continent. Of this ice are formed most of the ice-fields in
the seas east of Greenland, north of Spitzbergen, between
Spitzbergen and the north island of Novaya Zemlya, and north of
Behring's Straits. In the northern seas it does not melt completely
during the summer, and remains of sea ice therefore often enter as
component parts into the bay ice formed during the following winter.
The latter then becomes rough and uneven, from remnants of old sea
ice being frozen into the newly formed ice. Sea ice is often pressed
together so as to form great _torosses_ or ice-casts, formed of
pieces of ice which at first are angular and piled loose on each
other, but gradually become rounded, and freeze together into
enormous blocks of ice, which, together with the glacier ice-blocks,
form the principal mass of the ground ice found on the coasts of the
Polar lands. The water which is obtained by melting sea-ice is not
completely free from salt, but the older it is the less salt does it
contain.


East of the Bear Islands heavy sea-ice in pretty compact masses had
drifted down towards the coast, but still left an open ice-free
channel along the land. Here the higher animal world was exceedingly
poor, which, as far as the avi-fauna was concerned, must be in some
degree ascribed to the late season of the year. For Wrangel mentions
a cliff at the Bear Islands which was covered with numberless birds'
nests. He saw besides, on the largest of these islands, traces of
the bear, wolf, fox, lemming, and reindeer (Wrangel's _Reise_, i.
pp. 304 and 327). Now the surrounding sea was completely deserted.
No Polar bear saluted us from the ice-floes, no walruses, and only
very few seals were visible. During many watches not a single
natatory bird was seen. Only the phalarope was still met with in
large numbers, even pretty far out at sea. Perhaps it was then
migrating from the north. The lower animal world was more abundant.
From the surface of the sea the drag-net brought up various small
surface crustacea, inconsiderable in themselves, but important as
food for larger animals; and from the sea-bottom were obtained a
large number of the same animal forms as from the sound at
Svjatoinos, and in addition some beautiful asterids and a multitude
of very large beaker sponges.

On the 3rd September, after we had sailed past the Bear Islands, the
course was shaped right for Cape Chelagskoj. This course, as will be
seen by a glance at the map, carried us far from the coast, and thus out
of the channel next the land, in which we had hitherto sailed. The ice
was heavy and close, although at first so distributed that it was
navigable. But with a north wind, which began to blow on the night
before the 1st September, the temperature fell below the freezing-point,
and the water between the pieces of drift-ice was covered with a very
thick crust of ice, and the drift-ice came closer and closer together.
It thus became impossible to continue the course which we had taken. We
therefore turned towards the land, and at 6 o'clock P.M., after various
bends in the ice and a few concussions against the pieces of ice that
barred our way, again reached the ice-free channel, eight to twelve
kilometres broad, next the land. While we lay a little way in among the
drift-ice fields we could see no sign of open water, but it appeared as
if the compact ice extended all the way to land, a circumstance which
shows how careful the navigator ought to be in expressing an opinion as
to the nature of the _pack_ beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the
vessel. The temperature of the air, which in the ice-field had sunk to
-3°, now rose at once to + 4.1°, while that of the water rose from -1°.2
to +3.5°, and its salinity fell from 2.4 to 13 per cent. All showed that
we had now come into the current of the Kolyma, which from causes which
have been already stated, runs from the mouth of the river along the
land in an easterly direction.

[Illustration: BEAKER SPONGES. From the sea off the mouth of the Kolyma. ]

[Illustration: LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

The Bear Islands lying off the mouth of the Kolyma are, for the most
part, formed of a plutonic rock, whose upper part has weathered
away, leaving gigantic isolated pillars. Four such pillars have
given to the easternmost of the islands the name Lighthouse Island
(Fyrpelarön). Similar ruin-like formations are found not only on
Cape Baranov, which lies right opposite, but also at a great number
of other places in that portion of the north coast of Siberia which
lies farther to the east. Generally these cliff-ruins are collected
together over considerable areas in groups or regular rows. They
have thus, when seen from the sea, so bewildering a resemblance to
the ruins of a gigantic city which had once been surrounded by
strong walls and been full of temples and splendid buildings, that
one is almost tempted to see in them memorials of the exploits of a
Tamerlane or a Chingis Khan, up here in the high north.

The north side of the hill-tops was powdered with new-fallen snow,
but the rest of the land was clear of snow. The distance between the
south point of Ljachoff's Island and the Bear Islands is 360'. This
distance we had traversed in three days, having thus made 120' in
the twenty-four hours, or 5' per hour. If we consider the time lost
in dredging, sounding, and determining the temperature and salinity
of the water, and the caution which the navigator must observe
during a voyage in quite unknown waters, this speed shows that
during this part of our voyage we were hindered by ice only to a
slight extent. Cape Baranov was passed on the night before the 5th
September, the mouth of Chaun Bay on the night before the 6th
September, and Cape Chelagskoj was reached on the 6th at 4 o'clock
P.M. The distance in a right line between this headland and the Bear
Islands is 180'. In consequence of the many _détours_ in the ice we
had required 2-1/2 days to traverse this distance, which corresponds
to 72' per day, or 3' per hour, a speed which in a voyage in
unknown, and for the most part ice-bestrewed waters, must yet be
considered very satisfactory. But after this our progress began to
be much slower. At midnight the sun was already 12° to 13
degree below the horizon, and the nights were now so dark that at
that time of day we were compelled to lie still anchored to some
large ground-ice. A farther loss of time was caused by the dense fog
which often prevailed by day, and which in the unknown shallow water
next the land compelled Captain Palander to advance with extreme
caution. The navigation along the north coast of Asia began to get
somewhat monotonous. Even the most zealous Polar traveller may tire
at last of mere ice, shallow water and fog; and mere fog, shallow
water and ice.

Now, however, a pleasant change began, by our coming at last in
contact with natives. In the whole stretch from Yugor Schar to Cape
Chelagskoj we had seen neither men nor human habitations, if I
except the old uninhabited hut between Cape Chelyuskin and the
Chatanga. But on the 6th September, when we were a little way off
Cape Chelagskoj, two boats were sighted. Every man, with the
exception of the cook, who could be induced by no catastrophe to
leave his pots and pans, and who had circumnavigated Asia and Europe
perhaps without having been once on land, rushed on deck. The boats
were of skin, built in the same way as the "umiaks" or women's boats
of the Eskimo. They were fully laden with laughing and chattering
natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries and
gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was
stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad,
bare-headed beings climbed up over the gunwale in a way that clearly
indicated that they had seen vessels before. A lively talk began,
but we soon became aware that none of the crew of the boats or the
vessel knew any language common to both. It was an unfortunate
circumstance, but signs were employed as far as possible. This did
not prevent the chatter from going on, and great gladness soon came
to prevail, especially when some presents began to be distributed,
mainly consisting of tobacco and Dutch clay pipes. It was remarkable
that none of them could speak a single word of Russian, while a boy
could count tolerably well up to ten in English, which shows that
the natives here come into closer contact with American whalers than
with Russian traders. They acknowledged the name _chukch_ or
_chautchu_.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BOATS. ]

Many of them were tall, well-grown men. They were clothed in close
fitting skin trousers and "pesks" of reindeer skin. The head was
bare, the hair always clipped short, with the exception of a small
fringe in front, where the hair had a length of four centimetres and
was combed down over the brow. Some had a cap of the sort used by
the Russians at Chabarova, stuck into the belt behind, but they
appeared to consider the weather still too warm for the use of this
head-covering. The hair of most of them was bluish-black and
exceedingly thick. The women were tattooed with black or
bluish-black lines on the brow and nose, a number of similar lines
on the chin, and finally some embellishments on the cheeks. The type
of face did not strike one as so unpleasant as that of the Samoyeds
or Eskimo. Some of the young girls were even not absolutely ugly. In
comparison with the Samoyeds they were even rather cleanly, and had
a beautiful, almost reddish-white complexion. Two of the men were
quite fair. Probably they were descendants of Russians, who for some
reason or other, as prisoners of war or fugitives, had come to live
among the Chukches and had been nationalised by them.

In a little we continued our voyage, after the Chukches had returned
to their boats, evidently well pleased with the gifts they had
received and the leaf tobacco I had dealt out in bundles,--along
with the clay pipes, of which every one got as many as he could
carry between his fingers,--with the finery and old clothes which my
comrades and the crew strewed around them with generous hand. For we
were all convinced that after some days we should come to waters
where winter clothes would be altogether unnecessary, where our want
of any article could easily be supplied at the nearest port, and
where the means of exchange would not consist of goods, but of
stamped pieces of metal and slips of paper.

[Illustration: A CHUKCH IN SEAL-GUT GREAT COAT. After a photograph
by L. Palander. ]

On the 7th September, we steamed the whole day along the coast in
pretty open ice. At night we lay to at a floe. The hempen tangles
and the trawl-net were put out and yielded a very rich harvest. But
in the morning we found ourselves again so surrounded by ice and
fog, that, after several unsuccessful attempts to make an immediate
advance, we were compelled to lie-to at a large piece of drift-ice
near the shore. When the fog had lightened so much that the vessel
could be seen from the land, we were again visited by a large number
of natives, whom as before we entertained as best we could. They
invited us by evident signs to land and visit their tents. As it was
in any case impossible immediately to continue our voyage, I
accepted the invitation, ordered a boat to be put out, and landed
along with most of my comrades.

The beach here is formed of a low bank of sand which runs between
the sea and a small shallow lagoon or fresh-water lake, whose
surface is nearly on a level with that of the sea. Farther into the
interior the land rises gradually to bare hills, clear of snow or
only covered with a thin coating of powdered snow from the fall of
the last few days. Lagoon formations, with either fresh or salt
water, of the same kind as those which we saw here for the first
time, are distinctive of the north-eastern coast of Siberia. It is
these formations which gave rise to the statement that on the north
coast of Siberia it is difficult to settle the boundaries between
sea and land. In winter this may be difficult enough, for the low
bank which separates the lagoon from the sea is not easily
distinguished when it has become covered with snow, and it may
therefore readily happen in winter journeys along the coast that one
is far into the land while he still believes himself to be out on
the sea-ice. But when the snow has melted, the boundary is sharp
enough, and the sea by no means shallow for such a distance as old
accounts would indicate. A continual ice-mud-work also goes on here
during the whole summer. Quite close to the beach accordingly the
depth of water is two metres, and a kilometre farther out ten to
eleven metres. Off the high rocky promontories the water is commonly
navigable even for vessels of considerable draught close to the foot
of the cliffs.

The villages of the Chukches commonly stand on the bank of sand
which separates the lagoon from the sea. The dwellings consist of
roomy skin tents, which enclose a sleeping chamber of the form of a
parallelepiped surrounded by warm well-prepared reindeer skins, and
lighted and warmed by one or more train-oil lamps. It is here that
the family sleep during summer, and here most of them live day and
night during winter. In summer, less frequently in winter, a fire is
lighted besides in the outer tent with wood, for which purpose a
hole is opened in the top of the raised tent-roof. But to be
compelled to use wood for heating the inner tent the Chukches
consider the extremity of scarcity of fuel.

[Illustration: CHUKCH TENT. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

We were received everywhere in a very friendly way, and were offered
whatever the house afforded. At the time the supply of food was
abundant. In one tent reindeer beef was being boiled in a large
cast-iron pot. At another two recently shot or slaughtered reindeer
were being cut in pieces. At a third an old woman was employed in
taking out of the paunch of the reindeer the green spinage-like
contents and cramming them into a sealskin bag, evidently to be
preserved for green food during winter. The hand was used in this
case as a scoop, and the naked arms were coloured high up with the
certainly unappetising spinage, which however, according to the
statements of Danish colonists in Greenland, has no unpleasant
taste. Other skin sacks filled with train-oil stood in rows along
the walls of the tent.

The Chukches offered train-oil for sale, and appeared to be
surprised that we would not purchase any. In all the tents were
found seals cut in pieces, a proof that the catch of seals had
recently been abundant. At one tent lay two fresh walrus heads with
large beautiful tusks. I tried without success to purchase these
heads, but next day the tusks were offered to us. The Chukches
appear to have a prejudice against disposing of the heads of slain
animals. According to older travellers they even pay the walrus-head
a sort of worship.

Children were met with in great numbers, healthy and thriving. In
the inner tent the older children went nearly naked, and I saw them
go out from it without shoes or other covering and run between the
tents on the hoarfrost-covered ground. The younger were carried on
the shoulders both of men and women, and were then so wrapped up
that they resembled balls of skin. The children were treated with
marked friendliness, and the older ones were never heard to utter an
angry word. I purchased here a large number of household articles
and dresses, which I shall describe further on.

On the morning of the 9th September we endeavoured to steam on, but
were soon compelled by the dense fog to lie-to again at a
ground-ice, which, when the fog lightened, was found to have
stranded quite close to land. The depth here was eleven metres. At
this place we lay till the morning of the 10th. The beach, was
formed of a sandbank,[235] which immediately above high-water mark
was covered with a close grassy turf, a proof that the climate here,
notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the pole of cold, is much more
favourable to the development of vegetation than even the most
favoured parts of the west coast of Spitzbergen. Farther inland was
seen a very high, but snow-free, range of hills, and far beyond them
some high snow-covered mountain summits. No glaciers were found
here, though I consider it probable that small ones may be found in
the valleys between the high fells in the interior. Nor were any
erratic blocks found either in the interior of the coast country or
along the strand bank. Thus it is probable that no such ice-covered
land as Greenland for the present bounds the Siberian Polar Sea
towards the north. At two places at the level of the sea in the
neighbourhood of our anchorage the solid rock was bare. There it
formed perpendicular shore cliffs, nine to twelve metres high,
consisting of magnesian slate, limestone more or less mixed with
quartz, and silicious slate. The strata were nearly perpendicular,
ran from north to south, and did not contain any fossils. From a
geological point of view therefore these rocks were of little
interest. But they were abundantly covered with lichens, and yielded
to Dr. Almquist important contributions to a knowledge of the
previously quite unknown lichen flora of this region.

The harvest of the higher land plants on the other hand was, in
consequence of the far advanced season of the year, inconsiderable,
if also of great scientific interest, as coming from a region never
before visited by any botanist. In the sea Dr. Kjellman dredged
without success for algæ. Of the higher animals we saw only a
walrus and some few seals, but no land mammalia. Lemmings must
however occasionally occur in incredible numbers, to judge by the
holes and passages, excavated by these animals, by which the ground
is crossed in all directions. Of birds the phalarope was still the
most common species, especially at sea, where in flocks of six or
seven it swam incessantly backwards and forwards between the pieces
of ice.

[Illustration: SECTION OF A CHURCH GRAVE.[236]
 (After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.)
 _a._ Layer of burned bones, much weathered.
 _b._ Layer of turf and twigs.
 _c._ Stones. ]

No tents were met with in the neighbourhood of the vessel's
anchorage, but at many places along the beach there were seen marks
of old encampments, sooty rolled stones which had been used in the
erection of the tents, broken household articles, and above all
remains of the bones of the seal, reindeer, and walrus. At one
place, a large number of walrus skulls lay in a ring, possibly
remains from an entertainment following a large catch. Near the
place where the tents had stood, at the mouth of a small stream not
yet dried up or frozen, Dr. Stuxberg discovered some small mounds
containing burnt bones. The cremation had been so complete that only
one of the pieces of bone that were found could be determined by Dr.
Almquist. It was a human tooth. After cremation the remains of the
bones and the ash had been collected in an excavation, and covered
first with turf and then with small flat stones. The encampments
struck me as having been abandoned only a few years ago, and even
the collections of bones did not appear to me to be old. But we
ought to be very cautious when we endeavour in the Arctic regions to
estimate the age of an old encampment, because in judging of the
changes which the surface of the earth undergoes with time we are
apt to be guided by our experience from more southerly regions. To
how limited an extent this experience may be utilised in the high
north is shown by RINK'S assertion that on Greenland at some of the
huts of the Norwegian colonists, which have been deserted for
centuries, footpaths can still be distinguished,[237] an observation
to which I would scarcely give credence, until I had myself seen
something similar at the site of a house in the bottom of
Jacobshaven ice-fjord in northwestern Greenland, which had been
abandoned for one or two centuries. Here footpaths as sharply
defined as if they had been trampled yesterday ran from the ruin in
different directions. It may therefore very readily happen that the
encampments in the neighbourhood of our present anchorage were older
than we would be inclined at first sight to suppose. No refuse heaps
of any importance were seen here.

This was the first time that any vessel had lain-to on this coast.
Our arrival was therefore evidently considered by the natives a very
remarkable occurrence, and the report of it appears to have spread
very rapidly. For though there were no tents in the neighbourhood,
we had many visitors. I still availed myself of the opportunity of
procuring by barter a large number of articles distinctive of the
Chukches' mode of life. Eight years before I had collected and
purchased a large number of ethnographical articles, and I was now
surprised at the close correspondence there was between the
household articles purchased from the Chukches, and those found in
Greenland in old Eskimo graves.

My traffic with the natives was on this occasion attended with great
difficulty. For I suffered from a sensible want of the first
condition for the successful prosecution of a commercial
undertaking, goods in demand. Because, during the expeditions of
1875 and 1876, I found myself unable to make use of the small wares
I carried with me for barter with the natives, and found that
Russian paper-money was readily taken. I had, at the departure of
the _Vega_ from Sweden, taken with me only money, not wares intended
for barter. But money was of little use here. A twenty-five rouble
note was less valued by the Chukches than a showy soap-box, and a
gold or silver coin less than tin or brass buttons. I could, indeed,
get rid of a few fifty-öre pieces, but only after I had first
adapted them by boring to take the place of earrings.

The only proper wares for barter I now had were tobacco and Dutch
clay pipes. Of tobacco I had only some dozen bundles, taken from a
parcel which Mr. Sibiriakoff intended to import into Siberia by the
Yenisej. Certain as I was of reaching the Pacific this autumn, I
scattered my stock of tobacco around me with so liberal a hand that
it was soon exhausted, and my Chukch friends' wants satisfied for
several weeks. I therefore, as far as this currency was concerned,
already when-the _Vega_ was beset, suffered the prodigal's fate of
being soon left with an empty purse. Dutch clay pipes, again, I had
in great abundance, from the accident that two boxes of these pipes,
which were to have been imported into Siberia with the expedition of
1876, did not reach Trondhjem until the _Ymer_ had sailed from that
town. They were instead taken on the _Vega_, and now, though quite too
fragile for the hard fingers of Chukches, answered well for smaller
bargains, as gifts of welcome to a large number of natives collected
at the vessel, and as gifts to children in order to gain the favour
of their parents. I besides distributed a large quantity of silver
coin with King Oscar's effigy, in order, if any misfortune overtook
us, to afford a means of ascertaining the places we had visited.

For the benefit of future travellers I may state that the wares most
in demand are large sewing and darning needles, pots, knives
(preferably large), axes, saws, boring tools and other iron tools,
linen and woollen shirts (preferably of bright colours, but also
white), neckerchiefs, tobacco and sugar. To these may be added the
spirits which are in so great request among all savages; a currency
of which, indeed, there was great abundance on the _Vega_, but which
I considered myself prevented from making use of. In exchange for
this it is possible to obtain, in short, anything whatever from many
of the natives, but by no means from all, for even here there are
men who will not taste spirits, but with a gesture of disdain refuse
the glass that is offered them. The Chukches are otherwise shrewd
and calculating men of business, accustomed to study their own
advantage. They have been brought up to this from childhood through
the barter which they carry on between America and Siberia. Many a
beaver-skin that comes to the market at Irbit belongs to an animal
that has been caught in America, whose skin has passed from hand to
hand among the wild men of America and Siberia, until it finally
reaches the Russian merchant. For this barter a sort of market is
held on an island in Behring's Straits. At the most remote markets
in Polar America, a beaver-skin is said some years ago to have been
occasionally exchanged for a leaf of tobacco.[238] An exceedingly
beautiful black fox-skin was offered to me by a Chukch for a pot.
Unfortunately I had none that I could dispense with. Here, too,
prices have risen. When the Russians first came to Kamchatka, they
got eight sable-skins for a knife, and eighteen for an axe, and yet
the Kamchadales laughed at the credulous foreigners who were so
easily deceived. At Yakutsk, when the Russians first settled there,
a pot was even sold for as many sable-skins as it could hold.[239]

During the night before the 10th September, the surface of the sea
was covered with a very thick sheet of newly-frozen ice, which was
broken up again in the neighbourhood of the vessel by blocks of old
ice drifting about. The _pack_ itself appeared to have scattered a
little. We therefore weighed anchor to continue our voyage. At first
a _détour_ towards the west was necessary to get round a field of
drift-ice. Here too, however, our way was barred by a belt of old
ice, which was bound together so firmly by the ice that had been
formed in the course of the night, that a couple of hours' work with
axes and ice-hatchets was required to open a channel through it. On
the other side of this belt of ice we came again into pretty open
water, but the fog, instead, became so dense that we had again to
lie-to at a ground-ice, lying farther out to the sea but more to the
west than our former resting-place. On the night before the 11th
there was a violent motion among the ice. Fortunately the air
cleared in the morning, so that we could hold on our course among
pretty open ice, until on the approach of night we were obliged as
usual to lie-to at a ground-ice.

The following day, the 12th September, when we had passed Irkaipij,
or Cape North, a good way, we fell in with so close ice that there
was no possibility of penetrating farther. We were therefore
compelled to return, and were able to make our way with great
difficulty among the closely packed masses of drift ice. Here the
vessel was anchored in the lee of a ground-ice, which had stranded
near the northernmost spur of Irkaipij, until a strong tidal current
began to carry large pieces of drift-ice past the vessel's
anchorage. She was now removed and anchored anew in a little bay
open to the north, which was formed by two rocky points jutting out
from the mainland. Unfortunately we were detained here, waiting for
a better state of the ice, until the 18th September. It was this
involuntary delay which must be considered the main cause of our
wintering.

[Illustration: IRKAIPIJ. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

Irkaipij is the northernmost promontory in that part of Asia, which
was seen by Cook in 1778. It was, therefore, called by him Cape
North, a name which has since been adopted in most maps, although it
is apt to lead to confusion from capes similarly named being found
in most countries. It is also incorrect, because the cape does not
form the northernmost promontory either of the whole of Siberia, or
of any considerable portion of it. For the northernmost point of the
mainland of Siberia is Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost in the land
east of the Lena Svjatoinos, the northernmost in the stretch of
coast east of Chaun Bay, Cape Chelagskoj, and so on. Cape North
ought, therefore, to be replaced by the original name Irkaipij,
which is well known to all the natives between Chaun Bay and
Behring's Straits.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF AN ONKILON HOUSE.
 _a._ Seen from the side.
 _b._ From above. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

On the neck of land which connects Irkaipij with the mainland, there
was at the time of our visit a village consisting of sixteen tents.
We saw here also _ruins_, viz. the remains of a large number of old
house-sites, which belonged to a race called _Onkilon_[240] who
formerly inhabited these regions, and some centuries ago were driven
by the Chukches, according to tradition, to some remote islands in
the Polar Sea. At these old house-sites Dr. Almquist and Lieutenant
Nordquist set on foot excavations in order to collect contributions
to the ethnography of this traditional race. The houses appear to
have been built, at least partly, of the bones of the whale, and
half sunk in the earth. The refuse heaps in the neighbourhood
contained bones of several species of the whale, among them the
white whale, and of the seal, walrus, reindeer, bear, dog, fox, and
various kinds of birds. Besides these remains of the produce of the
chase, there were found implements of stone and bone, among which
were stone axes, which, after lying 250 years in the earth, were
still fixed to their handles of wood or bone. Even the thongs with
which the axe had been bound fast to, or _wedged into_, the handle,
were still remaining. The tusks of the walrus[241] had to the former
inhabitants of the place, as to the Chukches of the present, yielded
a material which in many cases may be used with greater advantage
than flint for spear-heads, bird-arrows, fishhooks, ice-axes, &c.
Walrus tusks, more or less worked, accordingly were found in the
excavations in great abundance. The bones of the whale had also been
employed on a great scale, but we did not find any large pieces of
mammoth tusks, an indication that the race was not in any intimate
contact with the inhabitants of the regions to the westward, so rich
in the remains of the mammoth.[242] At many places the old Onkilon
houses were used by the Chukches as stores for blubber; and at
others, excavations had been made in the refuse heaps in search of
walrus tusks. Our researches were regarded by the Chukches with
mistrust. An old man who came, as it were by chance, from the
interior of the country past the place where we worked, remained
there a while, regarding our labours with apparent indifference,
until he convinced himself that from simplicity, or some other
reason unintelligible to him, we avoided touching the blubber-stores,
but instead rooted up in search of old fragments of bone or
stone-flakes.

[Illustration: IMPLEMENTS FOUND IN THE RUINS OF AN ONKILON HOUSE.
 1. Stone chisel-with bone handle, one-half the natural size.
 2., 4. Knives of slate, one-third.
 3., 7. Spear heads of slate, one-third.
 5. Spear-head of bone, one-third.
 6. Bone spoon, one-third. ]

Remains of old dwellings were found even at the highest points among
the stone mounds of Irkaipij, and here perhaps was the last asylum
of the Onkilon race. At many places on the mountain slopes were seen
large collections of bones, consisting partly of a large number (at
one place up to fifty) of bears' skulls overgrown with lichens, laid
in circles, with the nose inwards, partly of the skulls of the
reindeer, Polar bear,[243] and walrus, mixed together in a less
regular circle, in the midst of which reindeer horns were found set
up. Along with the reindeer horns there was found the coronal bone
of an elk with portions of the horns still attached. Beside the
other bones lay innumerable temple-bones of the seal, for the most
part fresh and not lichen-covered. Other seal bones were almost
completely absent, which shows that temple-bones were not remains of
weathered seal skulls, but had been gathered to the place for one
reason or another in recent times. No portions of human skeletons
were found in the neighbourhood. These places are sacrificial
places, which the one race has inherited from the other.

Wrangel gives the following account of the tribe which lived here in
former times:--

    "As is well known the sea-coast at Anadyr Bay is inhabited
    by a race of men, who, by their bodily formation, dress,
    language, differ manifestly from the Chukches, and call
    themselves Onkilon--seafolk. In the account of Captain
    Billing's journey through the country of the Chukches, he
    shows the near relationship the language of this coast
    tribe has to that of the Aleutians at Kadyak, who are of
    the same primitive stem as the Greenlanders. Tradition
    relates that upwards of two hundred years ago these
    Onkilon occupied the whole of the Chukch coast, from Cape
    Chelagskoj to Behring's Straits, and indeed we still find
    along the whole of this stretch remains of their earth
    huts, which must have been very unlike the present
    dwellings of the Chukches; they have the form of small
    mounds, are half sunk in the ground and closed above with
    whale ribs, which are covered with a thick layer of earth.
    A violent quarrel between Krächoj, the chief of these
    North-Asiatic Eskimo, and an _errim_ or chief of the
    reindeer Chukches, broke out into open feud. Krächoj drew
    the shorter straw, and found himself compelled to fly, and
    leave the country with his people; since then the whole
    coast has been desolate and uninhabited. Of the emigration
    of these Onkilon, the inhabitants of the village Irkaipij,
    where Krächoj appears to have lived, narrated the
    following story. He had killed a Ohukch _errim_, and was
    therefore eagerly pursued by the son of the murdered man,
    whose pursuit he for a considerable time escaped. Finally
    Krächoj believed that he had found a secure asylum on the
    rock at Irkaipij, where he fortified himself behind a sort
    of natural wall, which can still be seen. But the young
    Chukch _errim_, driven by desire to avenge his father's
    death, finds means to make his way within the
    fortification and kills Krächoj's son. Although the
    blood-revenge was now probably complete according to the
    prevailing ideas, Krächoj must have feared a further
    pursuit by his unrelenting enemy, for during night he
    lowers himself with thongs from his lofty asylum, nearly
    overhanging the sea, enters a boat, which waits for him at
    the foot of the cliff, and, in order to lead his pursuers
    astray, steers first towards the east, but at nightfall
    turns to the west, reaches Schalaurov Island, and there
    fortifies himself in an earth hut, whose remains we
    (Wrangel's expedition) have still seen. Here he then
    collected all the members of his tribe, and fled with them
    in 15 "baydars" to the land whose mountains the Chukches
    assure themselves they can in clear sunshine see from Cape
    Yakan. During the following winter a Chukch related to
    Krächoj disappeared in addition with his family and
    reindeer, and it is supposed that he too betook himself to
    the land beyond the sea. With this another tradition
    agrees, which was communicated to us by the inhabitants of
    Kolyutschin Island. For an old man informed me (Wrangel)
    that during his grandfather's lifetime a "baydar" with
    seven Chukches, among them a woman, had ventured too far
    out to sea. After they had long been driven hither and
    thither by the wind, they stranded on a country unknown to
    them, whose inhabitants struck the Chukches themselves as
    coarse and brutish. The shipwrecked men were all murdered.
    Only the woman was saved, was very well treated, and taken
    round the whole country, and shown to the natives as
    something rare and remarkable. So she came at last to the
    Kargauts, a race living on the American coast at Behring's
    Straits, whence she found means to escape to her own
    tribe. This woman told her countrymen much about her
    travels and adventures; among other things she said that
    she had been in a great land which lay north of
    Kolyutschin Island, stretched far to the _west_, and was
    probably connected with America. This land was inhabited
    by several races of men; those living in the west
    resembled the Chukches in every respect, but those living
    in the east were so wild and brutish, that they scarcely
    deserved to be called men. The whole account, both of the
    woman herself and of the narrators of the tradition, is
    mixed up with so many improbable adventures, that it would
    scarcely be deserving of any attention were it not
    remarkable for its correspondence with the history of
    Krächoj."[244]

When Wrangel wrote that, he did not believe in the existence of the
land which is to be found set out on his map in 177° E.L. and
71° N.L., and which, afterwards discovered by the Englishman
Kellet, according to the saying, _lucus a non lucendo_, obtained the
name of Wrangel Land. Now we know that the land spoken of by
tradition actually exists, and therefore there is much that even
tells in favour of its extending as far as to the archipelago on the
north coast of America.

With this fresh light thrown upon it, the old Chukch woman's story ought
to furnish a valuable hint for future exploratory voyages in the sea
north of Behring's Straits, and an important contribution towards
forming a judgment of the fate which has befallen the American
_Jeannette_ expedition, of which, while this is being written, accounts
are still wanting.[245] Between us and the inhabitants of the present
Chukch village at Irkaipij there soon arose very friendly relations. A
somewhat stout, well-grown, tall and handsome man named Chepurin, we
took at first to be chief. He was therefore repeatedly entertained in
the gunroom, on which occasions small gifts were given him to secure his
friendship. Chepurin had clearly a weakness for gentility and grandeur,
and could now, by means of the barter he carried on with us and the
presents he received, gratify his love of show to a degree of which he
probably had never before dreamed. When during the last days of our stay
he paid a visit to the _Vega_ he was clad in a red woollen shirt drawn
over his "pesk," and from either ear hung a gilt watch-chain, to the
lower end of which a perforated ten-öre piece was fastened. Already on
our arrival he was better clothed than the others, his tent was larger
and provided with two sleeping apartments, one for each of his wives.
But notwithstanding all this we soon found that we had made a mistake,
when, thinking that a society could not exist without government, we
assigned to him so exalted a position. Here, as in all Chukch villages
which we afterwards visited, absolute anarchy prevailed.

At the same time the greatest unanimity reigned in the little
headless community. Children, healthy and thriving, tenderly cared
for by the inhabitants, were found in large numbers. A good word to
them was sufficient to pave the way for a friendly reception in the
tent. The women were treated as the equals of the men, and the wife
was always consulted by the husband when a more important bargain
than usual was to be made; many times it was carried through only
after the giver of advice had been bribed with a neckerchief or a
variegated handkerchief. The articles which the man purchased were
immediately committed to the wife's keeping. One of the children had
round his neck a band of pearls with a Chinese coin having a square
hole in the middle, suspended from it; another bore a perforated
American cent piece. None knew a word of Russian, but here too a
youngster could count ten in English. They also knew the word
"ship." In all the tents, reindeer stomachs were seen with their
contents, or sacks stuffed full of other green herbs. Several times
we were offered in return for the bits of sugar and pieces of
tobacco which we distributed, wrinkled root-bulbs somewhat larger
than a hazel nut, which had an exceedingly pleasant taste,
resembling that of fresh nuts. A seal caught in a net among the ice
during our visit was cut up in the tent by the women. On this
occasion they were surrounded by a large number of children, who
were now and then treated to bloody strips of flesh. The youngsters
carried on the work of cutting up _con amore_, coquetting a little
with their bloody arms and faces.

The rock which prevails in this region consists mainly of gabbro,
which in the interior forms several isolated, black, plateau-formed
hills, 100 to 150 metres high, between which an even, grassy, but
treeless plain extends. It probably rests on sedimentary strata. For
on the western side of Irkaipij the plutonic rock is seen to rest on
a black slate with traces of fossils, for the most part obscure
vegetable impressions, probably belonging to the Permian
Carboniferous formation.

Uneasy at the protracted delay here I made an excursion to a hill in
the neighbourhood of our anchorage, which, according to a
barometrical measurement, was 129 metres high, in order, from a
considerable height, to get a better view of the ice than was
possible by a boat reconnaisance. The hill was called by the
Chukches Hammong-Ommang. From it we had an extensive view of the
sea. It was everywhere covered with closely packed drift-ice. Only
next the land was seen an open channel, which, however, was
interrupted in an ominous way by belts of ice.

The plutonic rock, of which the hill was formed, was almost
everywhere broken up by the action of the frost into angular blocks
of stone, so that its surface was converted into an enormous stone
mound. The stones were on the wind side covered with a translucent
glassy ice-crust, which readily fell away, and added considerably to
the difficulty of the ascent. I had previously observed the
formation of such an ice-crust on the northernmost mountain summits
of Spitzbergen.[246] It arises undoubtedly from the fall of
super-cooled mist, that is to say of mist whose vesicles have been
cooled considerably below the freezing-point without being changed
to ice, which first takes place when, after falling, they come in
contact with ice or snow, or some angular hard object. It is such a
mist that causes the icing down of the rigging of vessels, a very
unpleasant phenomenon for the navigator, which we experienced during
the following days, when the tackling of the _Vega_ was covered with
pieces of ice so large, and layers so thick, that accidents might
have happened by the falling of the ice on the deck.[247]

The dredgings here yielded to Dr. Kjellman some algæ, and to Dr.
Stuxberg masses of a species of cumacea, _Diastylis Rathkei_ Kr., of
_Acanthostephia Malmgreni_ Goës, and _Liparis gelatinosus_ Pallas,
but little else. On the steep slopes of the north side of Irkaipij a
species of cormorant had settled in so large numbers that the cliff
there might be called a true fowl-fell. A large number of seals were
visible among the ice, and along with the cormorant a few other
birds, principally phalaropes. Fish were now seen only in
exceedingly small numbers.

[Illustration: ALGA FROM IRKAIPIJ. _Laminaria solidungula_ (J G. Ag.). ]

Even in the summer, fishing here does not appear to be specially
abundant, to judge from the fact that the Chukches had not collected
any stock for the winter. We were offered, however, a salmon or two
of small size.

[Illustration: CORMORANT FROM IRKAIPIJ. _Graculus bicristatus_
(Pallas). ]

On the 18th September[248] the state of the ice was quite unchanged.
If a wintering was to be avoided, it was, however, not advisable to
remain longer here. It had besides appeared from the hill-top which
I visited the day before that an open water channel, only
interrupted at two places by ice, was still to be found along the
coast. The anchor accordingly was weighed, and the _Vega_ steamed
on, but in a depth of only 6 to 8 metres. As the _Vegas_ draught is
from 4.8 to 5 metres, we had only a little water under the keel, and
that among ice in quite unknown waters. About twenty kilometres from
the anchorage, we met with a belt of ice through which we could make
our way though only with great difficulty, thanks to the _Vega's_
strong bow enabling her to withstand the violent concussions. Our
voyage was then continued, often in yet shallower water than before,
until the vessel, at 8 o'clock in the morning, struck on a ground
ice foot. The tide was falling, and on that account it was not until
next morning that we could get off, after a considerable portion of
the ground-ice, on whose foot the _Vega_ had run up, had been hewn
away with axes and ice-hatchets. Some attempts were made to blast
the ice with gunpowder, but they were unsuccessful. For this purpose
dynamite is much more efficacious, and this explosive ought
therefore always to form part of the equipment in voyages in which
belts of ice have to be broken through.

On the 19th we continued our voyage in the same way as before, in
still and for the most part shallow water near the coast, between
high masses of ground-ice, which frequently had the most picturesque
forms. Later in the day we again fell in with very low ice formed in
rivers and shut-in inlets of the sea, and came into slightly salt
water having a temperature above the freezing-point.

After having been moored during the night to a large ground-ice, the
_Vega_ continued her course on the 20th September almost exclusively
among low, dirty ice, which had not been much pressed together
during the preceding winter. This ice was not so deep in the water
as the blue ground-ice, and could therefore drift nearer the coast,
a great inconvenience for our vessel, which drew so much water. We
soon came to a place where the ice was packed so close to land that
an open channel only 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 metres deep remained close to
the shore. We were therefore compelled after some hours' sailing to
lie-to at a ground-ice to await more favourable circumstances. The
wind had now gone from west to north and north-west. Notwithstanding
this the temperature became milder and the weather rainy, a sign
that great open stretches of water lay to the north and north-west
of us. During the night before the 21st it rained heavily, the wind
being N.N.W. and the temperature +2°. An attempt was made on
that day to find some place where the belt of drift-ice that was
pressed against the land could be broken through, but it was
unsuccessful, probably in consequence of the exceedingly dense fog
which prevailed.

[Illustration: PIECES OF ICE FROM THE COAST OF THE CHUKCH PENINSULA.
(After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

Dredging gave but a scanty yield here, probably because the animal
life in water so shallow as that in which we were anchored, is
destroyed by the ground-ices, which drift about here for the greater
part of the year. Excursions to the neighbouring coast on the other
hand, notwithstanding the late season of the year, afforded to the
botanists of the _Vega_ valuable information regarding the flora of
the region.

On the 22nd I made, along with Captain Palander, an excursion in the
steam launch to take soundings farther to the east. We soon
succeeded in discovering a channel of sufficient depth and not too
much blocked with ice, and on the 23rd the _Vega_ was able to resume
her voyage among very closely packed drift-ice, often so near the
land that she had only a fourth of a metre of water under her keel.
We went forward however, if slowly.

The land here formed a grassy plain, still clear of snow, rising
inland to gently sloping hills or earthy heights. The beach was
strewn with a not inconsiderable quantity of driftwood, and here and
there were seen the remains of old dwelling-places. On the evening
of the 23rd September we lay-to at a ground-ice in a pretty large
opening of the ice-field. This opening closed in the course of the
night, so that on the 24th and 25th we could make only very little
progress, but on the 26th we continued our course, at first with
difficulty, but afterwards in pretty open water to the headland
which on the maps is called Cape Onman. The natives too, who came on
board here, gave the place that name. The ice we met with on that
day was heavier than before, and bluish-white, not dirty. It was
accordingly formed farther out at sea.

On the 27th we continued our course in somewhat open water to
Kolyutschin Bay. No large river debouches in the bottom of this
great fjord, the only one on the north coast of Asia which, by its
long narrow form, the configuration of the neighbouring shores, and
its division into two at the bottom, reminds us of the Spitzbergen
fjords which have been excavated by glaciers. The mouth of the bay
was filled with very closely packed drift-ice that had gathered
round the island situated there, which was inhabited by a large
number of Chukch families. In order to avoid this ice the _Vega_
made a considerable _détour_ up the fjord. The weather was calm and
fine, but new ice was formed everywhere among the old drift-ice
where it was closely packed. Small seals swarmed by hundreds among
the ice, following the wake of the vessel with curiosity. Birds on
the contrary were seen in limited numbers. Host of them had
evidently already migrated to more southerly seas. At 4.45 P.M. the
vessel was anchored to an ice-floe near the eastern shore of the
fjord. It could be seen from this point that the ice at the
headland, which bounded the mouth of the fjord to the east, lay so
near land that there was a risk that the open water next the shore
would not be deep enough for the _Vega_.

Lieutenant Hovgaard was therefore sent with the steam launch to take
soundings. He returned with the report that the water off the
headland was sufficiently deep. At the same time, accompanied by
several of the naturalists, I made an excursion on land. In the
course of this excursion the hunter Johnsen was sent to the top of
the range of heights which occupied the interior of the promontory,
in order to get a view of the state of the ice farther to the east.
Johnsen too returned with the very comforting news that a very broad
open channel extended beyond the headland along the coast to the
south-east. I was wandering about along with my comrades on the
slopes near the beach in order, so far as the falling darkness
permitted, to examine its natural conditions, when Johnsen came
down; he informed us that from the top of the height one could hear
bustle and noise and see fires at an encampment on the other side of
the headland. He supposed that the natives were celebrating some
festival. I had a strong inclination to go thither in order, as I
thought, "to take farewell of the Chukches," for I was quite certain
that on some of the following days we should sail into the Pacific.
But it was already late in the evening and dark, and we were not yet
sufficiently acquainted with the disposition of the Chukches to go
by night, without any serious occasion, in small numbers and
provided only with the weapons of the chase, to an encampment with
which we were not acquainted. It was not until afterwards that we
learned that such a visit was not attended with any danger. Instead
of going to the encampment, as the vessel in any case could not
weigh anchor this evening, we remained some hours longer on the
beach and lighted there an immense log fire of drift-wood, round
which we were soon all collected, chatting merrily about the
remaining part of the voyage in seas where not cold but heat would
trouble us, and where our progress at least would not be obstructed
by ice, continual fog, and unknown shallows. None of us then had any
idea that, instead of the heat of the tropics, we would for the next
ten months be experiencing a winter at the pole of cold, frozen in
on an unprotected road, under almost continual snow-storms, and with
a temperature which often sank below the freezing-point of mercury.

The evening was glorious, the sky clear, and the air so calm that the
flames and smoke of the log fire rose high against the sky. The dark
surface of the water, covered as it was with a thin film of ice,
reflected its light as a fire-way straight as a line, bounded far away
at the horizon by a belt of ice, whose inequalities appeared in the
darkness as the summits of a distant high mountain chain. The
temperature in the quite draught-free air was felt to be mild, and the
thermometer showed only 2° under the freezing-point. This slight degree
of cold was however sufficient to cover the sea in the course of the
night with a sheet of newly-frozen ice, which, as the following days'
experience showed, at the opener places could indeed only delay, not
obstruct the advance of the _Vega_, but which however bound together the
fields of drift-ice collected off the coast so firmly that a vessel,
even with the help of steam, could with difficulty force her way
through.

When on the following day, the 28th September, we had sailed past
the headland which bounds Kolyutschin Bay on the east, the channel
next the coast, clear of drift-ice, but covered with newly formed
ice, became suddenly shallow. The depth was too small for the
_Vega_, for which we had now to seek a course among the blocks of
ground-ice and fields of drift-ice in the offing. The night's frost
had bound these so firmly together that the attempt failed. We were
thus compelled to lie-to at a ground-ice so much the more certain of
getting off with the first shift of the wind, and of being able to
traverse the few miles that separated us from the open water at
Behring's Straits, as whalers on several occasions had not left this
region until the middle of October.

As American whalers had during the last decades extended their
whale-fishing to the North Behring Sea, I applied before my
departure from home both directly and through the Foreign Office to
several American scientific men and authorities with a request for
information as to the state of the ice in that sea. In all quarters
my request was received with special good-will and best wishes for
the projected journey. I thus obtained both a large quantity of
printed matter otherwise difficult of access, and maps of the sea
between North America and North Asia, and oral and written
communications from several persons: among whom may be mentioned the
distinguished naturalist, Prof. W.H. DALL of Washington, who lived
for a long time in the Territory of Alaska and the north part of the
Pacific; Admiral JOHN RODGERS, who was commander of the American
man-of-war, _Vincennes_, when cruising north of Behring's Straits in
1855; and WASHBURN MAYNOD, lieutenant in the American Navy. I had
besides obtained important information from the German sea-captain
E. DALLMANN, who for several years commanded a vessel in these
waters for coast traffic with the natives. Space does not permit me
to insert all these writings here. But to show that there were good
grounds for not considering the season of navigation in the sea
between Kolyutschin Bay and Behring's Straits closed at the end of
September, I shall make some extracts from a letter sent to me,
through the American Consul-General in Stockholm, N.A. ELVING, from
Mr. MILLER, the president of the Alaska Commercial Company.

    "The following is an epitome of the information we have
    received regarding the subject of your inquiry.

    "The bark _Massachusetts_, Captain O. WILLIAMS, was in 74°
    30' N.L. and 173° W.L. on the 21st Sept.
    1807. No ice in sight in the north, but to the east saw
    ice. Saw high peaks bearing W.N.W. about 60'. Captain
    Williams is of opinion that Plover Island, so-called by
    Kellet, is a headland of Wrangel Land. Captain Williams
    says that he is of opinion from his observations, that
    usually after the middle of August there is no ice south
    of 70°--west of 175°, until the 1st of
    October. There is hardly a year but that you could go as
    far as Cape North (Irkaipij), which is 180°, during
    the month of September. If the winds through July and
    August have prevailed from the S.W., as is usual, the
    north shore will be found clear of ice. The season of 1877
    was regarded as an 'icy season,' a good deal of ice to
    southward. 1876 was an open season; as was 1875. Our
    captain, GUSTAV NIEBAUM, states that the east side of
    Behring's Straits is open till November; he passed through
    the Straits as late as October 22nd two different seasons.
    The north shore was clear of all danger within reasonable
    distance. In 1869 the bark _Navy_ anchored under
    Kolyutschin Island from the 8th to the 10th October. On
    the 10th October of that year there was no ice south and
    east of Wrangel Land."

These accounts show that I indeed might have reason to be uneasy at
my ill luck in again losing some days at a place at whose bare
coast, exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, there was little of
scientific interest to employ ourselves with, little at least in
comparison with what one could do in a few days, for instance, at
the islands in Behring's Straits or in St. Lawrence Bay, lying as it
does south of the easternmost promontory of Asia and therefore
sheltered from the winds of the Arctic Ocean, but that there were no
grounds for fearing that it would be necessary to winter there. I
also thought that I could come to the same conclusion from the
experience gained in my wintering on Spitzbergen in 1872-73, when
permanent ice was first formed in our haven, in the 80th degree of
latitude, during the month of February. Now, however, the case was
quite different. The fragile ice-sheet, which on the 28th September
bound together the ground-ices and hindered our progress, increased
daily in strength under the influence of severer and severer cold
until it was melted by the summer heat of the following year. Long
after we were beset, however, there was still open water on the
coast four or five kilometres from our winter haven, and after our
return home I was informed that, on the day on which we were frozen
in, an American whaler was anchored at that place.

Whether our sailing along the north coast of Asia to Kolyutschin Bay
was a fortunate accident or not, the future will show. I for my part
believe that it was a fortunate accident, which will often happen.
Certain it is, in any case, that when we had come so far as to this
point, our being frozen in was a quite accidental misfortune brought
about by an unusual state of the ice in the autumn of 1878 in the
North Behring Sea.


[Footnote 214: Further information on this point is given by A.J.
Malmgren in a paper on the occurrence and extent of mammoth-finds,
and on the conditions of this animal's existence in former times
(_Finska Vet.-Soc. Förhandl_ 1874-5). ]

[Footnote 215: Compare Ph. Avril, _Voyage en divers états d'Europe
et d'Asie entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine_,
etc., Paris, 1692, p. 209. Henry H. Howorth, "The Mammoth in
Siberia" (_Geolog. Mag._ 1880, p. 408). ]

[Footnote 216: As will be stated in detail further on, there were
found during the _Vega_ expedition very remarkable sub-fossil animal
remains, not of the mammoth, however, but of various different
species of the whale. ]

[Footnote 217: The word _mummies_ is used by Von Middendorff to
designate carcases of ancient animals found in the frozen soil of
Siberia. ]

[Footnote 218: The calculation is probably rather too low than too
high. The steamer alone, in which I travelled up the Yenisej in
1875, carried over a hundred tusks, of which however the most were
blackened, and many were so decayed that I cannot comprehend how the
great expense of transport from the _tundra_ of the Yenisej could be
covered by the value of this article. According to the statement of
the ivory dealers the whole parcel, good and bad together, was paid
for at a common average price. ]

[Footnote 219: Notices of yet other _finds_ of mammoth carcases
occur, according to Middendorff (_Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274) in the
scarce and to me inaccessible first edition of Witsen's _Noord en
Oost Tartarye_ (1692, Vol. II. p. 473). ]

[Footnote 220: E. Yssbrants Ides, _Dreyjarige Reise nach China_,
etc., Frankfort, 1707, p. 55. The first edition was published in
Amsterdam, in Dutch, in 1704. ]

[Footnote 221: Strahlenberg in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von
Europa und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730, p. 393, also gives a large number
of statements regarding the fossil Siberian ivory, and mentions that
the distinguished Siberian traveller Messerschmidt found a complete
skeleton on the river Tom. ]

[Footnote 222: Tilesius, _De skeleto mammonteo Sibirico (Mém. de
l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg, T.V. pour l'année 1812_, p. 409).
Middendorff, _Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274. Von Olfers, _Die Überreste
vorweltlicher Riesenthiere in Beziehung zu Ostasia-tischen Sagen und
Chinesischen Schriften (Abhandl. der Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin
aus dem Jahre 1839_, p 51). ]

[Footnote 223: P.S. Pallas, _De reliquiis animalium exoticorum per
Asiam borealem repertis complementum (Novi commentarii Acad. Sc.
Petropolitanæ_, XVII. pro anno 1772, p. 576), and _Reise durch
verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs_, Th. III. St.
Petersburg, 1776, p. 97. ]

[Footnote 224: Hedenström, _Otrywki o Sibiri_, St. Petersburg, 1830,
p. 125. Ermann's _Archiv_, Part 24, p. 140. ]

[Footnote 225: Compare K.E. v. Baer's paper in _Mélanges
Biologiques_, T.V. St. Pétersbourg, 1866, p. 691; Middendorff, IV.
i. p. 277; Gavrila Sarytschev's _Achtjährige Reise in nordöstlichen
Sibirien_, etc., translated by J.H. Busse, Th. 1, Leipzig, 1806,
p. 106. ]

[Footnote 226: Adams' account is inserted at p. 431 in the work of
Tilesius already quoted. Von Baer gives a detailed account of this
and other important _finds_ of the same nature in the above-quoted
paper in Tome V. of _Mélanges Biologiques_; St. Pétersbourg,
pp. 645-740. ]

[Footnote 227: Middendorff, IV. 1, p. 272. ]

[Footnote 228: Friedrich Schmidt, _Wissenschastliche Resultate der
sur Aussuchung eines Mammuthcadavers ausgesandten Expedition (Mém.
de l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg_, Ser. VII. T. XVIII. No. 1, 1872). ]

[Footnote 229: Brandt, _Berichte der preussischen Akad. der
Wissenchasten_, 1846, p. 224. Von Schmalhausen, _Bull de l'Acad. de
St. Pétersbourg_, T. XXII. p. 291. ]

[Footnote 230: The _find_ is described by Heir Czersky in the
Transactions published by the East Siberian division of the St.
Petersburg Geographical Society; and subsequently by Dr. Leopold von
Schrenck in _Mém. de l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg_, Ser. VII. T.
XXVII. No. 7, 1880. ]

[Footnote 231: The mean temperature of the different months is shown
in the following table:--

        JAN.   -48° 9
        FEB.   -47° 2
        MARCH  -33° 9
        APRIL  -14° 9
        MAY     -0° 40
        JUNE   +13° 4
        JULY   +15° 4
        AUG.   +11° 9
        SEPT.   +2° 3
        OCT.   -13° 9
        NOV.   -39° 1
        DEC.   -45° 7
 Of the Year.  -16° 7 ]

[Footnote 232: Hedenström, _loc. cit._ p. 128. To find stranded
driftwood in an upright position is nothing uncommon. ]

[Footnote 233: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and
Astronomical Expedition the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore
Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 105. The walrus does not occur in
the sea between the mouth of the Chatanga and Wrangel Land, and
large whales are never seen at the New Siberian Islands, but during
Hedenström's stay in these regions three narwhals were enclosed in
the ice near the shore at the mouth of the Yana (_Otrywki o
Sibiri_, p. 131). ]

[Footnote 234: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and
Astronomical Expedition to the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore
Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 103. A. Ermann, _Reise um die
Erde_, Berlin, 1833-48, D. 1, B. 2, p. 258. Ermann's statement, that
the knowledge of the existence of these islands was concealed from
the government up to the year 1806, is clearly incorrect. ]

[Footnote 235: Of course the earth here at an inconsiderable depth
under the surface is constantly frozen, but I have nowhere seen such
alternating layers of earth and ice, crossed by veins of ice, as
Hedenström in his oft-quoted work (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 119) says
he found at the sea-coast. Probably such a peculiar formation arises
only at places where the spring floods bring down thick layers of
mud, which cover the beds of ice formed during the winter and
protect them for thousands of years from melting. I shall have an
opportunity of returning to the interesting questions relating to
this point. ]

[Footnote 236: Since we discovered the Chukches also bury their dead
by laying them out on the _tundra_, we have begun to entertain
doubts whether the collection of bones delineated here was actually
a grave. Possibly these mounds were only the remains of fireplaces,
where the Chukches had used as fuel train-drenched bones, and which
they bad afterwards for some reason or other endeavoured to protect
from the action of the atmosphere. ]

[Footnote 237: H. Rink, _Grönland geographisk og statistisk
beskrevet_, Bd. 2, Copenhagen, 1857, p. 344. ]

[Footnote 238: C. von Dittmar, _Bulletin hist.-philolog, de l'acad.
de St. Pétersbourg_, XIII. 1856, p. 130. ]

[Footnote 239: Krascheninnikov, _Histoire et Description du
Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam 1770, II. p. 95. A. Ennan, _Reise urn die
Erde_, D.1, B.2, p. 255. ]

[Footnote 240: _Ankali_ signifies in Chukch dwellers on the coast,
and is now used to denote the Chukches living on the coast. A
similar word, Onkilon, was formerly used as the name of the Eskimo
tribe that lived on the coast of the Polar Sea when the Chukch
migration reached that point. ]

[Footnote 241: The walrus now appears to be very rare in the sea
north of Behring's Straits, but formerly it must have been found
there in large numbers, and made that region a veritable paradise
for every hunting tribe. While we during our long stay there saw
only a few walruses, Cook, in 1778, saw an enormous number, and an
interesting drawing of walruses is to be found in the account of his
third voyage. _A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc._ Vol. III. (by
James King), London, 1784, p. 259, pl. 52. ]

[Footnote 242: The greatest number of mammoth tusks is obtained from
the stretches of land and the islands between the Chatanga and Chaum
Bay. Here the walrus is wanting. The inhabitants of North Siberia
therefore praise the wisdom of the Creator, who lets the walrus live
in the regions where the mammoth is wanting, and has scattered
mammoth ivory in the earthy layers of the coasts where the walrus
does not occur (A. Erman, _Reise um die Erde_, Berlin, 1833--48,
D.1, B.2, p. 264). ]

[Footnote 243: Among the bears' skulls brought home from this place
Lieut. Nordquist found after his return home the skull of a sea-lion
(_Otaria Stelleri_). It is, however, uncertain whether the animal
was captured in the region, or whether the cranium was brought
hither from Kamchatka. ]

[Footnote 244: Wrangel's _Reise_, Th. 2, Berlin, 1839, p. 220. ]

[Footnote 245: According to a paper in _Deutsche Geografische
Blätter_, B. IV. p. 54, Captain E. Dallmann, in 1866, as commander of
the Havai schooner _W.C. Talbot_, not only saw but landed on Wrangel
Land. As Captain Dallmann of recent years has been in pretty close
contact with a large number of geographers, and communications from
him have been previously inserted in geographical journals, it
appears strange that he has now for the first time made public this
important voyage. At all events, Dallmann's statement that the
musk-ox occurs on the coast of the Polar Sea and on Wrangel Land is
erroneous. He has here confused the musk-ox with the reindeer. ]

[Footnote 246: Cf. _Redogörelse för den svenska polarexpeditionen år
1872-73_ (Bihang till Vet Ak. handl. Bd. 2, No. 18, p. 91). ]

[Footnote 247: A more dangerous kind of icing down threatens the
navigator in severe weather not only in the Polar Seas but also in
the Baltic and the North Sea. For it happens at that season that the
sea-water at the surface is over-cooled, that is, cooled below the
freezing-point without being frozen. Every wave which strikes the
vessel is then converted by the concussion into ice-sludge, which
increases and freezes together to hard ice so speedily that all
attempts to remove it from the deck are in vain. In a few hours the
vessel may be changed into an unmanageable floating block of ice
which the sailors, exhausted by hard labour, must in despair abandon
to its fate. Such an icing down, though with a fortunate issue,
befell the steamer _Sofia_ in the month of October off Bear Island,
during the Swedish Polar Expedition of 1868. ]

[Footnote 248: Irkaipij lies in 180° long. from Greenwich. To
bring our day-reckoning into agreement with that of the New World,
we ought thus to have here lessened our date by one day, and have
written the 17th for the 18th September. But as, with the exception
of the short excursion to Port Clarence and St. Edward Island, we
always followed the coasts of the Old World, and during our stay in
the new hemisphere did not visit any place inhabited by Europeans,
we retained during the whole of our voyage our European
day-reckoning unaltered. If we had met with an American whaler, we
would have been before him one day, our 27th September would thus
have corresponded to his 26th. The same would have been the case on
our coming to an American port. ]



CHAPTER X.

    Wintering becomes necessary--The position of the _Vega_--
    The ice round the vessel--American ship in the neighbourhood
    of the _Vega_ when frozen in--The nature of the neighbouring
    country--The _Vega_ is prepared for wintering--Provision-depôt
    and observatories established on land--The winter dress--
    Temperature on board--Health and dietary--Cold, wind, and snow
    --The Chukches on board--Menka's visit--Letters sent home--
    Nordquist and Hovgaard's excursion to Menka's encampment--
    Another visit of Menka--The fate of the letters--Nordquist's
    journey to Pidlin--_Find_ of a Chukch grave--Hunting--
    Scientific work--Life on board--Christmas Eve.


Assured that a few hours' southerly wind would be sufficient to
break up the belt of ice, scarcely a Swedish mile[249] in breadth,
that barred our way, and rendered confident by the above-quoted
communications from experts in America concerning the state of the
ice in the sea north of Behring's Straits, I was not at first very
uneasy at the delay, of which we took advantage by making short
excursions on land and holding converse with the inhabitants. First,
when day after day passed without any change taking place, it became
clear to me that we must make preparations for wintering just on the
threshold between the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans. It was an
unexpected disappointment, which it was more difficult to bear with
equanimity, as it was evident that we would have avoided it if we
had come some hours earlier to the eastern side of Kolyutschin Bay.
There were numerous occasions during the preceding part of our
voyage on which these hours might have been saved: the _Vega_
did not require to stay so long at Port Dickson, we might have saved
a day at Taimur Island, have dredged somewhat less west of the New
Siberian Islands, and so on; and above all, our long stay at
Irkaipij waiting for an improvement in the state of the ice, was
fatal, because at least three days were lost there without any
change for the better taking place.

The position of the vessel was by no means very secure. For the
_Vega_, when frozen in, as appears from the sketch map to be found
further on, did not lie at anchor in any haven, but was only, in the
expectation of finding a favourable opportunity to steam on,
anchored behind a ground-ice, which had stranded in a depth of 9-1/2
metres, 1,400 metres from land, in a road which was quite open from
true N. 74° W. by north to east. The vessel had here no other
protection against the violent ice-pressure which winter storms are
wont to cause in the Polar seas, than a rock of ice stranded at high
water, and therefore also at high water not very securely fixed.
Fortunately the tide just on the occasion of our being frozen in,
appears to have been higher than at any other time during the course
of the winter. The ice-rocks, therefore, first floated again far
into the summer of 1879, when their parts that projected above the
water had diminished by melting. Little was wanting besides to make
our winter haven still worse than it was in reality. For the _Vega_
was anchored the first time on the 28th September at some small
ice-blocks which had stranded 200 metres nearer the land, but was
removed the following day from that place, because there were only a
few inches of water under her keel. Had the vessel remained at her
first anchorage, it had gone ill with us. For the newly formed ice,
during the furious autumn storms, especially during the night
between the 14th and 15th December, was pressed over these
ice-blocks. The sheet of ice, about half a metre thick, was thereby
broken up with loud noise into thousands of pieces, which were
thrown up on the underlying ground-ices so as to form an enormous
_toross_, or rampart of loose, angular blocks of ice. A vessel
anchored there would have been buried under pieces of ice, pressed
aground, and crushed very early in the winter.

[Illustration: TOROSS. From the neighbourhood of the _Vega's_ winter
quarters. ]

When the _Vega_ was beset, the sea near the coast, as has been
already stated, was covered with newly formed ice, too thin to carry
a foot passenger, but thick enough to prevent the passage of a boat.
In the offing lay, as far as the eye could see, closely packed
drift-ice, which was bound together so firmly by the newly formed
ice, that it was vain to endeavour to force a passage. Already, by
the 2nd October, it was possible, by observing the necessary
precautions, to walk upon the newly formed ice nearest the vessel,
and on the 3rd October, the Chukches came on board on foot. On the
10th there were still weak places here and there between the vessel
and the land, and a blue sky to the eastward indicated that there
was still open water in that direction. That this "clearing" was at
a considerable distance from the vessel was seen from an excursion
which Dr. Almquist undertook in a north-easterly direction on the
13th October, when, after walking about twenty kilometres over
closely packed drift-ice, he was compelled to turn without having
reached the open water. It was clear that the _Vega_ was surrounded
by a band, at least thirty kilometres broad, of drift-ice fields,
united by newly formed ice, which in the course of the winter
reached a considerable thickness.[250]

In this immense ice-sheet there often arose in the course of the
winter cracks of great length. They ran uninterruptedly across newly
formed ice-fields, and old, high ground-ices. One of the largest of
these cracks was formed on the night before the 15th December right
under the bow of the vessel. It was nearly a metre broad, and very
long. Commonly the cracks were only some centimetres broad, but,
notwithstanding this, they were troublesome enough, because the
sea-water forced itself up through them to the surface of the ice
and drenched the snow lying next to it.

The causes of the formation of the cracks were twofold. Either they
arose from a violent wind disturbing somewhat the position of the
newly formed ice, or through the contraction of the ice in severe
cold. The formation of the cracks took place with a more or less
loud report, and, to judge from the number of these reports, more
frequently than could be observed from the appearance of the
snow-covered ice. Thus even during severe cold the apparently
continuous ice-sheet was divided into innumerable pieces lying in
the close proximity of each other, which either were completely
loose or bound together only by the weak ice-band which was
gradually formed under the snow on the surface of the water which
had forced its way into the crack. Up to a distance of about six
kilometres from the shore the ice in any case lay during the course
of the whole winter nearly undisturbed, with the exception of the
small cracks just mentioned. Farther out to sea, on the other hand,
it was in constant motion. So-called _polynias_ or open places
probably occur here all the year round, and when the weather was
favourable we could therefore nearly always see a blue water sky at
the horizon from true N.W. to E. A southerly wind after some days
brought the open water channel so near the vessel that it was
possible to walk to it in a few hours. It then swarmed with
seals--an indication that it was in connection with a sea that was
constantly open. The neighbourhood of such a sea perhaps also
accounts for the circumstance that we did not see a single seal-hole
in the ice-fields that surrounded the vessel.

The ground-ice, to which the _Vega_ was moored on the 29th
September, and under which she lay during the course of the winter,
was about forty metres long and twenty-five metres broad; its
highest point lay six metres above the surface of the water. It was
thus not very large, but gave the vessel good shelter. This
ground-ice, along with the vessel and the newly formed ice-field
lying between it and the shore, was indeed moved considerably nearer
land during the violent autumn storms. A groan or two and a knocking
sound in the hull of the vessel indicated that it did not escape
very severe pressure; but the _Vega_ did not during the course of
the winter suffer any damage, either from this or from the severe
cold, during which sharp reports often indicated that some crack in
the woodwork had widened through the freezing of the water that had
made its way into the vessel. "Cold so that the walls crack" is a
well-known expression, with which we inhabitants of the North often
connect memories from some stormy winter evening, passed by the home
hearth; but here these reports heard in our cabins, especially at
night, were unpleasant enough, giving rise to fears that the newly
formed or widened cracks would cause dangerous leaks in the vessel's
hull. In consequence of iron contracting more than wood under the
influence of cold, the heads of the iron bolts, with which the
ship's timbers were fastened together, in the course of the winter
sank deep into the outside planking. But no serious leak arose in
this way, perhaps because the cold only acted on that part of the
vessel which lay above the surface of the water.

Already during the first days of our wintering we interpreted
various lively accounts of the natives, which they illustrated by
signs, to mean that a whaler would be found at Serdze Kamen, in the
neighbourhood of the _Vega's_ winter haven. On this account
Lieutenant Brusewitz was sent out on the 4th October with two men
and the little boat, _Louise_, built in Copenhagen for the
expedition of 1872-73, and intended for sledge-journeys, with
instructions to ascertain, if possible, if such was the case. He
returned late at night the same day without having got sight of any
vessel. We now supposed that the whole depended on our having
misunderstood the accounts of the Chukches. But a letter which I
received after our return, from Mr. W. BARTLETT, dated New Bedford,
6th January, 1880, shows that this had not been the case. For he
writes, among other things:--

    "The writer's son, GIDEON W. BAKTLETT, left San Francisco
    1st June, 1878, in our freighter ship _Syren_, of 875
    tons, for St. Lawrence Bay, arriving there July 8th, and,
    after loading 6,100 barrels of oil and 37,000 lbs. of bone
    from our whalers, she sailed for New Bedford direct,
    touching at Honolulu to land her bone, to come here _viâ_
    San Francisco, and he joined our whaler bark, _Rainbow_,
    at St. Lawrence Bay, and went on a tour of observation and
    pleasure, visiting Point Barrow and going as far east as
    Lion Reefs, near Camden Bay, and then returning to Point
    Barrow, and going over to Herald Island, and while there
    visiting our different whalers, seeing one "bow-head"
    caught and cut in, and September 25th he came down in the
    schooner _W.M. Meyer_ to San Francisco, arriving there
    October 22nd. By a comparison of dates we find he passed
    near Cape Serdze September 29th, or one day after you
    anchored near Kolyutschin Bay."

The 29th September according to the American day-reckoning
corresponds to the 30th according to that of the old world, which
was still followed on board the _Vega_. The schooner _W.M.
Meyer_ thus lay at Serdze Kamen two days after we anchored in our
winter haven. The distance between the two places is only about 70
kilometres.

The winter haven was situated in 67° 4' 49" north latitude,
and 173° 23' 2" longitude west from Greenwich, 1.4 kilometres
from land. The distance from East Cape was 120', and from Point Hope
near Cape Lisburn on the American side, 180'.

The neighbouring land formed a plain rising gradually from the sea,
slightly undulating and crossed by river valleys, which indeed when
the _Vega_ was frozen in was covered with hoarfrost and frozen, but
still clear of snow, so that our botanists could form an idea of the
flora of the region, previously quite unknown. Next the shore were
found close beds of Elymus, alternating with carpets of _Halianthus
peploides_, and further up a poor, even, gravelly soil, covered with
water in spring, on which grew only a slate-like lichen, _Gyrophora
proboscidea_, and a few flowering plants, of which _Armeria sibirica_
was the most common. Within the beach were extensive salt and
fresh-water lagoons, separated by low land, whose banks were covered
with a pretty luxuriant carpet, formed of mosses, grasses, and
Carices. But first on the neighbouring high land, where the
weathered gneiss strata yielded a more fertile soil than the sterile
sand thrown up out of the sea, did the vegetation assume a more
variegated stamp. No trace of trees[251] was indeed found there, but
low willow bushes, entensive carpets of _Empetrum nigrum_ and
_Andromeda tetragona_ were seen, along with large tufts of a species
of Artemisia. Between these shoot forth in summer, to judge partly
from the dried and frozen remains of plants which Dr. Kjellman
collected in autumn, partly from collections made in spring, a
limited number of flowering plants, some of which are well known at
home, as the red whortleberry, the cloudberry, and the dandelion.

Although experience from preceding Polar journeys and specially from
the Swedish expedition of 1872-73, showed that even at the 80th
degree of latitude the sea may suddenly break up in the middle of
winter, we however soon found, as has been already stated, that we
must make preparations for wintering. The necessary arrangements
were accordingly made. The snow which collected on deck, and which
at first was daily swept away, was allowed to remain, so that it
finally formed a layer 30 centimetres thick, of hard tramped snow or
ice, which in no inconsiderable degree contributed to increase the
resistance of the deck to cold, and for the same purpose snowdrifts
were thrown up along the vessel's sides. A stately ice stair was
carried up from the ice to the starboard gunwale. A large tent made
for the purpose at Karlskrona was pitched from the bridge to the
fore, so that only the poop was open. Aft the tent was quite open,
the blast and drifting snow having also free entrance from the sides
and from an incompletely closed opening in the fore. The protection
it yielded against the cold was indeed greatly diminished in this
way, but instead it did not have the least injurious action on the
air on the vessel, a circumstance specially deserving of attention
for its influence on the state of health on board. Often under this
tent in the dark days of winter there blazed a brisk smithy fire,
round which the Chukches crowded in curious wonder at the skill with
which the smith fashioned the glowing iron. Here the cook dealt out
to the Chukches the soup and meat that were left over, and the
loaves of bread which at every baking were baked for them. Here was
our reception saloon, where tobacco and sugar were distributed to
the women and children, and where sometimes, if seldom, a frozen
hunter or fisherman was treated to a little spirits. Here pieces of
wood and vertebræ of the whale were valued and purchased, and here
tedious negotiations were carried on regarding journeys in
dog-sledges in different directions.


The violent motion which took place in the ice during the night
before the 15th December, gave us a sharp warning that our position
in the open road was by no means so secure as was desirable, but
that there was a possibility that the vessel might be nipped
suddenly and without any previous warning. If such a misfortune had
happened, the crew of the _Vega_ would certainly have had no
difficulty in getting to land over the ice. But the yield of hunting
appeared to be so scanty, and the Chukches were, as almost always,
so destitute of all stock of provisions--for they literally obey
the command to take no thought for to-morrow--that there was every
probability that we, having come safe ashore, would die of hunger,
if no provisions were saved from the vessel. This again, as the
principal part of the provisions was of course down in the hold,
would have been attended with great difficulty, if the _Vega_ had
been suddenly in the night cut into by the ice at the water-line. In
order as far as possible to secure ourselves against the
consequences of such a misfortune, a depôt of provisions, guns,
ammunition, &c., reckoned for 30 men and 100 days, was formed on
land. Fortunately we did not require to depend upon it. The stores
were laid up on the beach without the protection of lock or bolt,
covered only with sails and oars, and no watch was kept at the
place. Notwithstanding this, and the want of food which occasionally
prevailed among the natives, it remained untouched both by the
Chukches who lived in the neighbourhood, and by those who daily
drove past the place from distant regions. All however knew very
well the contents of the sail-covered heap, and they undoubtedly
supposed that there were to be found there treasures of immense
value, and provisions enough for the whole population of the Chukch
peninsula for a whole year.

[Illustration: THE "VEGA" IN WINTER QUARTERS. (After a photograph,
taken in the spring of 1879 by L. Palander.) ]

The Magnetical Observatory was erected, as will be told in greater
detail further on, upon the beach a kilometre and a half from the
vessel. To this house the observers had to walk to and fro at least
four times in the twenty-four hours over an ice-field, covered with
loose snow, as fine as dust, that was set in motion by the least
puff of wind, and then in a few moments completely obliterated every
footprint. When the moon did not shine, the winter nights were so
dark, that it was impossible to distinguish the very nearest
objects, and day after day during the course of the winter we had,
besides, drifting snow so thick that the high dark hull of the
vessel itself could be distinguished only when one was in its
immediate neighbourhood! In walking from land during the darkness of
the night and in drifting snow it would have been very difficult to
find one's way to the vessel without guidance, and he would have
been helplessly lost who went astray. To prevent such an accident,
the precaution was taken of running a line over high ice-pillars
between the Observatory and the vessel. Even with the help of the
guideline it was often difficult enough to find our way.

The attempt to keep open a channel in the ice round the vessel
during the whole winter had soon to be given up, but two holes were
kept constantly open, one by the side of the vessel in case of fire,
and the other for the tidal observations which Captain Palander set
on foot during the winter. The latter hole was chosen by a little
seal as its haunt for a long time, until one day we entertained
ourselves by catching him with the necessary care, and making him
pay an involuntary visit on board, where he was offered various
delicacies, which however were disregarded. The seal was let loose
again in his hole, but notwithstanding the friendliness we showed
him, he never more returned.

[Illustration: THE WINTER DRESS OF THE "VEGA" MEN. ]

From the meteorological observations it appears that the winter was
not so cold as the winters in the Franklin archipelago or in the
coldest parts of the mainland of Siberia.[252] On the other hand, it
was exceedingly stormy at the _Vega's_ winter station, and day
after day, night after night, we have gone to and from the
Observatory in a high wind and a cold of -30° to -46° C.
In calm weather a cold of -40° is scarcely very troublesome,
but with only a slight draught a degree of cold of for instance -35°
is actually dangerous for one who goes against the wind, and
without the necessary precautions exposes uncovered parts of the
face, the hands, or the wrists, to the cold current of air. Without
one's being warned by any severe pain frostbite arises, which, if it
be not in time thawed by rubbing the injured part with the hand, or
with melting snow, may readily become very serious. Most of those
who for the first time took part in a wintering in the high north,
were, when the first cold occurred, more or less frostbitten, on
several occasions so that there arose high frost-blisters filled
with bloody water, several square centimetres in extent, but
fortunately never to such a degree that any serious bad results
followed. After we, newcomers to the Polar regions, warned by
experience, became more careful, such frostbites occurred but
seldom. Nor did there occur a single case of frostbite in the feet.
To this conduced our clothing, which was adapted to the climate,
and, besides good winter clothes of the sort commonly used in
Sweden, consisted of the following articles of dress brought with us
specially for use in the high north:--

1. An abundant stock of good _woollen under-clothing_.

2. A carefully made _blouse of sailcloth_, provided with many
pockets, intended to be drawn over the ordinary seaman's dress as a
protection against wind and drifting snow. This proved to be very
suitable for the purpose for which it was intended, and was much
liked by the crew.

3. A Lapp _"pesk" with leggings_ was not so often used, because it
was so warm that it was only with difficulty one could walk with it
any considerable distance. On the other hand, in the case of winter
journeys with dogs or reindeer it was indispensable.

4. A pair of very large _canvas boots_ with leather soles. Inside
these was put hay of _Carex vesicaria_ L. The foot itself was
covered with one or two pairs of stockings, above which there was a
foot-strip of felt. Our boots were thus intermediate between the
foot-covering introduced by Parry for Arctic journeys, and the
hay-filled _komager_ of the Lapps. All who used these canvas boots
are unanimous in thinking that they left nothing to desire. Even in
the case of extended excursions in wet snow they are to be preferred
to leather shoes; for the latter become heavy and drenched with
water, and can with difficulty be dried in the open air in the
course of a night's rest. Canvas boots and the long hay in them on
the other hand are easily dried in a single night. They are also
light when wet, and in that state little prejudicial to health on
account of the change of air which the hay under the foot renders
possible. I therefore am of opinion that we are warranted in giving
such boots the highest recommendation for winter journeys and winter
hunting excursions, even in our own land.

5. An _Öresund cap_ and a loose _felt hood_ (baschlik) of the same
sort as those which are used in the Russian army. I had bought the
baschliks in St. Petersburg on account of the Expedition.

6. _Fingerless gloves_ of sealskin and chamois, with an inside
lining of sheepskin and at the wrists bordered with long-haired fur.
They were commonly carried with a band from the neck, as children
are wont to carry their gloves. For outside work these thick gloves
were too inconvenient; then fingerless woollen mittens were used.

7. _Coloured spectacles_, which were distributed to all the men in
the beginning of February. One must himself have lived in the Polar
regions during winter and spring, "after the return of the sun," to
understand how indispensable is such a protection from the
monotonous white light which then surrounds the eye in every
direction. The inexperienced, though warned, seldom observe the
necessary precautions, and commonly pay the penalty by a more or
less complete snowblindness, which indeed is not very dangerous, but
is always exceedingly painful, and which lasts several days.


On board the vessel in our cabins and collection-rooms it was
besides by no means so cold as many would suppose. The sides of the
vessel in several places indeed, especially in the cabins, were
covered with a thick sheet of ice, and so was the skylight in the
gun-room. But in the inhabited parts of the vessel we had, a little
from the sides, commonly a temperature of +12° to +17°,
that is to say about the same as we in the north are wont to have
indoors in winter, and certainly higher than the temperature of
rooms during the coldest days of the year in many cities in the
south, as for instance in Paris and Vienna. By night however the
temperature in the cabins sank sometimes to +5° and +10°,
and the boarding at the side of the berth became covered
with ice. In the work-room 'tweendecks the thermometer generally
stood about +10°, and even in the underhold, which was not
heated, but lay under the water-line, the temperature was never
under, commonly 1° or 2° above, the freezing-point.

Much greater inconvenience than from cold did we in the cabins suffer
from the excessive heat and the fumes, which firing in large cast-iron
stoves is wont to cause in small close rooms. When in the morning after
a cold night the watch all too willingly obeyed the direction, which
sounded from different quarters, to fire well, one had often his wish so
thoroughly satisfied, that, in half an hour after, every man lay bathed
in perspiration. There was no other help for it than to leave the cabin,
take a cold bath and a good rub down, dress rapidly, rush on deck for
fresh air, and cool in the temperature of -30° to -40° prevailing there.
Other opportunities for bathing were also given both to the officers and
crew, and the necessary care was taken to secure cleanliness, a sanitary
measure which ought never to be neglected in Arctic winterings.

The state of health on board during the course of the winter was
exceedingly good. Dr. Almquist's report enumerates only a few
serious maladies, all successfully cured, among which may be
mentioned stomach colds and slight cases of inflammation of the
lungs, but not a single case of that insidious disease, scurvy,
which formerly raged in such a frightful way among the crews in all
long voyages, and which is still wont to gather so many victims from
among Polar travellers.

This good state of health depended in the first place on the
excellent spirit which inspired the scientific men, the officers and
the crew of the Expedition, but it ought also to be ascribed to the
suitable equipment of the _Vega_, arranged by Captain Palander at
Karlskrona, and above all to adjustment to the climate of our
dietary, which was settled on the ground of the experience gained in
the expedition of 1872-73, and after taking the advice of its
distinguished physician Dr. Envall. The dietary is shown in the
following table:--


No. 1. SUNDAY.

_Breakfast_: butter 6 ort, coffee 10 ort, sugar 7.5 ort.[253]

_Dinner_: salt pork or dried fish 75 ort, sourkrout 75 ort,
preserved or fresh potatoes 12 ort, preserved vegetables 5.5 ort,
extract of meat 1.5 ort, raisins 5 ort, rice 50 ort, brandy or rum 2
cubic inches.

_Supper_: butter 6 ort, tea 1.5 ort, sugar 7.5 ort, barley-groats 10
cubic inches, cheese 12 ort.


No. 2. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY.

_Breakfast_ same as No. 1.

_Dinner_: preserved meat or fish 1 portion, preserved potatoes 12
ort, preserved vegetables 5.5 ort, preserved leeks 1 portion,
extract of meat 1.5 ort, brandy or rum 2 cubic inches.

_Supper_ same as No. 1 without cheese.


No. 3. THURSDAY.

_Breakfast_ same as No. 1.

_Dinner_: salt pork 1 lb., peas 10 cubic inches, extract of meat 1.5
ort, barley-groats 2 cubic inches, brandy or rum 2 cubic inches.

_Supper_ same as No. 2.


No. 4. TUESDAY.

_Breakfast_: butter 6 ort, chocolate 10 ort, sugar 7.5 ort.

_Dinner_: salt meat 1 lb., maccaroni 15 ort (or brown beans 10 cubic
inches or green peas 1 portion), fruit soup 1 portion, brandy or rum
2 cubic inches.

_Supper_ same as No. 2.


No. 5. SATURDAY.

_Breakfast_ same as No. 4.

_Dinner_: preserved beeksteak or stewed beef 1 portion, preserved or
fresh, potatoes 12 ort, preserved leeks 1 portion, fruit soup 1
portion, brandy or rum 2 cubic inches.

_Supper_ same as No. 2.

Every man besides had served out to him daily 1-1/4 lb. dried bread
or flour (2/3 wheat and 1/3 rye), 3 ort tobacco and 2 cubic inches
vinegar; and weekly 1 lb. wheat-flour, 30 ort butter, 21 ort salt, 7
ort mustard, 3 ort pepper, and two cubic inches vinegar.

Besides what is included in the above list, "multegröt" (preserved
cloudberries), mixed with rum, was served out twice a week from the
15th February to the 1st April. I would willingly have had a larger
quantity of this, according to northern experience, excellent
antidote to scurvy, but as the cloudberry harvest completely failed
in 1877, I could not, at any price, procure for the Expedition the
quantity that was required. There was purchased in Finland instead,
a large quantity of cranberry-juice, which was regularly served out
to the crew and much liked by them. We carried with us besides a
pair of living swine, which were slaughtered for the Christmas
festivities.[254] All the men at that time had an opportunity of
eating fresh pork twice a week, an invaluable interruption to the
monotonous preserved provisions, which in its proportion conduced,
during this festival, to which we inhabitants of the North are
attached by so many memories, to enliven and cheer us.

The produce of hunting was confined during the course of the winter
to some ptarmigan and hares, and thus did not yield any contribution
worth mentioning to the provisioning of the vessel. On the other
hand, I was able by barter with the natives to procure fish in
considerable abundance, so that at certain seasons the quantity was
sufficient to allow of fresh fish being served out once a week. The
kind of fish which was principally obtained during the winter, a
sort of cod with greyish-green vertebræ, could however at first
only be served in the gun-room, because the crew, on account of the
colour of its bones, for a long time had an invincible dislike to
it.

On many of the ground-ices in the neighbourhood of the vessel there
were fresh-water collections of considerable depth, which indeed
were already hard frozen on the surface, but long yielded us
splendid water for drinking and washing. After the 14th of December,
when all the smaller fresh-water collections were almost frozen to
the bottom, and salt-water had made its way into the largest ones
and those on which we most depended, it became necessary to procure
water by melting ice.

The meteorological observations were made every fourth hour up to the
1st November; after that to the 1st April every hour; after that
again six times in the twenty-four hours. From the 27th November to
the 1st April the thermometers were set up on land at the magnetical
observatory; before and after that time in the immediate neighbourhood
of the vessel. During winter the charge of the meteorological
observations was intrusted to Dr. Stuxberg, who at that season, when all
around us was covered with ice, was compelled to let his own zoological
researches rest.

[Illustration: COD FROM PITLEKAJ. _Gadus navaga_, Kolreuter one-third
the natural size. ]

The state of the weather of course had a very sensible influence on our
daily life, and formed the touchstone by which our equipment was tested.
Space does not permit me to give in this work the detailed results of
the meteorological observations. I shall therefore only state the
following facts.

The greatest cold which was observed during the different
months was in

 October the  24th--20.8°  March the 29th--39.8°
 November the 30th--27.2°  April the 15th--38.0°
 December the 23rd--37.1°  May the    3rd--26.8°
 January the  25th--45.7°  June the   3rd--14.3°
 February the  2nd--43.8°  July the   2nd--1.0 °

Twice we had the barometer uncommonly high, viz.:

 On the 22nd December 6 A.M. 782.0 (0°) mm.
 On the 17th February 6 A.M. 788.1 (0°) mm.

The lowest atmospheric pressure, 728.8 (0°) mm., occurred on
the 31st December at two o'clock P.M.

The weather during the winter was very stormy, and the direction of
the wind nearest the surface of the earth almost constantly between
north-west and north-north-west. But already in atmospheric strata
of inconsiderable height there prevailed, to judge by the direction
of the clouds, a similar uninterrupted atmospheric current from the
south-east, which when it occasionally sank to the surface of the
earth brought with it air that was warmer and less saturated with
moisture. The reason of this is easy to see, if we consider that
Behring's Straits form a gate surrounded by pretty high mountains
between the warm atmospheric area of the Pacific and the cold one of
the Arctic Ocean. The winds must be arranged here approximately
after the same laws as the draught in the door-opening between a
warm and a cold room, that is to say, the cold current of air must
go below from the cold room to the warm, the warm above from the
warm room to the cold. The mountain heights which, according to the
statement of the natives, are to be found in the interior of the
Chukch peninsula besides conduce to the heat and dryness of the
southerly and south-easterly winds. For they confer on the sea winds
that pass over their summits the properties of the _föhn_ winds. Our
coldest winds have come from S.W. to W., that is to say, from the
Old World's pole of cold, situated in the region of Werchojansk. On
the existence of two currents of air, which at a certain height
above the surface of the earth contend for the mastery, depends also
the surprising rapidity with which the vault of heaven in the region
of Behring's Straits becomes suddenly clouded over and again
completely clear. Already the famous Behring's Straits' navigator,
RODGERS, now Admiral in the American Navy, had noticed this
circumstance, and likened it very strikingly to the drawing up and
dropping of the curtain of a theatre.

In our notes on the weather a difference was always made between
_snöyra_ (fall of snow in wind) and _yrsnö_ (snow-storm without
snow-fall). The fall of snow was not very great, but as there was in
the course of the winter no thaw of such continuance that the snow
was at any time covered with a coherent melted crust, a considerable
portion of the snow that fell remained so loose that with the least
puff of wind it was whirled backwards and forwards. In a storm or
strong breeze the snow was carried to higher strata of the
atmosphere, which was speedily filled with so close and fine
snow-dust, that objects at the distance of a few metres could no
longer be distinguished. There was no possibility in such weather of
keeping the way open, and the man that lost his way was helplessly
lost, if he could not, like the Chukch snowed up in a drift, await
the ceasing of the storm. But even when the wind was slight and the
sky clear there ran a stream of snow some centimetres in height
along the ground in the direction of the wind, and thus principally
from N.W. to S.E. Even this shallow stream heaped snowdrifts
everywhere where there was any protection from the wind, and buried
more certainly, if less rapidly, than the drifting snow of the
storm, exposed objects and trampled footpaths. The quantity of
water, which in a frozen form is removed in this certainly not deep,
but uninterrupted and rapid current over the north coast of Siberia
to more southerly regions, must be equal to the mass of water in the
giant rivers of our globe, and play a sufficiently great _rôle_,
among others as a carrier of cold to the most northerly forest
regions, to receive the attention of meteorologists.

The humidity of the air was observed both by August's psychrometer
and Saussure's hygrometer. But I do not believe that these
instruments give trustworthy results at a temperature considerably
under the freezing-point. Moreover the degree of humidity at the
place where there can be a question of setting up a psychrometer and
hygrometer during a wintering in the high north, has not the
meteorological importance which has often been ascribed to it. For
the instruments are as a rule set up in an isolated louvre case,
standing at a height above the surface convenient for reading. While
the snow is drifting almost uninterruptedly it is impossible to keep
this case clear of snow. Even the air, which was originally quite
dry, must here be saturated with moisture through evaporation from
the surrounding layers of snow and from the snow dust which whirls
about next the surface of the earth. In order to determine the true
degree of humidity in the air, I would accordingly advise future
travellers to these regions to weigh directly the water which a
given measure of air contains by absorbing it in tubes with chloride
of calcium, calcined sulphate of copper, or sulphuric acid. It would
be easy to arrange an instrument for this purpose so that the whole
work could be done under deck, the air from any stratum under the
mast-top being examined at will. If I had had the means to make such
an examination at the _Vega's_ winter quarters, it would certainly
have appeared that the relative humidity of the air at a height of
some few metres above the surface of the earth was for the most part
exceedingly small.

The sandy neck of land which on the side next the vessel divided the
lagoons from the sea, was bestrewn with colossal bones of the whale,
and with the refuse of the Chukches, who had lived and wandered
about there for centuries, and besides with portions of the skeleton
of the seal and walrus, with the excreta of men, dogs, birds, &c.
The region was among the most disagreeable I have seen in any of the
parts inhabited by fishing Lapps, Samoyeds, Chukches, or Eskimo.
When the _Vega_ was beset there were two Chukch villages on the
neighbouring beach, of which the one that lay nearest our winter
haven was called Pitlekaj. It consisted at first of seven tents,
which in consequence of want of food their inhabitants removed
gradually in the course of the winter to a region near Behring's
Straits, where fish were more abundant. At the removal only the most
indispensable articles were taken along, because there was an
intention of returning at that season of the year when the chase
again became more productive. The other encampment, Yinretlen, lay
nearer the cape towards Kolyutschin Bay, and reckoned at the
beginning of our wintering likewise seven tents, whose inhabitants
appeared to be in better circumstances than those of Pitlekaj. They
had during the autumn made a better catch and collected a greater
stock. Only some of them accordingly removed during winter.

The following encampments lay at a somewhat greater distance from
our winter quarters, but so near, however, that we were often
visited by their inhabitants:

Pidlin, on the eastern shore of Kolyutschin Bay, four tents.

Kolyutschin, on the island of the same name, twenty-five tents. This
village was not visited by any of the members of the _Vega_
Expedition.

Rirajtinop, situated six kilometres east of Pitlekaj, three tents.

Irgunnuk, seven kilometres east of Pitlekaj, ten tents, of which,
however, in February only four remained. The inhabitants of the
others had for the winter sought a better fishing place farther
eastward.

The number of the persons who belonged to each tent was difficult to
make out, because the Chukches were constantly visiting each other
for the purpose of gossip and talk. On an average it may perhaps be
put at five or six persons. Including the inhabitants of Kolyutschin
Island, there thus lived about 300 natives in the neighbourhood of
our winter quarters.

When we were beset, the ice next the shore, as has been already
stated, was too weak to carry a foot passenger, and the difficulty
of reaching the vessel from the land with the means which the
Chukches had at their disposal was thus very great. When the natives
observed us, there was in any case immediately a great commotion
among them. Men, women, children, and dogs were seen running up and
down the beach in eager confusion; some were seen driving in
dog-sledges on the ice street next the sea. They evidently feared
that the splendid opportunity which here lay before them of
purchasing brandy and tobacco, would be lost. From the vessel we
could see with glasses how several attempts were made to put out
boats, but they were again given up, until at last a boat was got to
a lane, clear of ice or only covered with a thin sheet, that ran
from the shore to the neighbourhood of the vessel. In this a large
skin boat was put out, which was filled brimful of men and women,
regardless of the evident danger of navigating such a boat, heavily
laden, through sharp, newly formed ice. They rowed immediately to
the vessel, and on reaching it most of them climbed without the
least hesitation over the gunwale with jests and laughter, and the
cry _anoaj anoaj_ (good day, good day). Our first meeting with the
inhabitants of this region, where we afterwards passed ten long
months, was on both sides very hearty, and formed the starting-point
of a very friendly relation between the Chukches and ourselves,
which remained unaltered during the whole of our stay.

[Illustration: KALTIJKAI, A CHUKCH GIRL FROM IRGUNNUK. Front face
and Profile. (After photographs by L. Palander.) ]

Regard for cleanliness compelled us to allow the Chukches to come
below deck only exceptionally, which at first annoyed them much, so
that one of them even showed a disposition to retaliate by keeping
us out of the bedchamber in his tent. Our firmness on this point,
however, combined with friendliness and generosity, soon calmed
them, and it was not so easy for the men to exclude us from the
inner tent, for in such visits we always had confections and tobacco
with us, both for themselves and for the women and children. On
board the vessel's tent-covered deck soon became a veritable
reception saloon for the whole population of the neighbourhood.
Dog-team after dog-team stood all day in rows, or more correctly lay
snowed up before the ice-built flight of steps to the deck of the
_Vega_, patiently waiting for the return of the visitors, or for the
pemmican I now and then from pity ordered to be given to the
hungered animals. The report of the arrival of the remarkable
foreigners must besides have spread with great rapidity. For we soon
had visits even from distant settlements, and the _Vega_ finally
became a resting-place at which every passer-by stopped with his
dog-team for some hours in order to satisfy his curiosity, or to
obtain in exchange for good words or some more acceptable wares a
little warm food, a bit of tobacco, and sometimes when the weather
was very stormy, a little drop of spirits, by the Chukches called
_ram_, a word whose origin is not to be sought for in the
Swedish-Norwegian _dram_, but in the English word _rum_.

All who came on board were allowed to go about without let or
hindrance on our deck, which was encumbered with a great many
things. We had not however to lament the loss of the merest trifle.
Honesty was as much at home here as in the huts of the reindeer
Lapps. On the other hand, they soon became very troublesome by their
beggary, which was kept in bounds by no feeling of self-respect. Nor
did they fail to take all possible advantage of what they doubtless
considered the great inexperience of the Europeans. Small deceptions
in this way were evidently not looked upon as blameworthy, but as
meritorious. Sometimes, for instance, they sold us the same thing
twice over, they were always liberal in promises which they never
intended to keep, and often gave deceptive accounts of articles
which were exposed for sale. Thus the carcases of foxes were
offered, after having been flayed and the head and feet cut off, on
several occasions as hares, and it was laughable to see their
astonishment at our immediately discovering the fraud. The Chukches'
complete want of acquaintance with money and our small supply of
articles for barter for which they had a liking besides compelled
even me to hold at least a portion of our wares at a high price.
Skins and blubber, the common products of the Polar lands, to the
great surprise of the natives, were not purchased on the _Vega_. On
the other hand a complete collection of weapons, dresses, and
household articles was procured by barter. All such purchases were
made exclusively on account of the Expedition, and in general the
collection of natural and ethnographical objects for private account
was wholly forbidden, a regulation which ought to be in force in
every scientific expedition to remote regions.

As the Chukches began to acquire a taste for our food, they never
neglected, especially during the time when their hunting failed, to
bring daily on board driftwood and the vertebræ and other bones of
the whale. They bartered these for bread. A load of five bits of
wood, from four to five inches in diameter and six feet long, was
commonly paid for with two or three ship biscuits, that is to say
with about 250 gram bread, the vertebra of a whale with two ship
biscuits, &c. By degrees two young natives got into the habit of
coming on board daily for the purpose of performing, quite at their
leisure, the office of servant. The cook was their patron, and they
obtained from him in compensation for their services the larger
share of the left victuals. So considerable a quantity of food was
distributed partly as payment for services rendered or for goods
purchased, partly as gifts, that we contributed in a very great
degree to mitigate the famine which during midwinter threatened to
break out among the population.

None of the natives in the neighbourhood of the _Vega's_ winter station
professed the Christian religion. None of them spoke any European
language, though one or two knew a couple of English words and a Russian
word of salutation. This was a very unfortunate circumstance, which
caused us much trouble. But it was soon remedied by Lieut. Nordquist
specially devoting himself to the study of their language, and that with
such zeal and success that in a fortnight he could make himself pretty
well understood. The natives stated to DE LONG in the autumn of 1879
that a person on the "man of war" which wintered on the north coast,
spoke Chukch exceedingly well. The difficulty of studying the language
was increased, to a not inconsiderable degree, by the Chukches in their
wish to co-operate with us in finding a common speech being so courteous
as not to correct, but to adopt the mistakes, in the pronunciation or
meaning of words that were made on the _Vega_. As a fruit of his studies
Lieut. Nordquist has drawn up an extensive vocabulary of this little
known language, and given a sketch of its grammatical structure.[255]
The knowledge of the Chukch language, which the other members of the
Expedition acquired, was confined to a larger or smaller number of
words; the natives also learned a word or two of our language, so that a
_lingua franca_ somewhat intelligible to both parties gradually arose,
in which several of the crew soon became very much at home, and with
which in case of necessity one could get along very well, although in
this newly formed dialect all grammatical inflections were totally
wanting. Besides, I set one of the crew, the walrus-hunter Johnsen, free
for a consideral time from all work on board, in order that he might
wander about the country daily, partly for hunting, partly for
conversing with the natives. He succeeded in the beginning of winter in
killing some ptarmigan and hares, got for me a great deal of important
information regarding the mode of life of the Chukches, and procured
several valuable ethnographical objects. But after a time, for what
reason I could never make out, he took an invincible dislike to visit
the Chukch tents more, without however having come to any disagreement
with their inhabitants.

[Illustration: CHUKCHES ANGLING. ]

[Illustration: ICE-SEIVE. One-eighth of the natural size. ]


On the 5th October the openings between the drift-ice fields next
the vessel were covered with splendid skating ice, of which we
availed ourselves by celebrating a gay and joyous skating festival.
The Chukch women and children were now seen fishing for winter roach
along the shore. In this sort of fishing a man, who always
accompanies the fishing women, with an iron-shod lance cuts a hole
in the ice so near the shore that the distance between the under
corner of the hole and the bottom is only half a metre. Each hole is
used only by one woman, and that only for a short time. Stooping
down at the hole, in which the surface of the water is kept quite
clear of pieces of ice by means of an ice-sieve, she endeavours to
attract the fish by means of a peculiar wonderfully clattering cry.
First when a fish is seen in seen in the water an angling line,
provided with a hook of bone, iron or copper, is thrown down, strips
of the entrails of fish being employed as bait. A small metre-long
staff with a single or double crook in the end was also used as a
fishing implement. With this little leister the men cast up fish on
the ice with incredible dexterity. When the ice became thicker, this
fishing was entirely given up, while during the whole winter a
species of cod and another of grayling were taken in great quantity
in a lagoon situated nearer Behring's Straits. The coregonus is also
caught in the inland lakes, although, at least at this season of the
year, only in limited quantity.

[Illustration: SMELT FROM THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. _Osmerus eperlanus_,
Lin. one-third the natural size. ]

On the morning of the 6th October, we saw from the vessel an
extraordinary procession moving forward on the ice. A number of
Chukches drew a dog-sledge on which lay a man. At first we supposed
it was a man who was very ill, and who came to seek the help of the
physician, but when the procession reached the vessel's side, the
supposed invalid climbed very nimbly up the ice-covered rope-ladder
(our ice-stair was not yet in order), stepped immediately with a
confident air, giving evidence of high rank, upon the half-deck,
crossed himself, saluted graciously, and gave us to know in broken
Russian that he was a man of importance in that part of the country.
It now appeared that we were honoured with a visit from the
representative of the Russian empire, WASSILI MENKA, the starost
among the reindeer-Chukches. He was a little dark man, with a pretty
worn appearance, clad in a white variegated "pesk" of reindeer skin,
under which a blue flannel shirt was visible. In order immediately
on his arrival to inspire us with respect, and perhaps also in order
not to expose his precious life to the false Ran's treachery, he
came to the vessel over the yet not quite trustworthy ice, riding in
a sledge that was drawn not by dogs but by his men. On his arrival
he immediately showed us credentials of his rank, and various
evidences of the payment of tribute (or market tolls), consisting of
some few red and some white fox-skins, reckoning the former at 1
rouble 80 copecks, the latter at 40 copecks each.

[Illustration: WASSILI MENKA. Starost among the Reindeer Chukches.
(After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

He was immediately invited down to the gunroom, entertained after
the best of our ability, and bothered with a number of questions
which he evidently understood with difficulty, and answered in very
unintelligible Russian. He was in any case the first with whom some
of us could communicate, at least in a way. He could neither read
nor write. On the other hand, he could quickly comprehend a map
which was shown him, and point out with great accuracy a number of
the more remarkable places in north-eastern Siberia. Of the
existence of the Russian emperor the first official of the region
had no idea; on the other hand, he knew that a very powerful person
had his home at Irkutsk. On us he conferred the rank of "Ispravnik"
in the neighbouring towns. At first he crossed himself with much
zeal before some photographs and copper-plate engravings in the
gunroom, but he soon ceased when he observed that we did not do
likewise. Menka was accompanied by two badly-clad natives with very
oblique eyes, whom we took at first for his servants or slaves.
Afterwards we found that they were owners of reindeer, who
considered themselves quite as good as Menka himself, and further on
we even heard one of them speak of Menka's claim to be a chief with
a compassionate smile. Now, however, they were exceedingly
respectful, and it was by them that Menka's gift of welcome, two
reindeer roasts, was carried forward with a certain stateliness. As
a return present we gave him a woollen shirt and some parcels of
tobacco. Menka said that he should travel in a few days to Markova,
a place inhabited by Russians on the river Anadyr, in the
neighbourhood of the old Anadyrsk. Although I had not yet given up
hope of getting free before winter, I wished to endeavour to utilize
this opportunity of sending home accounts of the _Vega's_ position,
the state of matters on board, &c. An open letter was therefore
written in Russian, and addressed to his Excellency the
Governor-General at Irkutsk, with the request that he would
communicate its contents to his Majesty, King Oscar. This was
placed, along with several private sealed letters between a couple
of pieces of board, and handed over to Menka with a request to give
them to the Russian authorities at Markova. At first it appeared as
if Menka understood the letter as some sort of farther credentials
for himself. For when he landed he assembled, in the presence of
some of us, a circle of Chukches round himself, placed himself with
dignity in their midst, opened out the paper, but so that he had it
upside down, and read from it long sentences in Chukch to an
attentive audience, astonished at his learning. Next forenoon we had
another visit of the great and learned chief. New presents were
exchanged, and he was entertained after our best ability. Finally he
danced to the chamber-organ, both alone and together with some of
his hosts, to the great entertainment of the Europeans and Asiatics
present.

As the state of the ice was still unaltered, I did not neglect the
opportunity that now offered of making acquaintance with the
interior of the country. With pleasure, accordingly, I gave
Lieutenants Nordquist and Hovgaard permission to pay a visit to
Menka's encampment. They started on the morning of the 8th October.
Lieut. Nordquist has given me the following account of their
excursion:--

    "On Tuesday, the 8th October, at 10 o'clock A.M. Lieut
    Hovgaard and I travelled from Pitlekaj in dog-sledges into
    the interior in a S.S.E. direction. Hovgaard and I had
    each a Chukch as driver. Menka had with him a servant, who
    almost all the time ran before as guide. My comrade's
    sledge, which was heaviest, was drawn by ten dogs, mine by
    eight, and Menka's, which was the smallest and in which he
    sat alone, by five. In general the Chukches appear to
    reckon four or five dogs sufficient for a sledge with one
    person.

    "The _tundra_, with marshes and streams scattered over it,
    was during the first part of our way only gently
    undulating, but the farther we went into the interior of
    the country the more uneven it became, and when, at 8
    o'clock next morning, we reached the goal of our
    journey--Menka's brother's camp--we found ourselves in a
    valley, surrounded by hills, some of which rose about 300
    metres above their bases. A portion of the vegetable
    covering the _tundra_ could still be distinguished through
    the thin layer of snow. The most common plants on the
    drier places were _Aira alpina_ and _Poa alpina_; on the
    more low-lying places there grew Glyceria, Pedicularis,
    and _Ledum palustre_; everywhere we found _Petasites
    frigida_ and a species of Salix. The latter grew
    especially on the slopes in great masses, which covered
    spots having an area of twenty to thirty square metres. At
    some places this bush rose to a height of about a metre
    above the ground. The prevailing rock appeared to be
    granite. The bottoms of the valleys were formed of
    post-Tertiary formations, which most frequently consisted
    of sand and rolled stones, as, for instance, was the case
    in the great valley in which ilenka's brother's camp was
    pitched.

[Illustration: CHUKCH DOG-SLEDGE. ]

    "When, on the morning of the 9th, we came to the camp
    there met us some of the principal Chukches. They saluted
    Menka in the Russian way, by kissing him first on both
    cheeks and then on the mouth. The Chukches however, appear
    to be very averse to this ceremony, and scarcely ever
    touched each other with the mouth. Us they saluted in the
    common way, by stretching out the hand and bowing
    themselves. We then went into Menka's brother's tent, in
    front of which the whole inhabitants of the encampment
    were speedily assembled to look at us. The camp consisted
    of eighteen tents, pitched on both sides of a river which
    ran through the valley. The tents were inhabited by
    reindeer-Chukches, who carry on traffic between the
    Russians and a tribe living on the other side of Behring's
    Straits, whom they call _Yekargaules_. Between the tents
    we saw a great number of sledges, both empty and loaded.
    Some of these were light and low sledges for driving in,
    with runners bent upwards and backwards, others were
    heavier pack-sledges, made of stronger wood, with the
    runners not bent back. Some of the light sledges were
    provided with tilts of splints covered with reindeer
    skins; others were completely covered, having an entrance
    only in front.

    "The knives, axes, boring tools, &c., which I saw were of
    iron and steel, and had evidently been obtained from
    Americans or Russians. The household articles in Menka's
    brother's tent consisted of some copper coffee-pots, which
    were used for boiling water, a german-silver beaker with
    an English inscription, two teacups with saucers, flat
    wooden trays, and barrels. The dress of the
    reindeer-Chukches is similar to that of the
    coast-Chukches, only with this difference, that the former
    use reindeer-skins exclusively, while the latter employ
    seal-skin in addition. Some, on our arrival, put on
    blouses of variegated cloth, probably of Russian
    manufacture. Among ornaments may be mentioned glass-beads,
    strung on sinews, which were worn in the ears or on the
    neck, chiefly by the women. These were tattooed in the
    same way as those of the coast-Chukches. I saw here,
    however, an old woman, who, besides the common tattooing
    of the face, was tattooed on the shoulders, and another,
    who, on the outside of the hands, had two parallel lines
    running along the hand and an oblique line connecting
    them. The men were not tattooed. Two of them carried
    crosses, with Slavonic inscriptions, at the neck, others
    carried in the same way forked pieces of wood. Whether
    these latter are to be considered as their gods or as
    amulets I know not.

    "As we could not obtain here the reindeer that we wished
    to purchase on account of the expedition, we betook
    ourselves with our dogs on the afternoon of the same day
    along with Menka to his son-in-law's encampment, which we
    reached at 8 o'clock in the evening. We were received in a
    very friendly way, and remained here over night. All the
    inhabitants of the tent sleep together in the bedchamber
    of it, which is not more than 2 to 2.4 metres long, 1.8 to
    2 metres broad, and 1.2 to 1.5 metres high. Before they
    lie down they take supper. Men and women wear during the
    night only a _cingulum pudicitiæ_, about fifteen
    centimetres broad, and are otherwise completely naked. In
    the morning the housewife rose first and boiled a little
    flesh, which was then served in the bedchamber, before its
    inmates had put on their clothes. She cut the meat in
    slices in a tray, and distributed them afterwards. In the
    morning we saw the Chukches catch and slaughter their
    reindeer. Two men go into the herd, and when they have got
    sight of a reindeer which they wish to have, they cast, at
    a distance of nine or ten metres, a running noose over the
    animal's horns. It now throws itself backwards and
    forwards in its attempts to escape, and drags after it for
    some moments the man who holds the noose. The other man in
    the meantime endeavours to approach the reindeer, catches
    the animal by the horns and throws it to the ground,
    killing it afterwards by a knife-stab behind the shoulder.
    The reindeer is then handed over to the women, who, by an
    incision in the side of the belly, take out the entrails.
    The stomach is emptied of its contents, and is then used
    to hold the blood. Finally th skin is taken off.

    "About 10 o'clock A.M. we commenced our homeward journey.
    At nightfall we sought to have a roof over our head in a
    wretched Chukch tent on the shore of Lake Utschunutsch. It
    was partly sunk in one of the small mounds which are found
    here along the shore, and which are probably the remains
    of old Onkilon dwellings. The present inhabitants, two old
    men and an old woman, had their habitation arranged in the
    following way:--In the bottom of a cylindrical pit, one
    metre deep and three and a half to four and a half metres
    in diameter, a vertical pole was erected, against the
    upper end of which rested a number of obliquely placed
    bars, rising from the edge of the pit, which were covered
    with skins. The enclosure or bedchamber, peculiar to the
    Chukch tent, was not wanting here. Otherwise the whole
    dwelling bore the stamp of poverty and dirt. The food of
    the inmates appeared to be fish. Of this, besides the fish
    we obtained here, the nets hanging in front of the tent
    afforded evidence. Some clothes, an iron pot, two wooden
    vessels, and a Shaman drum were the only things I could
    discover in the tent.

    "Next morning we continued our journey. On the other side
    of Lake Utschunutsch we saw two dwellings, which only
    consisted of boats turned upside down with some hides
    drawn over them. The rest of the way we came past Najtskaj
    and through Irgunnuk, where we were received in an
    exceedingly friendly fashion. By 7 o'clock in the evening
    of the 11th October we were again on board the _Vega_."

From Lieutenant Hovgaard's report, which principally relates to the
topography of the region passed through, we make the following
extract relating to the endurance which the Chukches and their dogs
showed:--

    "During our outward journey, which lasted twenty-one and a
    half hours, Menka's attendant, the before-mentioned
    reindeer owner, whom we at first took to be Menka's slave
    or servant, ran without interruption before the sledges,
    and even when we rested he was actively searching for the
    track, looking after the dogs, &c. When we came to the
    camp he did not sleep, and, notwithstanding, was as fresh
    during the following day's journey. During the time he got
    no spirituous liquor, by express order of Menka, who said
    that if he did he would not be able to continue to run.
    Instead he chewed a surprising quantity of tobacco. The
    dogs, during the whole time, were not an instant unyoked;
    in the mornings they lay half snowed up, and slept in
    front of the sledges. We never saw the Chukches give them
    any food: the only food they got was the frozen excrements
    of the fox and other animals, which they themselves
    snapped up in passing. Yet even on the last day no
    diminution in their power of draught was observable."

Nordquist brought with him, among other things, two reindeer, bought
for a rouble and a half each. They were still very serviceable,
though badly slaughtered. But the reindeer we purchased farther on
in the winter were so poor that no one on board could persuade
himself to eat them.

On the 18th October, by which time we believed that Menka would be
already at Markova, we were again visited by him and his son-in-law.
He said he had no _akmimil_ (fire-water) to keep holiday with, and
now came to us to exchange three slaughtered reindeer for it. Our
miscalculation with respect to the letters, which we hoped were long
ago on their way to their destination, and my dislike to the mode of
payment in question--I offered him, without success, half-imperials
and metal rouble pieces instead of brandy--made his reception on
this occasion less hearty, and he therefore left us soon. It was not
until the 9th. February, 1879, that we again got news from Menka by
one of the Chukches, who had attended him the time before. The
Chukch said that in ten days he had traversed the way between the
_Vega's_ winter haven and Markova, which would run to about ninety
kilometres a day. According to his statement Menka had travelled
with the letters to Yakutsk. The statement seemed very suspicious,
and appeared afterwards to have been partly fabricated, or perhaps
to have been misunderstood by us. But after our return to the world
of newspapers we found that Menka had actually executed his
commission. He, however, did not reach Anadyrsk until the 7th
March/23rd February. Thence the packet was sent to Irkutsk, arriving
there on the 10th May/28th April. The news reached Sweden by
telegraph six days after, on the 16th May, just at a time when
concern for the fate of the _Vega_, was beginning to be very great,
and the question of relief expeditions was seriously entertained.[256]

In order to relieve the apprehensions of our friends at home, it
was, however, exceedingly important to give them some accounts of
the position of the _Vega_ during winter, and I therefore offered
all the purchasing power which the treasures of guns, powder, ball,
food, fine shirts, and even spirits, collected on board, could
exert, in order to induce some natives to convey Lieutenants
Nordquist and Bove to Markova or Nischni Kolymsk. The negotiations
seemed at first to go on very well, an advance was demanded and
given, but when the journey should have commenced the Chukches
always refused to start on some pretext or other--now it was too
cold, now too dark, now there was no food for the dogs. The
negotiations had thus no other result than to make us acquainted
with one of the few less agreeable sides of the Chukches'
disposition, namely the complete untrustworthiness of these
otherwise excellent savages, and their peculiar idea of the binding
force of an agreement.

The plans of travel just mentioned, however, led to Lieutenant
Nordquist making an excursion with dog-sledges in order to be even
with one of the natives, who had received an advance for driving him
to Markova, but had not kept his promise. Of this journey Lieutenant
Nordquist gives the following account:--

    "On the 5th December, at 7.50 A.M., I started with a
    dog-sledge for the village Pidlin, lying on Kolyutschin
    Bay. I was driven by the Chukch Auango from Irgunnuk. He
    had a small, light sledge, provided with runners of
    whalebone, drawn by six dogs, of which the leader was
    harnessed before the other five, which were fastened
    abreast in front of the sledge, each with its draught
    belt. The dogs were weak and ill managed, and therefore
    went so slowly that I cannot estimate their speed at more
    than two or three English miles an hour. As the journey
    both thither and back lasted eight to nine hours, the
    distance between Pitlekaj and Pidlin may be about
    twenty-five English miles.

    "Pidlin and Kolyutschin Island are the only inhabited
    places on Kolyutschin Bay. At the former place there are
    four tents, pitched on the eastern shore of the bay, the
    number of the inhabitants being a little over twenty
    persons. I was received in front of the tents by the
    population of the village and carried to the tent, which
    was inhabited by Chepcho, who now promised to go with me
    in February to Anadyrsk. My host had a wife and three
    children. At night the children were completely undressed;
    the adults had short trousers on, the man of tanned skin,
    the woman of cloth. In the oppressive heat, which was kept
    up by two train-oil lamps burning the whole night, it was
    difficult to sleep even in the heavy reindeer-skin
    dresses. Yet they covered themselves with reindeer skins.
    Besides the heat there was a fearful stench--the Chukches
    obeyed the calls of nature within the bedchamber--which I
    could not stand without going out twice to get fresh air.
    When we got up next morning our hostess served breakfast
    in a flat tray, containing first seals' flesh and fat,
    with a sort of sourkrout of fermented willow-leaves, then
    seals' liver, and finally seals' blood--all frozen.

    "Among objects of ethnographical interest I saw, besides
    the Shaman drum which was found in every tent, and was not
    regarded with the superstitious dread which I have often
    observed elsewhere, a bundle of amulets fastened with a
    small thong, a wolf's skull, which was also hung up by a
    thong, the skin together with the whole cartilaginous
    portion of a wolf's nose and a flat stone. The amulets
    consisted of wooden forks, four to five centimetres long,
    of the sort which we often see the Chukches wear on the
    breast. My host said that such an amulet worn round the
    neck was a powerful means of preventing disease. The
    wolf's skull which I had already got, he took back,
    because his four- or five-year-old son would need it in
    making choice of a wife. What part it played in this I did
    not however ascertain.

    "While my driver harnessed the dogs for the journey home,
    I had an opportunity of seeing some little girls dance,
    which they did in the same way as that in which I had seen
    girls dance at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen. Two girls then
    place themselves either right opposite to or alongside of
    each other. In the former case they often lay their hands
    on each other's shoulders, bend by turns to either side,
    sometimes leap with the feet held together and wheel
    round, while they sing or rather grunt the measure.

    "The journey home was commenced at eight o'clock in the
    morning. In the course of it my driver sang Chukch songs.
    These are often only imitations of the cries of animals or
    improvisations without any distinct metre or rhythm, and
    very little variation in the notes; only twice I thought I
    could distinguish a distinct melody. In the afternoon my
    driver told me the Chukch names of several stars. At five
    o'clock in the afternoon I reached the _Vega_."

On the 10th October, the new ice at many places in the neighbourhood
of the vessel was still so weak that it was impossible to walk upon
it, and blue water-skies at the horizon indicated, that there were
still considerable stretches of open water in the neighbourhood. But
the drift-ice round about us lay so rock-fast, that I could already
take solar altitudes from the deck of the vessel with a mercurial
horizon. In order to ascertain the actual state of the case with
reference to the open water, excursions were undertaken on the 13th
October, in different directions. Dr. Kjellman could then, from the
rocky promontory at Yinretlen, forty-two metres high, see large open
spaces in the sea to the northward. Dr. Almquist went right out over
the ice, following the track of Chukches, who had gone to catch
seals. He travelled about twenty kilometres over closely packed
drift-ice fields, without reaching open water, and found the newly
frozen ice, with which the pieces of drift-ice were bound together,
still everywhere unbroken. The Chukches, who visited the vessel in
dog-sledges on the 28th October, informed us, however, that the sea
a little to the east of us was still completely open.

On the 15th October the hunter Johnsen returned from a hunting
expedition quite terrified. He informed us that during his
wanderings on the _tundra_, he had found a murdered man and brought
with him, with the idea that, away here in the land of the Chukches,
similar steps ought to be taken as in those lands which are blessed
by a well-ordered judiciary, as _species facti_, some implements
lying beside the dead man, among which was a very beautiful lance,
on whose blade traces of having been inlaid in gold could still be
discovered. Fortunately he had come with these things through the
Chukch camp unobserved. From the description which was given me,
however, I was able immediately to come to the conclusion that the
question here was not of any murder, but of a dead man laid out on
the _tundra_. I requested Dr. Almquist to visit the place, in order
that he might make a more detailed examination. He confirmed my
conjecture. As wolves, foxes, and ravens had already torn the corpse
to pieces, the doctor considered that he, too, might take his share,
and therefore brought home with him from his excursion, an object
carefully wrapped up and concealed among the hunting equipment,
namely, the Chukch's head. It was immediately sunk to the
sea-bottom, where it remained for a couple of weeks to be
skeletonised by the crustacea swarming there, and it now has its
number in the collections brought home by the _Vega_. This sacrilege
was never detected by the Chukches, and probably the wolves got the
blame of it, as nearly every spring it was seen that the corpse,
which had been laid out during autumn, lost its head during winter.
It was, perhaps, more difficult to explain the disappearance of the
lance, but of this, too, the maws of the wolves might well bear the
blame.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE-CARVINGS. (The two largest figures represent
bears.) ]

Our hunters now made hunting excursions in different directions, but
the supply of game was scanty. The openings in the ice probably
swarmed with seals, but they were too distant, and without a boat it
was impossible to carry on any hunting there. Not a single Polar
bear now appeared to be visible in the neighbourhood, although
bears' skulls are found at several places on the beach, and this
animal appears to play a great part in the imagination of the
natives, to judge of the many figures of bears among the bone
carvings I purchased from the Chukches. The natives often have a
small strip of bear's skin on the seat of their sledges, but I have
not seen any whole bear's skin here; perhaps the animal is being
exterminated on the north coast of Siberia. Our wintering,
therefore, will not enrich Arctic literature with any new bear
stories--a very sensible difficulty for the writer himself. Wolves,
on the other hand, occur on the _tundra_ in sufficient abundance,
even if one or other of the wolves found in mist and drifting snow,
and saluted with shot, turned out, on a critical determination of
species, to be our own dogs. At least, this was the case with the
"wolf," that inveigled one of the crew into shooting a ball one dark
night right through the thermometer case, fortunately without
injuring the instruments, and with no other result than that he had
afterwards to bear an endless number of jokes from his comrades on
account of his wolf-hunt. Foxes, white, red and black, also occurred
here in great numbers, but they were at that season difficult to get
at, and besides they had perhaps withdrawn from the coast. Hares, on
the other hand, maintained themselves during the whole winter at
Yinretlen, by day partly out on the ice partly on the cape, by night
in the neighbourhood of the tents. Sweepings and offal from the
proceeds of the chase had there produced a vegetation, which, though
concealed by snow, yielded to the hares in winter a more abundant
supply of food than the barren _tundra_. It was remarkable that the
hares were allowed to live between the tents and in their
neighbourhood without being disturbed by the score of lean and
hungry dogs belonging to the village. When farther into the winter
for the sake of facilitating the hare-hunting I had a hut erected
for Johnsen the hunter, he chose as the place for it the immediate
neighbourhood of the village, declaring that the richest
hunting-ground in the whole neighbourhood was just there. The
shooters stated that part of the hares became snow-blind in spring.
The hares here are larger than with us, and have exceedingly
delicious flesh.

[Illustration: HARES FROM CHUKCH LAND. ]

On our arrival most of the birds had already left these regions, so
inhospitable in winter, or were seen high up in the air in collected
flocks, flying towards the south entrance of Behring's Straits.
Still on the 19th October an endless procession of birds was seen
drawing towards this region, but by the 3rd November it was noted,
as something uncommon, that a gull settled on the refuse heaps in
the neighbourhood of the vessel. It resembled the ivory gull, but
had a black head. Perhaps it was the rare _Larus Sabinii_, of which
a drawing has been given above.[257] All the birds which passed us
came from the north-west, that is, from the north coast of Siberia,
the New Siberian Islands or Wrangel Land. Only the mountain owl, a
species of raven and the ptarmigan wintered in the region, the last
named being occasionally snowed up.

The ptarmigan here is not indeed so plump and good as the
Spitzbergen ptarmigan during winter, but in any case provided us
with an always welcome, if scanty change from the tiresome preserved
meat. When some ptarmigan were shot, they were therefore willingly
saved up by the cook, along with the hares, for festivals. For in
order to break the monotony on board an opportunity was seldom
neglected that offered itself for holding festivities. Away there on
the coast of the Chukch peninsula there were thus celebrated with
great conscientiousness during the winter of 1878-9, not only our
own birthdays but also those of King Oscar, King Christian and King
Humbert, and of the Emperor Alexander. Every day a newspaper was
distributed, for the day indeed, but for a past year. In addition we
numbered among our diversions constant intercourse with the natives,
and frequent visits to the neighbouring villages, driving in
dog-sledges, a sport which would have been very enjoyable if the
dogs of the natives had not been so exceedingly poor and bad, and
finally industrious reading and zealous studies, for which I had
provided the expedition with an extensive library, intended both for
the scientific men and officers, and for the crew, numbering with
the private stock of books nearly a thousand volumes.

All this time of course the purely scientific work was not
neglected. In the first rank among these stood the meteorological
and magnetical observations, which from the 1st November were made
on land every hour. However fast the ice lay around the vessel it
was impossible to get on it a sufficiently stable base for the
magnetical variation instrument. The magnetical observatory was
therefore erected on land of the finest building material any
architect has had at his disposal, namely, large parallelopipeds of
beautiful blue-coloured ice-blocks. The building was therefore
called by the Chukches _Tintinyaranga_ (the ice-house), a name which
was soon adopted by the _Vega_ men too. As mortar the builder,
Palander, used snow mixed with water, and the whole was covered with
a roof of boards. But as after a time it appeared that the storm
made its way through the joints and that these were gradually
growing larger in consequence of the evaporation of the ice so that
the drifting snow could find an entrance, the whole house had a sail
drawn over it. As supports of the three variation instruments large
blocks of wood were used, whose lower ends were sunk in pits, which,
with great trouble, were excavated in the frozen ground, and then,
when the block supports were placed, were filled with sand mixed
with water.

The ice-house was a spacious observatory, well-fitted for its
purpose in every respect. It had but one defect, the temperature was
always at an uncomfortably low point. As no iron could be used in
the building, and we had no copper-stove with us, we could not have
any fireplace there. We endeavoured, indeed, to use a copper
fireplace, that had been intended for sledge journeys, for heating,
but only with the result that the observatory was like to have gone
to pieces. We succeeded little better when we discovered farther on
in the winter, while trimming the hold, a forgotten cask of bear's
oil. We considered this _find_ a clear indication that instead of a
stove fired with wood we should, according to the custom of the
Polar races, use oil-lamps to mitigate the severe cold which
deprived our stay in Tintinyaranga of part of its pleasure. But this
mode of firing proved altogether impracticable. The fumes of the oil
smelled worse than those of the charcoal, and the result of this
experiment was none other than that the splendid crystals of ice,
with which the roof and walls of the ice-house were gradually
clothed, were covered with black soot. Firing with oil was
abandoned, and the oil presented to our friends at Yinretlen, who
just then were complaining loudly that they had no other fuel than
wood.

Besides the nine scientific men and officers of the _Vega_, the
engineer Nordström and the seaman Lundgren took part in the
magnetical and meteorological observations. Every one had his watch
of six hours, five of which were commonly passed in the ice-house.
To walk from the vessel to the observatory, distant a kilometre and
a half, with the temperature under the freezing point of mercury,
or, what was much worse, during storm, with the temperature at -36°,
remain in the observatory for five hours in a temperature of
-17°, and then return to the vessel, commonly against the
wind--for it came nearly always from the north or north-west--was
dismal enough. None of us, however, suffered any harm from it. On
the contrary, it struck me as if this compulsory interruption to our
monotonous life on board and the long-continued stay in the open air
had a refreshing influence both on body and soul.

[Illustration: THE OBSERVATORY AT PITLEKAJ. (After a drawing by
O. Nordquist.) ]

In the neighbourhood of the ice-house the thermometer case was
erected, and farther on in the winter there were built in the
surrounding snowdrifts, two other observatories, not however of ice,
but of snow, in the Greenland snow-building style. Our depôt of
provisions was also placed in the neighbourhood, and at a sufficient
distance from the magnetical observatory there was a large wooden
chest, in which the Remington guns, which were carried for safety in
excursions from the vessel, and other iron articles which the
observer had with him, were placed before he entered the
observatory.

The building of Tintinyaranga was followed by the Chukches with
great interest. When they saw that we did not intend to live there,
but that rare, glancing metal instruments were set up in it, and
that a wonderfully abundant flood of light in comparison with their
tent illumination was constantly maintained inside with a kind of
light quite unknown to them (stearine candles and photogen lamps) a
curious uneasiness began to prevail among them, which we could not
quiet with the language of signs mixed with a Chukch word or two, to
which our communications with the natives were at that time
confined. Even farther on in the year, when an efficient though
word-poor international language had gradually been formed between
us, they made inquiries on this point, yet with considerable
indifference. All sensible people among them had evidently already
come to the conclusion that it was profitless trouble to seek a
reasonable explanation of all the follies which the strange
foreigners, richly provided with many earthly gifts but by no means
with practical sense, perpetrated. In any case it was with a certain
amazement and awe that they, when they exceptionally obtained
permission, entered one by one through the doors in order to see the
lamps burn and to peep into the tubes. Many times even a dog-team
that had come a long way stopped for a few moments at the ice-house
to satisfy the owner's curiosity, and on two occasions in very bad
drifting weather we were compelled to give shelter to a wanderer who
had gone astray.

When this ice-house was ready and hourly observations began in it,
life on board took the stamp which it afterwards retained in the
course of the winter. In order to give the reader an idea of our
every-day life, I shall reproduce here the spirited sketch of a day
on the _Vega_, which Dr. Kjellman gave in one of his home letters:--

    "It is about half-past eight in the morning. He whose
    watch has expired has returned after five hours' stay in
    the ice-house, where the temperature during the night has
    been about -16°. His account of the weather is good
    enough. There are only thirty-two degrees of cold, it is
    half-clear, and, to be out of the ordinary, there is no
    wind. Breakfast is over. Cigars, cigarettes, and pipes are
    lighted, and the gunroom _personnel_ go up on deck for a
    little exercise and fresh air, for below it is confined
    and close. The eye rests on the desolate, still
    faintly-lighted landscape, which is exactly the same as it
    was yesterday; a white plain in all directions, across
    which a low, likewise white, chain of hillocks or
    _torosses_ here and there raises itself, and over which
    some ravens, with feeble wing-strokes, fly forward,
    searching for something to support life with. 'Metschinko
    Orpist,' 'metschinko Okerpist,' 'metschinko Kellman,' &c.,
    now sounds everywhere on the vessel and from the ice in
    its neighbourhood. 'Orpist' represents Nordquist,
    'Okerpist' again Stuxberg. It is the Chukches' morning
    salutation to us. To-day the comparatively fine weather
    has drawn out a larger crowd than usual, thirty to forty
    human beings, from tender sucking babes to grey old folks,
    men as well as women; the latter in the word of salutation
    replacing the _tsch_-sound with an exceedingly soft
    caressing _ts_-sound. That most of them have come driving
    is shown by the equipages standing in the neighbourhood of
    the vessel. They consist of small, low, narrow, light
    sledges, drawn by four to ten or twelve dogs. The sledges
    are made of small pieces of wood and bits of
    reindeer-horn, held together by sealskin straps. As
    runner-shoes thin plates of the ribs of the whale are
    used. The dogs, sharp-nosed, long-backed, and excessively
    dirty, have laid themselves to rest, curled together in
    the snow.

    "The salutation is followed almost immediately to-day as
    on preceding days by some other words: 'Ouinga mouri
    kauka,' which may be translated thus: 'I am so hungry; I
    have no food; give me a little bread!' They suffer hunger
    now, the poor beings. Seal flesh, their main food, they
    cannot with the best will procure for the time. The only
    food they can get consists of fish (two kinds of cod), but
    this is quite too poor diet for them, they have fallen off
    since we first met with them.

    "Soon we are all surrounded by our Chukch acquaintances.
    The daily market begins. They have various things to
    offer, which they know to be of value to us, as weapons,
    furs, ornaments, playthings, fish, bones of the whale,
    algæ, vegetables, &c. For all this only 'kauka' is now
    asked. To-day the supply of whales' bones is large, in
    consequence of our desire, expressed on previous days, to
    obtain them. One has come with two vertebræ, one with a
    rib or some fragments of it, one with a shoulder-blade.
    They are not shy in laying heavy loads on their dogs.

    "After the close of the promenade and the traffic with the
    natives, the gunroom _personnel_ have begun their labours.
    Some keep in their cabins, others in the gunroom itself.
    The magnetical and meteorological observations made the
    day before are transcribed and subjected to a preliminary
    working-out, the natural history collections are examined
    and looked over, studies and authorship are prosecuted.
    The work is now and then interrupted by conversation
    partly serious, partly jocular. From the engine-room in
    the neighbourhood we hear the blows of hammers and the
    rasping of files. In the 'tweendecks, pretty well heated,
    but not very well lighted, some of the crew are employed
    at ordinary ship's work; and in the region of the kitchen
    the cook is just in the midst of his preparations for
    dinner. He is in good humour as usual, but perhaps
    grumbles a little at the 'mosucks' (a common name on board
    for the Chukches), who will not give him any peace by
    their continual cries for 'mimil' (water.)

    "The forenoon passes in all quietness and stillness.
    Immediately after noon nearly all the gunroom people are
    again on deck, promenading backwards and forwards. It is
    now very lively. It is the crew's meal-time. The whole
    crowd of Chukches are collected at the descent to their
    apartment, the lower deck. One soup basin after the other
    comes up; they are immediately emptied of their contents
    by those who in the crowd and confusion are fortunate
    enough to get at them. Bread and pieces of meat and bits
    of sugar are distributed assiduously, and disappear with
    equal speed. Finally, the cook himself appears with a
    large kettle, containing a very large quantity of meat
    soup, which the Chukches like starving animals throw
    themselves upon, baling into them with spoons, empty
    preserve tins, and above all with the hands.
    Notwithstanding the exceedingly severe cold a woman here
    and there has uncovered one arm and half her breast in
    order not to be embarrassed by the wide reindeer-skin
    sleeve in her attempts to get at the contents of the
    kettle. The spectacle is by no means a pleasant one.

[Illustration: AN EVENING IN THE GUNROOM OF THE "VEGA" DURING
THE WINTERING. ]

    "By three o'clock it begins to grow dark, and one after
    the other of our guests depart, to return, the most of
    them, in the morning. Now it is quiet and still. About six
    the crew have finished their labours and dispose of the
    rest of the day as they please. Most of them are occupied
    with reading during the evening hours. When supper has
    been served at half-past seven in the gunroom, he who has
    the watch in the ice-house from nine to two next morning
    prepares for the performance of his disagreeable duty; the
    rest of the gunroom _personnel_ are assembled there, and
    pass the evening in conversation, play, light reading, &c.
    At ten every one retires, and the lamps are extinguished.
    In many cabins, however, lights burn till after midnight.

    "Such was in general our life on the _Vega_. One day was
    very like another. When the storm howled, the snow
    drifted, and the cold became too severe, we kept more
    below deck; when the weather was finer we lived more in
    the open air, often paying visits to the observatory in
    the ice-house, and among the Chukches living in the
    neighbourhood, or wandering about to come upon, if
    possible, some game."

The snow which fell during winter consisted more generally of small
simple snow-crystals or ice-needles, than of the beautiful
snow-flakes whose grand kaleidoscopic forms the inhabitants of the
north so often have an opportunity of admiring. Already with a
gentle wind and with a pretty clear atmosphere the lower strata of
the atmosphere were full of these regular ice-needles, which
refracted the rays of the sun, so as to produce parhelia and halos.
Unfortunately however these were never so completely developed as
the halos which I saw in 1873 during the sledge-journey round
North-east Land on Spitzbergen; but I believed that even now I could
confirm the correctness of the observation I then made, that the
representation which is generally given of this beautiful
phenomenon, in which the halo is delineated as a collection of
regular circles, is not correct, but that it forms a very involved
system of lines, extended over the whole vault of heaven, for the
most part coloured on the sun-side and uncoloured on the opposite
side, of the sort shown in the accompanying drawings taken from the
account of the Spitzbergen Expedition of 1872-73.

[Illustration: REFRACTION-HALO. Seen on Spitzbergen in May 1873,
simultaneously with the Reflection-halo delineated on the
following page. ]

Another very beautiful phenomenon, produced by the refraction of the
solar rays by the ice-needles, which during winter were constantly
mixed with the atmospheric strata lying nearest the surface of the
earth, was that the mountain heights to the south of the _Vega_ in a
certain light appeared as if feathered with fire-clouds. In clear
sunshine and a high wind we frequently saw, as it were, a glowing
pillar of vapour arise obliquely from the summits of the mountains,
giving them the appearance of volcanos, which throw out enormous
columns of smoke, flame-coloured by the reflection from the glowing
lava streams in the depths of the crater.

A blue water-sky was still visible out to sea, indicating that open
water was to be found there. I therefore sent Johnsen the hunter
over the ice on the 18th December to see how it was. In
three-quarters of an hour's walking from the vessel he found an
extensive opening, recently covered with thin, blue, newly frozen
ice. A fresh northerly breeze blew at the time, and by it the
drift-ice fields were forced together with such speed, that Johnsen
supposed that in a couple of hours the whole lead would be
completely closed.

[Illustration: REFLECTION-HALO. Seen simultaneously with the
Retraction-halo delineated on the preceding page, in the part of
the sky opposite the sun. ]

In such openings in Greenland white whales and other small whales are
often enclosed by hundreds, the natives thus having an opportunity of
making in a few hours a catch which would be sufficient for their
support during the whole winter, indeed for years, if the idea of
_saving_ ever entered into the imagination of the savage. But here in a
region where the pursuit of the whale is more productive than in any
other sea, no such occurrence has happened. During the whole of our stay
on the coast of the Chukch country we did not see a single whale. On the
other hand, masses of whales' bones were found thrown up on the beach.
At first I did not bestow much attention upon them, thinking they were
the bones of whales that had been killed during the recent whale-fishing
period. I soon found however that this could not have been the case. For
the bones had evidently been washed out of the sandy dune running along
the beach, which had been deposited at a time when the present coast lay
ten to twenty metres below the surface of the sea, thus hundreds or
thousands of years ago, undoubtedly before the time when the north coast
of Asia was first inhabited by man. The dune sand is, as recently
exposed profiles show, quite free from other kitchen-midden remains than
those which occur upon its surface. The whales' bones in question were
thus _subfossil_. Their number was so great, that in the systematic
examination of the beach in the immediate neighbourhood of the vessel,
which I undertook during spring with the assistance of Dr. Kjellman and
half a dozen of the sailors, thirty neck-bones and innumerable other
bones of the whale were found in a stretch of from four to five
kilometres. Of course masses of bones are still concealed in the sand;
and a large number of lower jaw-bones, ribs, shoulder-blades, and
vertebræ had been used for runner-shoes, tent-frames, spades, picks and
other implements. A portion, after being exposed for several years to
the action of the air, had undergone decay. The bones are therefore
found in greatest number at those places where the sand of the dune has
been recently carried away by the spring floods or by the furious winds
which prevail here, and which easily gain the ascendency over the dry
sand, bound together only by widely scattered Elymus-stalks. The largest
crania belonged to a species nearly allied to the _Balæna mysticetus_.
Crania of a species of Rachianectes are also found along with some bones
of smaller varieties of the whale. No complete skeleton however has been
found, but we brought home with us so large a quantity of the loose
bones that the collection of whales' bones alone would have formed a
full cargo for a small vessel. These bones will be delineated and
described by Professor. A.W. MALM in _The Scientific Work of the Vega
Expedition_. Special attention was drawn to a skeleton, belonging to the
_Balæna mysticetus_, by its being still partially covered with skin, and
by deep red, almost fresh, flesh adhering to those parts of it which
were frozen fast in the ground. This skeleton lay at a place where the
dune sand had recently been washed away and the coarse underlying sand
uncovered, the whale-_mummy_ also I suppose coming to light at the same
time. That the whale in question had not stranded in the memory of man
the Chukches assured me unanimously. In such a case we have here a proof
that even portions of the flesh of gigantic sea-animals have been
protected against putrefaction in the frozen soil of Siberia--a
parallel to the mammoth-_mummies_, though from a considerably more
recent period.

[Illustration: SECTION OF THE BEACH STRATA AT PITLEKAJ.
1. Hard frozen coarse sand.
2. The sea.
3. Beach of fine dry sand with masses of bones of the whale.
4. Coast-lagoon. ]

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE ON THE "VEGA." ]

Christmas Eve was celebrated in the usual northern fashion. We had
indeed neglected, as in the Expedition of 1872-73, to take with us
any Christmas tree. But instead of it Dr. Kjellman prevailed on our
Chukch friends to bring with dog-sledges willow-bushes from the
valleys lying beyond the mountains to the south. By means of these a
bare driftwood stem was converted into a luxuriant, branchy tree
which, to replace the verdure, was clothed with variegated strips of
paper, and planted in the 'tweendecks, which after our enclosure in
the ice had been arranged as a working room, and was now set in
order for the Christmas festivities, and richly and tastefully
ornamented with flags. A large number of small wax-lights, which we
had brought with us for the special purpose, were fixed in the
Christmas tree, together with about two hundred Christmas boxes
purchased or presented to us before our departure. At six o'clock in
the afternoon all the officers and crew assembled in the
'tweendecks, and the drawing of lots began, now and then interrupted
by a thundering polka round the peculiar Christmas tree. At supper
neither Christmas ale nor ham was wanting. And later in the evening
there made their appearance in the 'tweendecks five punchbowls,
which were emptied with songs and toasts for King and Fatherland,
for the objects of the Expedition, for its officers and men, for the
families at home, for relatives and friends, and finally for those
who decked and arranged the Christmas tree, who were the sailors C.
Lundgren and O. Hansson, and the firemen O. Ingelsson and C.
Carlström.

The other festivals were also celebrated in the best way, and at
midnight before New Year's Day the new year was shot in with sharp
explosive-shell firing from the rifled cannon of the _Vega_, and a
number of rockets thrown up from the deck.


[Footnote 249: Equal to 6.64 English miles. ]

[Footnote 250: When it had become evident that we could make no
further advance before next year, Lieut Brusewitz occasionally
measured the thickness of the newly formed ice, with the following
results:--


                   THICKNESS OF THE ICE.
 1 December,  56 centimetres.   1 May.  154 centimetres
 1 January,   92    ,,         15  ,,   162    ,,
 1 February, 108    ,,          1 June, 154    ,,
 15   ,,     120    ,,         15  ,,   151    ,,
 1 March,    123    ,,          1 July, 104    ,,
 1 April,    128    ,,         15        67    ,, (full of holes).
 15   ,,     139    ,,         18  ,,    The ice broke up. ]


[Footnote 251: Low brush is probably to be met with in the interior
of the Chukch peninsula at places which are protected from the cold
north winds. ]

[Footnote 252: According to H. Wild's newly-published large work,
"_Die Temperatur Verhältnisse des Russischen Reiches_, 2e Halfte,
St. Petersburg, 1881," the Old World's cold-pole lies in the
neighbourhood of the town Werchojansk (67° 34' N.L. 133°
51' E.L. from Greenwich). The mean temperature of the different
months and of the whole year is given in the note at page 411. If
the data on which these figures rest are correct, the winter at
Werchojansk is immensely colder than at the _Vega's_ winter station. ]

[Footnote 253: 1 lb.=100 ort=425.05 gram. 1 kanna=100 cubic
inches=2.617 litres. ]

[Footnote 254: To carry animals for slaughter on vessels during
Polar expeditions cannot be sufficiently recommended. Their flesh
acts beneficially by forming a change from the preserved provisions,
which in course of time become exceedingly disagreeable, and their
care a not less important interruption to the monotony of the winter
life. ]

[Footnote 255: I give here an extract from the Vocabulary, that the
reader may form some idea of the language of the north-east point of
Asia:--

 _Tnáergin_, heaven.
 _Tirkir_, the sun.
 _Yédlin_, the moon.
 _Angátlingan_, a star.
 _Nútatschka_, land.
 _Ángka_, sea.
 _Ljédljenki_, winter.
 _Édljek_, summer.
 _Edljóngat_, day.
 _Nekita_, night.
 _Áyguon_, yesterday.
 _Íetkin_, to-day.
 _Ergátti_, to-morrow.
 _Gnúnian_, north.
 _Emnungku_, south.
 _Nikáyan_, east.
 _Kayradljgin_, west.
 _Tintin_, ice.
 _Átljatlj_, snow.
 _Yeetedli_, the aurora.
 _Yengeen_, mist.
 _Tédljgio_, storm.
 _Éek_, fire.
 _Kljautlj_, a man, a human being.
 _Oráedlja_, men.
 _Neáiren_, a woman.
 _Nénena_, a child.
 _Empenàtschyo_, father.
 _Émpengau_, mother.
 _Ljéut_, head.
 _Ljeutljka_, face.
 _Dljedljádlin_, eye.
 _Liljáptkóurgin_, to see.
 _Huedljódlin_, ear.
 _Huedljokodljáurgin_, to hear.
 _Huádljomerkin_, to understand.
 _Huedljountákurgin_, not to understand.
 _Yeká_, nose.
 _Yekergin_, mouth.
 _Kametkuaurgin_, to eat.
 _Yedlinedljourgin_, to speak.
 _Mámmah_, a woman's breast.
 _Mammatkóurgin_, to give suck.
 _Yéet_, foot.
 _Retschaurgin_, to stand.
 _Yetkatjergin_, to lie.
 _Tschipiska_, to sleep.
 _Kadljetschetuetjákurgin_, to learn.
 _Pintekatkóurgin_, to be born.
 _Kaertráljirgin_, to die.
 _Kámakatan_, to be sick.
 _Kámak_, the Deity, a guardian Spirit.
 _Yáranga_, tent.
 _Etschengeratlin_, lamp.
 _Órguor_, sledge.
 _Atkuát_, boat.
 _Anetljkatlj_, fishing-hook.
 _Anedljourgin_, to angle.
 _Uádlin_, knife.
 _Tschúpak_, _Kámeak_, dog.
 _Úmku_, Polar bear.
 _Rérka_, walrus.
 _Mémetlj_, seal.
 _Kórang_, reindeer.
 _Gátlje_, bird.
 _Enne_, fish.
 _Gúrgur_, dwarf-birch.
 _Kukatkokongadlin_, willow-bush.
 _Gem_, I.
 _Gemnin_, mine.
 _Get_, you.
 _Genin_, yours.
 _Enkan_, he.
 _Muri_, we.
 _Turi_, you.
 _Máyngin_, much.
 _Pljúkin_, little.
 _Konjpong_, all.
 _I_, yes.
 _Etlje_, no.
 _Métschinka_, thanks.
 _Énnen_, one.
 _Nirak_, two.
 _Nrok_, three.
 _Nrak_, four.
 _Metljíngan_, five. ]


[Footnote 256: The King of Sweden has since ordered a gold medal to
be given to Wassili Menka in recognition of the fidelity with which
he executed the commission of carrying our letters to a Russian post
station. ]

[Footnote 257: See page 119. ]



END OF VOL. I.



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA ROUND ASIA AND EUROPE. VOL II


[Illustration: Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld ]

[Illustration: His signature ]


THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA ROUND ASIA AND EUROPE
WITH A HISTORICAL REVIEW
OF PREVIOUS JOURNEYS ALONG THE NORTH COAST OF THE OLD WORLD

BY A.E. NORDENSKIÖLD

TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER LESLIE

_WITH FIVE STEEL PORTRAITS, NUMEROUS MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS_

IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL II

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1881



CONTENTS OF VOL II


CHAPTER XI.

Hope of release at the new year--Bove's excursion to the open
water--Mild weather and renewed severe cold--Mercury frozen--Popular
lectures--Brusewitz's excursion to Najtskaj--Another despatch of
letters home--The natives' accounts of the state of the ice on the
coast of Chukch Land--The Chukches carry on traffic between Arctic
America and Siberia--Excursions in the neighborhood of winter
quarters--The weather during spring--The melting of the snow--The
aurora--The arrival of the migratory birds--The animal world of
Chukch Land--Noah Elisej's relief expedition--A remarkable fish--The
country clean of snow--Release--The North-East Passage achieved.


CHAPTER XII

The history, _physique_, disposition, and manners of the Chukches.


CHAPTER XIII

The development of our knowledge of the north coast of
Asia--Herodotus--Strabo--Pliny--Marco Polo--Herbertstein's
map--The conquest of Siberia by the Russians--Deschnev's
voyages--Coast navigation between the Lena and the Kolyma--Accounts
of islands in the Polar Sea and old voyages to them--The
discovery of Kamchatka--The navigation of the Sea of Okotsk is
opened by Swedish prisoners of war--The Great Northern
Expedition--Behring--Schalaurov--Andrejev's Land--The New
Siberian islands--Hedenström's expeditions--Anjou and
Wrangel--Voyages from Behring's Straits westward--Fictitious
Polar voyages.


CHAPTER XIV

Passage through Behring's Straits--Arrival at Nunamo--Scarce species
of seal--Rich vegetation--Passage to America--State of the
ice--Port Clarence--The Eskimo--Return to Asia--Konyam Bay--Natural
conditions there--The ice breaks up in the interior of Konyam
Bay--St. Lawrence Island--Preceding visits to the Island--Departure
to Behring Island


CHAPTER XV

The position of Behring Island--Its inhabitants--The discovery of
the Island by Behring--Behring's death--Steller--The former and
present fauna of the Island: foxes, sea otters, sea cows, sea lions,
and sea bears--Collection of bones of the Rhytina--Visit to a
"rookery"--Torporkoff Island--Alexander Dubovski--Voyage to
Yokohama--Lightning stroke


CHAPTER XVI

Arrival at Yokohama--A Telegram sent to Europe--The stranding of the
Steamer _A.E. Nordenskiöld_--_Fêtes_ in Japan--The Minister of Marine,
Kawamura--Prince Kito-Shira Kava--Audience of the Mikado--Graves of
the Shoguns--Imperial Garden at Tokio--The Exhibition there--Visit
to Enoshima--Japanese Manners and Customs--Thunberg and Kämpfer.


CHAPTER XVII

Excursion to Asamayama--The Nakasendo road--Takasaki--Difficulty
of obtaining Quarters for the Night--The Baths at Ikaho--Massage
in Japan--Swedish matches--Traveling in
_Kago_--Savavatari--Criminals--Kusatsu--The Hot Springs and their
healing power--Rest at Rokurigahara--The Summit of Asamayama--The
Descent--Journey over Usui-toge--Japanese Actors--Pictures of
Japanese Folk life--Return to Yokohama


CHAPTER XVIII

Farewell dinner at Yokohama--The Chinese in Japan--Voyage to
Kobe--Purchase of Japanese Books--Journey by sail to Kioto--Biwa
Lake and the Legend of its Origin--Dredging there--Japanese Dancing
Girls--Kioto--The Imperial Palace--Temples--Swords and Sword
bearers--Shintoism and Buddhism--The Porcelain Manufacture--Japanese
Poetry--Feast in a Buddhist Temple--Sailing across the Inland Sea
of Japan--Landing at Hirosami and Shimonoseki--Nagasaki--Excursion
to Mogi--Collection of Fossil Plants--Departure from Japan


CHAPTER XIX

Hong Kong and Canton--Stone polishing Establishments at
Canton--Political Relations in an English Colony--Treatment of the
Natives--Voyage to Labuan--Coal Mines there--Excursion to the shore
of Borneo--Malay Villages--Singapore--Voyage to Ceylon--Point de
Galle--The Gem Mines at Ratnapoora--Visit to a Temple--Purchase of
Manuscripts--The Population of Ceylon--Dr. Almquist's Excursion to
the Interior of the Island


CHAPTER XX

The Journey Home--Christmas, 1879--Aden--Suez--Cairo--Excursion to
the Pyramids and the Mokattam Mountains--Petrified Tree stems--The
Suez Canal--Landing on Sicily by night--Naples--Rome--The Members of
the Expedition separate--Lisbon--England--Paris--Copenhagen--Festive
Entry into Stockholm--_Fêtes_ there--Conclusion



PORTRAITS


Engraved on Steel by G.J. Stodart, of London.


Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld    To face Title page
Louis Palander               ,,          Page 68



LITHOGRAPHED MAPS


9.  Herbertstern's Map of Russia, 1550 (photo-lithographic facsimile)

10. Map of the North Coast of the Old World from Norway to Behring's
    Straits, with the track of the _Vega_, constructed from old and
    recent sources, and from observations made during the Voyage of
    the _Vega_, by N. Selander, Captain in the General Staff



LIST OF WOOD-CUTS IN VOL II


_The Wood-cuts, when not otherwise stated below, were engraved at
Herr Wilhelm Meyer's Xylographic Institute, in Stockholm_

  1. Chukches

  2. The Encampment Pitlekaj abandoned by its Inhabitants on the
     18th February, 1879

  3. Notti and Wife Aitanga

  4. Map of the Region round the _Vega's_ Winter Quarters

  5. The Sleeping Chamber in a Chukch Tent

  6. Chukch Lamps

  7. Section of a Chukch Lamp

  8. Chukch Shaman Drum

  9. The Coast between Padljonna and Enjurmi

 10. Bracelet of Copper

 11. The North End of Idlidlja Island

 12. The Common Aurora Arc at the _Vega's_ Winter Quarters

 13. Aurora at the _Vega's_ Winter Quarters, 3rd March, 1879, at 9 PM

 14. Double Aurora-Arcs seen 20th March, 1879, at 9 30 PM

 15. Elliptic Aurora, seen 21st March, 1879, at 2 15 AM

 16. Elliptic Aurora seen 21st March, 1879, at 3 AM

 17. Song Birds in the Rigging of the Vega, June, 1879

 18. Spoon-billed Sand piper from Chukch Land
     (_Eurynorhynchus pygmæus_, L.)

 19. Marmots from Chukch Land

 20. _Stegocephalus Kessleri_ Stuxb

 21. _Sabinea septemcarinata_, Sabine

 22. _Acanthostephia Malmgreni_, Goës

 23. _Ophioglypha nodosa_, Lütken

 24. Noah Elisej

 25. Beetles from Pitlekaj

 26. Phosphorescent Crustacea from Mussel Bay

 27. Reitinacka

 28. Dog Fish from the Chukch Peninsula (_Dallia delicatissima_, Smith)

 29. Crab from the Sea North of Behring's Straits
     (Chionoecetes _opilio_, Kröyer)

 30. Tree from Pitlekaj (_Salix Arctica_, Pallas)

 31. Typical Chukch Faces

 32.   ,,       ,,

 33. Plan of a Chukch Grave

 34. Tent Frame at Pitlekaj

 35. Chukch Oar

 36. Dog Shoe

 37. Chukch Face Tattooing

 38. Chukch Children

 39. Snow Shoes

 40. An Aino Man skating after a Reindeer

 41. Hunting Cup and Snow scraper

 42. Chukch Weapons and Hunting Implements

 43. Chukch Bow and Quiver

 44. Chukch Arrows

 45. Stone Hammers and Anvil for Crushing Bones

 46. Chukch Implements

 47. Fire Drill

 48. Ice Mattocks

 49. Human Figures

 50. Musical Instruments

 51. Drawings made by the Chukches--

 52. Chukch Buckles and Hooks of Ivory

 53. Chukch Bone Carvings

 54. Chukch Doll

 55. Chukch Bone Carvings--

 56. Chukch Bone Carvings of Birds

 57. Map of the World, said to be of the Tenth Century

 58. Map of the World showing Asia to be continuous with Africa

 59. Map of the World after Fra Mauro, from the middle of the
     Fifteenth Century

 60. Map of Asia from an Atlas published by the Russian Academy of
     Sciences in 1737

 61. Peter Feodorovitsch Anjou

 62. Ferdinand von Wrangel

 63. Seal from the Behring Sea, _Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm

 64. _Draba Alpina_, L., from St. Lawrence Bay

 65. Hunting Implements at Port Clarence

 66. Eskimo Family at Port Clarence

 67. Eskimo from Port Clarence

 68. Eskimo from Port Clarence

 69. Eskimo Fishing Implements, &c.

 70. Eskimo Bone Carvings &c.

 71. Eskimo Grave

 72. Animal Figure from an Eskimo Grave

 73. Ethnographical Objects from Port Clarence

 74. Shell from Behring's Straits, _Fusus deformis_, Reeve

 75. Diagram showing the temperature and depth of the water at
     Behring's Straits between Port Clarence and Senjavin Sound, by
     G. Bove

 76. Konyam Bay

 77. Tattooing Patterns from St. Lawrence Island

 78. Tattooed Woman from St. Lawrence Island

 79. The Colony on Behring Island

 80. The Colony on Copper Island

 81. Natives of Behring Island

 82. Skeleton of Rhytina, shown at the _Vega_ Exhibition
     at the Royal Palace, Stockholm

 83. Original Drawings of the Rhytina

 84. Reconstructed Form of the Sea-Cow

 85. Sea Bears, Male, Female, and Young

 86. "Seal Rookery" on St. Paul's Island, one of the Pribylov Islands

 87. Slaughter of Sea-Bears

 88. Sea-Bears on their way to "the Rookeries"

 89. Alga from the shore of Behring Island,
     _Thalassiophyllum Clathrus_, Post. and Rupr.

 90. Fusugama

 91. The steamer _A.E. Nordenskiöld_ stranded on the East Coast of Yezo

 92. Kawamura Sumiyashi, Japanese Minister of Marine

 93. The First Medal which was struck as a Memorial
     of the Voyage of the _Vega_

 94. The First Medal which was struck as a Memorial
     of the Voyage of the _Vega_

 95. Stone Lantern and Stone Monument in a Japanese Temple Court

 96. Japanese House in Tokio

 97. Japanese Lady at her Toilet

 98. A Jinrikisha

 99. Japanese Bedroom

 100. Tobacco-Smokers, Japanese Drawing

 101. Ito-Keske, a Japanese Editor of Thunberg's Writings

 102. Monument to Thunberg and Kaempfer at Nagasaki

 103. Japanese Kago

 104. Japanese Wrestlers

 105. Japanese Bridge, after a Japanese drawing

 106. Japanese Mountain Landscape, drawn by Prof. P.D. Holm

 107. Inn at Kusatsu, drawn by R. Haglund

 108. Bath at Kusatsu, Japanese drawing, drawn by O. Sörling

 109. Japanese Landscape, drawn by Prof. P.D. Holm

 110. Burden-bearers on a Japanese Road, Japanese drawing,
      drawn by O. Sörling

 111. Japanese Shop, drawn by V. Andrén

 112. Japanese Court Dress, drawn by ditto

 113. Noble in Antique Dress, drawn by ditto

 114. Buddhist Priest, drawn by ditto

 115. A Samurai, drawn by ditto

 116. Gate across the Road to a Shinto Temple, drawn by Prof. P.D. Holm

 117. Buddhist Temple at Kobe, drawn by ditto

 118. Rio-San's Seal

 119. Burying-Place at Kioto, drawn by Prof. P.D. Holm

 120. Entrance to Nagasaki, drawn by R. Haglund

 121. Fossil Plants from Mogi--1, 2, Beech Leaves
      (_Fagus ferruginea_, Ait., var. _pliocena_, Nath.),
      drawn by M. Westergren

 122. Fossil Plant from Mogi--3, Maple Leaf
      (_Acer Mono_, Max., var. _pliocena_, Nath.)

 123. Fossil Plant from Mogi--Leaf of _Zelkova Keakii_,
      Sieb., var. _pliocena_, Nath., drawn by M. Westergren

 124. Gem Diggings at Ratnapoora, drawn by R. Haglund

 125. Statues in a Temple in Ceylon, drawn by ditto

 126. A Country Place in Ceylon, drawn by V. Andrén

 127. Highland View from the Interior of Ceylon, drawn by R. Haglund

 128. The Scientific Men of the _Vega_

 129. The Officers of the _Vega_

 130. The Crew of the _Vega_, drawn by R. Widing

 131. The Entrance of the _Vega_ into Stockholm on the 24th April, 1880,
      drawn by R. Haglund

 132. The _Vega_ moored off the Royal Palace, Stockholm, drawn by ditto



ERRATA  [ Transcriber's note: these have been applied to the text ]

 Page 22, under wood-cut, _for_ "_a._ Of wood _b._ Of stone,"
      _read_ "_a._ Wooden cup to place under the lamp
      _b._ Lamp of burned clay."
 Page 41, line 6 from foot, _for_ "beginning of May"
     _read_ "middle of June."
 Page 41, under wood-cut, _for_ "May," _read_ "June."
 Page 44, line 19 _for_ "mountain," _read_ "Arctic."
 Page 54, last line _for_ "contracteta" _read_ "contracta."
 Page 63, last line _for_ "Natural size," _read_ "Half the natural size."
 Page 98, lines 9 and 12 from foot, _for_ "moccassin" _read_ "moccasin."
 Page 100, line 2 from foot, _for_ "moccassin" _read_ "moccasin."
 Page 227, line 11 from foot, _for_ "American," _read_ "Asiatic."



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA ROUND ASIA AND EUROPE, VOL II



CHAPTER XI.

    Hope of release at the new year--Bove's excursion to the
    open water--Mild weather and renewed severe cold--Mercury
    frozen--Popular lectures--Brusewitz's excursion to Najtskaj
    --Another despatch of letters home--The natives' accounts
    of the state of the ice on the coast of Chukch Land--
    The Chukches carry on traffic between Arctic America and
    Siberia--Excursions in the neighbourhood of winter quarters
    --The weather during spring--The melting of the snow--
    The aurora--The arrival of the migratory birds--The animal
    world of Chukch Land--Noah Elisej's relief expedition--
    A remarkable fish--The country clear of snow--Release--
    The North-East Passage achieved.


The new year came in with a faint hope of release. For since the
north and north-west winds that had prevailed almost constantly
towards the close of December had given place to winds from the east
and south, considerable "clearings" were again formed out at sea,
and the Chukches again began to say that the ice would drift away,
so that the vessel would be able to continue her voyage; a
prediction which they always ended with a declaration, expressed
both by words and gestures, that they would then bitterly lament,
which they would also have had sufficient reason to do, considering
the very friendly way in which they were treated by all on board the
_Vega_, both officers and men.

On New Year's Day, in order to see the state of the ice farther out
to sea, Lieut Bove, accompanied by the hunter Johnsen, again made an
excursion to the open water. Of this he gave the following
account:--

    "I left the vessel on the forenoon of 1st January and
    reached the open water after four hours' steady walking.
    The deep loose snow made walking very fatiguing, and three
    rows of _torosses_ also contributed to this, mainly in
    consequence of the often snow-covered cracks, which
    crossed the ice-sheet in their neighbourhood. One of the
    _torosses_ was ten metres high. The size of the blocks of
    ice, which were here heaped on each other, showed how
    powerful the forces were which had caused the formation of
    the _torosses_. These ice ramparts now afford a much
    needed protection to the _Vegas_ winter haven. About
    halfway between the open water and the vessel the way was
    crossed by cracks running from east to west, and clearly
    indicating that the opening in the ice would have extended
    to the distance of a kilometre from the vessel, if the
    violent storm in December had lasted twelve hours longer.
    The _Vega_ would thereby have been in great danger. The
    edge of the ice towards the open water was evenly cut, as
    with an immense knife, and was so strong that one could
    walk along it as on a rock. Even from the top of a
    five-metre-high ice-rampart no boundary of the open water
    could be seen to the north-east or north. Partly from
    this, partly from the extension of the water-sky in this
    direction, I draw the conclusion that the breadth of the
    open water was at least thirty-five kilometres. The
    "clearing" was bounded on the east by an ice-rampart
    running north, which at a distance of nine or ten
    kilometres appeared to bend to the east. Possibly farther
    to the east beyond this ice-rampart there was another open
    water basin. The depth at the edge of the ice was
    twenty-one metres, the temperature of the water 2°
    C. The water ran at a considerable speed right out from
    the coast (_i.e._ from S.S.E.) As it ran here nearly in a
    straight line, the current may have been a tidal one. The
    open water swarmed with seals, according to Johnsen both
    bearded and rough. Neither Polar bears, walrusses, nor
    birds were seen."

Lieut. Bove's report confirmed me in my supposition that the open
water, as towards the end of January 1873 at Mussel Bay, might
possibly extend as far as our anchorage and open for us the way to
Behring's Straits, in which case we could not refrain from
continuing our voyage, however unpleasant and dangerous it might be
at this season of the year. The Chukches also declared repeatedly
that the open water in January would continue for a considerable
time, and in expectation of this got their simple fishing implements
ready. But both they and we were disappointed in our expectation.
The _Vega's_ ice-fetters remained undisturbed, and the blue border
at the horizon grew less and again disappeared. This caused so great
a want of food, and above all of train oil, among the natives, that
all the inhabitants of Pitlekaj, the village nearest to us, were
compelled to remove to the eastward, notwithstanding that in order
to mitigate the scarcity a considerable quantity of food was served
out daily at the vessel.

It appeals, however, as if an actual experience from the preceding
year had been the ground of the Chukches' weather prediction. For on
the 6th February a south-east wind began to blow, and the severe
cold at once ceased. The temperature rose for a few hours to and
even above the freezing-point. A water-sky was again formed along
the horizon of the ice from north-east to north, and from the
heights at the coast there was seen an extensive opening in the
ice-fields, which a little east of Irgunnuk nearly reached the
shore. Some kilometres farther east even the shore itself was free
of ice, and from the hills our sailors thought they saw a heavy sea
in the blue water border which bounded the circle of vision. If this
was not an illusion, caused by the unequal heating and oscillatory
motion of the lower stratum of the atmosphere, the open water may
have been of great extent. Perhaps the statement of the natives was
correct, that it extended as far as Behring's Straits. But we could
not now place complete reliance on their statements, since we had
rewarded with extra treating some predictions, relating to ice and
weather, that were favourable to us. Even between the vessel's
anchorage and the land various cracks had been formed, through which
the sea water had forced its way under the snow, and in which some
of us got cold feet or leg baths during our walks to and from the
land.

[Illustration: THE ENCAMPMENT PITLEKAJ ABANDONED BY ITS INHABITANTS
ON THE 18TH FEBRUARY, 1879. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

The Chukches at Irgunnuk were now successful in killing a Polar bear
and seventy seals, of which some were ostentatiously set up in rows,
along with frozen slices of blubber, along the outer walls of the
tents, and others were laid down in the blubber cellars, which were
soon filled to overflowing. At Yinretlen, the encampment nearer us,
the hunters on the other hand had obtained only eight seals.
Gladness and want of care for the morrow at all events prevailed
here also, and our skin-clad friends availed themselves of the
opportunity to exhibit a self-satisfied disdain of the simple
provisions from the _Vega_ which the day before they had begged for
with gestures so pitiful, and on which they must, in a day or two,
again depend. The children, who had fallen off during recent weeks,
if not in comparison with European children, at least with well-fed
Chukch ones, began speedily to regain their former condition, and
likewise the older people. Begging ceased for some days, but the
vessel's deck still formed a favourite rendezvous for crowds of men,
women, and children. Many passed here the greater part of the day,
cheerful and gay in a temperature of -40° C, gossiped, helped
a little, but always only a little, at the work on board and so on.
The mild weather, the prospect of our getting free, and of an
abundant fishing for the Chukches, however, soon ceased. The
temperature again sank below the freezing-point, that is _of
mercury_, and the sea froze so far out from the shore that the
Chukches could no longer carry on any fishing. Instead we saw them
one morning come marching, like prisoners on an Egyptian or Assyrian
monument, in goose-march over the ice toward the vessel, each with a
burden on his shoulder, of whose true nature, while they were at a
distance, we endeavoured in vain to form a guess. It was pieces of
ice, not particularly large, which they, self-satisfied, cheerful
and happy at their new bit, handed over to the cook to get from him
in return some of the _kauka_ (food) they some days before had
despised.


The first time the temperature of the air sank under the
freezing-point of mercury, was in January. It now became necessary
to use instead of the mercury the spirit thermometers, which in
expectation of the severe cold had been long ago hung up in the
thermometer case. When mercury freezes in a common thermometer, it
contracts so much that the column of mercury suddenly sinks in the
tube; or if it is short, goes wholly into the ball. The position of
the column is therefore no measure of the actual degree of cold when
the freezing takes place. The reading of -89°, or even of -150°,
which at a time when it was not yet known that mercury could
at a low temperature assume the solid form, was made on a mercurial
thermometer in the north of Sweden,[258] and which at the time
occasioned various discussions and doubts as to the trustworthiness
of the observer, was certainly quite correct, and may be repeated at
any time by cooling mercury under its freezing-point in a
thermometer of sufficient length divided into degrees under 0°.
The freezing of mercury[259] takes place from below upwards,
the frozen metal as being heavier sinking down in that portion which
is still fluid. If when it is half frozen the fluid be poured away
from the frozen portion, we obtain groups of crystals, composed of
small octohedrons, grouped together by the edges of the cube. None
of our mercurial thermometers suffered any damage, nor was there any
alteration of the position of the freezing-point in them from the
mercury having frozen in them and again become fluid.

During the severe cold the ice naturally became thicker and thicker,
and by the continual northerly winds still higher _torosses_ were
heaped up round the vessel, and larger and larger snow masses were
collected between it and the land, and on the heights along the
coast. All hopes or fears of an early release were again given up,
and a perceptible dullness began to make itself felt after the
bustle and festrvities of the Christmas holidays. Instead there was
now arranged a series of popular lectures which were held in the
lower deck, and treated of the history of the North-East Passage,
the first circumnavigations of the globe, the Austrian-Hungarian
Expedition, the changes of the earth's surface, the origin of man,
the importance of the leaf to the plants, &c. It became both for the
officers and scientific men and the crew a little interruption to
the monotony of the Arctic winter life, and the lecturer could
always be certain of finding his little auditory all present and
highly interested. Some slight attempts at musical evening
entertainments were also made, but these failed for want of musical
instruments and musical gifts among the _Vega_ men. We had among us
no suitable director of theatrical representations after the
English-Arctic pattern, and even if we had had, I fear that the
director would have found it very difficult to gather together the
dramatic talents requisite for his entertainment.

On the 17th February Lieutenant Brusewitz made an excursion to
Najtskaj, of which he gives the following account:--

    "I and Notti left the vessel in the afternoon, and after
    two hours came to Rirajtinop, Notti's home, where we
    passed the night, together with his three younger brothers
    and an invalid sister, who all lived in the same
    tent-chamber. Immediately after our arrival one of the
    brothers began to get the dog-harness and sleigh ready for
    the following day's journey, while the rest of us went
    into the interior of the tent, where the invalid sister
    lay with her clothes off, but wrapt in reindeer skins. She
    took charge of two train-oil lumps over which hung two
    cooking vessels, one formerly a preserve tin, and the
    other a bucket of tinned iron. One of the brothers came in
    with a tray, on which was placed a piece of seal blubber,
    together with frozen vegetables, principally willow
    leaves. The blubber was cut into small square pieces about
    the size of the thumb, after which one of the brothers
    gave the sister a large portion both of the blubber and
    vegetables. The food was thus served out to the others.
    Every piece of blubber was carefully imbedded in vegetable
    before it was eaten. When the vegetables were finished
    there was still some blubber, which was given to the dogs
    that lay in the outer tent. After this the boiled
    spare-rib of a seal were partaken of, and finally a sort
    of soup, probably made from seal's blood. The sister had a
    first and special helping of these dishes. I also got an
    offer of every dish, and it did not appear to cause any
    offence that I did not accept the offer. After the close
    of the meal the cooking vessels were set down, the "pesks"
    taken off, and some reindeer skins taken down from the
    roof and spread out. The older brothers lighted their
    pipes, and the younger lay down to sleep. I was shown to
    one of the side places in the tent, evidently Notti's own.
    One of the lamps was extinguished, after which all slept.
    During the night the girl complained several times, when
    one of the brothers always rose and attended to her. At
    six in the morning I wakened the party and reminded them
    of our journey. All rose immediately. Dressing proceeded
    slowly, because much attention was given to the foot
    covering. No food was produced, but all appeared quite
    pleased when I gave them of my stock, which consisted of
    bread and some preserved beef-steaks. Immediately after
    breakfast four dogs were harnessed to the sleigh, with
    which Notti and I continued our journey to Najtskaj, I
    riding and he running alongside the sleigh. At Irgunnuk, a
    Chukch village about an English mile east of Rirajtinop, a
    short stay was made in order to try to borrow some dogs,
    but without success. We continued our journey along the
    shore, and at 10 o'clock A.M. arrived at Najtskaj, which
    is from fifteen to eighteen kilometres E.S.E. from
    Irgunnuk. Here we were received by most of our former
    neighbours, the inhabitants of Pitlekaj. Of the thirteen
    tents of the village the five westernmost were occupied by
    the former population of Pitlekaj, while the eight lying
    more to the eastward were inhabited by other Chukches. The
    Pitlekaj people had not pitched their common large tents,
    but such as were of inconsiderable size or small ones
    fastened close together. In all the tents here, as at
    Rirajtinop and Irgunnuk, there was much blubber laid up,
    we saw pieces of seal and whole seals piled up before the
    tents, and on the way to Najtskaj we met several sledges
    loaded with seals, on their way to Pidlin. At Najtskaj I
    went out hunting accompanied by a Chukch. We started eight
    hares, but did not succeed in getting within range of
    them. A red fox was seen at a great distance but neither
    ptarmigan nor traces of them could be discovered. At two
    in the afternoon I returned to Irgunnuk and there got
    another sleigh drawn by ten dogs, with which I soon
    reached the vessel."

[Illustration: NOTTI AND HIS WIFE AITANGA. (After photographs by L.
Palander.) ]

On the 20th February three large Chukch sledges laden with goods and
drawn by sixteen to twenty dogs stopped at the _Vega_. They said
they came from the eastward, and were on their way to the market in
the neighbourhood of Nischni Kolymsk. I again by way of experiment
sent with them home-letters, for which, as they declined to take
money, I gave them as postage three bottles of rum and abundant
entertainment for men and dogs. In consideration of this payment
they bound themselves faithfully to execute their commission and
promised to return in May. And they kept then word. For on the 8th
and 9th May a large number of sledges heavily laden with reindeer
skins and drawn by many dogs, passed along the coast from west to
east. Of course all rested at the _Vega_, the only house of
entertainment on the coast of the Asiatic Polar Sea, considering it
as a matter of indisputable right, that they should in return for a
little talk and gossip obtain food and "ram." Very eagerly they now
informed us that a letter would come with another dog train that
might be expected in a few hours. This was for us a very great piece
of news, the importance of which none can understand who has never
hungered for months for news from home, from the home-land and the
home-world. Eager to know if we had actually to expect _a post_ from
Europe, we asked them how large the packet was "Very large" was the
answer, and the "ram" was of course measured accordingly. But when
at last the letter came it was found to be only an exceedingly short
note from some of the Russian officials at Kolyma, informing me that
our letters had reached him on the 4th April/23rd March and had been
immediately sent by express to Yakutsk. Thence they were sent on by
post, reaching Irkutsk on the 20th/14th May, and Sweden on the 2nd
August.

During autumn and midwinter the sunshine was not of course strong
and continuous enough to be painful to the eyes, but in February the
light from the snow-clouds and the snow-drifts began to be
troublesome enough. On the 22nd February accordingly snow-spectacles
were distributed to all the men, an indispensable precaution, as I
have before stated, in Arctic journeys. Many of the Chukches were
also attacked with snow-blindness somewhat later in the season, and
were very desirous of obtaining from us blue-coloured spectacles.
Johnsen even stated that one of the hares he shot was evidently
snow-blind.

On the evening of the 22th February there burst upon us a storm with
drifting snow and a cold of -36°. To be out in such weather is
not good even for a Chukch dog. Of this we had confirmation the next
day, when a Chukch who had lost his way came on board, carrying a
dog, frozen stiff, by the backbone, like a dead hare. He had with
his dog gone astray on the ice and lain out, without eating
anything, in a snow-drift for the night. The master himself had
suffered nothing, he was only hungry, the dog on the other hand
scarcely showed any sign of life. Both were naturally treated on
board the _Vega_ with great commiseration and kindness. They were
taken to the 'tweendecks, where neither Chukches nor Chukch dogs
were otherwise admitted, for the man an abundant meal was served of
what we believed he would relish best, and he was then allowed,
probably for the first time in his life, to sleep if not under a
sooty, at least under a wooden roof. The dog was for hours carefully
subjected to massage, with the result that he came to life again,
which struck us, and, as it appeared, not least the Chukch himself,
as something wonderful.

In the beginning of March there passed us a large number of sledges
laden with reindeer skins, and drawn by eight to ten dogs each.
Every sledge had a driver, and as usual the women took no part in
the journey. These trains were on a commercial journey from Irkaipij
to Päk at Behring's Straits. We found among the foremen many of our
acquaintances from the preceding autumn, and I need not say that
this gave occasion to a special entertainment, for the people,
bread, a little spirits, soup, some sugar, and tobacco, for the
dogs, pemmican. Conversation during such visits became very lively,
and went on with little hindrance, since two of us were now somewhat
at home in the Chukch language. For if I except two men, Menka and
Noah Elisej, who could talk exceedingly defective Russian, there was
not one of the reindeer or dog-foremen travelling past who could
speak any European language, and notwithstanding this they all carry
on an active commerce with the Russians. But the Chukch is proud
enough to require that his own language shall prevail in all
international commerce in the north-east of Asia, and his neighbours
find their advantage in this.

During the course of the winter, Lieutenant Nordquist collected from
the Chukch foremen coming from a distance who travelled past,
information regarding the state of the ice between Chaun Bay and
Behring's Straits at different seasons of the year. Considering the
immense importance of the question, even in a purely practical point
of view, I shall quote verbatim the statements which he thus
collected.

_Statements regarding the state of the ice on the coast between
Cape Yakan and Behring's Straits by Chukches living there._

"1. A Chukch from Yekanenmitschikan, near Cape Yakan, said that it
is usual for open water to be there the whole summer.

"2. A Chukch from Kinmankau, which lies a little to the west of Cape
Yakan, said the same.

"3. A Chukch from Yakan stated that the sea there becomes free of
ice in the end of May or beginning of June. On the other hand it is
never open in winter.

"4. Tatan from Yakan stated that the sea there is open from the end
of May or beginning of June to the latter part of September or
beginning of October, when the ice begins to drift towards the land.

"5. Rikkion from Vankarema said that the sea there is covered with
ice in winter, but open in summer.

"6. A reindeer Chukch, Rotschitlen, who lives about twelve English
miles from the _Vega's_ winter quarters, said that Kolyutschin Bay,
by the Chukches called Pidlin, is clear of ice the whole summer.

"7. Urtridlin from Kolyutschin said that neither at that island nor
in Kolyutschin Bay is there any ice in summer.

"8. Ranau, from Yinretlen, also said that Kolyutschin Bay is always
open in summer.

"9. Ettiu, from the village Nettej, between Irgunnuk and Behring's
Straits, stated that the sea at Nettej is open in summer,
independently of the wind, in winter only when the wind is
southerly.

"10. Vankatte, from Nettej, stated that the sea there becomes open
during the month "Tautinyadlin," that is, the latter part of May and
the beginning of June, and is again covered with ice during the
month "Kutscshkau," or October and November.

"11. Kepljeplja, from the village Irgunnuk, lying five English miles
east of the _Vega's_ winter quarters at Pitlekaj, said that the sea
off these villages is open all summer, except when northerly winds
prevail. On the other hand, he said that farther westward, as at
Irkaipij, ice could nearly always be seen from the land.

"12. Kapatljin, from Kingetschkun, a village between Irgunnuk and
Behring's Straits, stated on the 11th January that there was then open
water at that village. He said further, that Behring's Straits in winter
are filled with ice when the wind is southerly, but open when the wind
is northerly. The same day a Chukch from Nettej-Kengitschkau, also
between Irgunnuk and Behring's Straits, stated that ice then lay off
that village. He confirmed Kapatljin's statement regarding Behring's
Straits.

"13. Kvano, from Uedlje, near Behring's Straits, said that there the
sea is always open from May to the end of September."


On the 13th March we came to know that spirits, too, form an article
of commerce here. For, without having obtained any liquor from the
_Vega_, the Chukches at Yinretlen had the means of indulging in a
general fuddle, and that even their friendly disposition gives way
under the effects of the intoxication we had a manifest proof, when
the day after they came on board with blue and yellow eyes, not a
little seedy and ashamed. In autumn a tall and stout Chukch
giantess, who then paid us a visit, informed us that her husband had
been murdered in a drunken quarrel.

Sledges of considerable size, drawn by reindeer, began after the
middle of March to pass the _Vega_ in pretty large numbers. They
were laden with reindeer skins and goods bought at the Russian
market-places, and intended for barter at Behring's Straits.

The reindeer Chukches are better clothed, and appear to be in better
circumstances and more independent than the coast Chukches, or, as
they ought to be called in correspondence with the former name, the
dog Chukches. As every one owns a reindeer herd, all must follow the
nomad mode of living, but at the same time they carry on traffic
between the savages in the northernmost parts of America and the
Russian fur-dealers in Siberia, and many pass their whole lives in
commercial journeys. The principal market is held annually during
the mouth of March, on an island in the river Little Anjui, 250
versts from Nischni Kolymsk. The barter goes on in accordance with a
normal price-list, mutually agreed upon by the Russian merchants and
the oldest of the Chukches. The market is inaugurated on the part of
the Russians by a mass performed by the priest,[260] who always
accompanies the Russian crown commissioner, and in the Chukches'
camp with buffoonery by one of the Chukch Shamans. At such a market
there is said to be considerable confusion, to judge by the spirited
description which Wrangel gives of it (_Reise_, i. p. 269).
We ought, however, to remember that this description refers to the
customs that prevailed sixty years ago. Now, perhaps, there is a
great change there. In the commercial relations in north-eastern
Asia in the beginning of this century, we have probably a faithful
picture of the commerce of the Beormas in former days in
north-eastern Europe. Even the goods were probably of the same sort
at both places, perhaps, also, the stand-points of the culture of
the two races.

Besides the traders, a large number of Chukches from Kolyutschin
Island and other villages to the west, travelled past us with empty
sledges, to which were harnessed only a few dogs. They returned in
the course of a few days with their sledges fully laden with fish
which they said they had caught in a lagoon situated to the
eastward. They also sometimes sold a delicious variety of the
Coregonus taken in a lake in the interior some distance from the
coast.

Further on in winter a number of excursions were undertaken in
different directions, partly to find out these fishing places,
partly to get an idea of the mode of life of the reindeer Chukches.
I, however, never ventured to give permission for any long absence
from the vessel, because I was quite convinced that the sea round
the _Vega_ after a few days' constant southerly storm might become
open under circumstances which would not permit us to remain in the
open road where we lay moored, my comrades' desire to penetrate far
into the Chukch peninsula could not on that account be satisfied.
But short as these excursions were, they give us, however, much
information regarding our winter life, and our contact with the
little-known tribe, on the coast of whose homeland the _Vega_ had
been beset, and on that account, perhaps, there may be reasons for
making extracts from some of the reports given in to me with
reference to these journeys.

_Palander's and Kjellman's excursion to a reindeer Chukch camp
south-west of Pitlekaj_, is sketched by the former thus:--

    "On the 17th March, 1879, accompanied by Dr. Kjellman, I
    went out with a sledge and five men, among them a native
    as guide, to the reindeer Chukch camp in the neighbourhood
    of Taffelberg (Table Mountain), with a view to obtain
    fresh reindeer flesh. The expedition was fitted out with
    two days' provisions, tent, mattrasses, and _pesks_. The
    reindeer Chukches were met with eleven English miles from
    the vessel. On an eminence here were found two tents, of
    which one at the time was uninhabited. The other was
    occupied by the Chukch, Rotschitlen, his young wife, and
    another young pair, the latter, if I understood them
    right, being on a visit, and properly having their home at
    Irgunnuk.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE REGION ROUND THE "VEGA'S" WINTER QUARTERS.
Mainly after G. Bove 1. Rotschitlen's tent 2. Yettugin's tent. ]

    "Round the tent, which was considerably smaller than those
    we daily saw at the coast, lay a number of sledges piled
    up on one another. These sledges differed from the common
    dog-sledges in being considerably larger and wider in the
    gauge. The runners were clumsy and axed from large wood.

    "Our proposal to purchase reindeer was immediately
    declined, although we offered in exchange bread, tobacco,
    rum, and even guns. As a reason for this refusal they
    stated that the reindeer at this season of the year are
    too lean to be slaughtered. We saw about fifty reindeer
    pasturing on an eminence at a distance of several thousand
    feet from us.

    "In the afternoon Kjellman and I were invited into the
    tent, where we passed an hour in their sleeping chamber.
    On our entrance the lamp, which was filled with seal oil,
    was lighted, a sort of moss (sphagnum) was used as a wick.
    Our hostess endeavoured to make our stay in the tent as
    agreeable as possible, she rolled together reindeer skins
    for pillows and made ready for us a place where, stretched
    at full length, we might enjoy much needed repose. In the
    outer tent the other women prepared supper, which
    consisted of boiled seal's-flesh. We received a friendly
    invitation to share their meal, but as we had no taste for
    seal's-flesh, we declined their offer under the pretext
    that we had just had dinner. They took their meal lying
    with the body in the inner tent, but with the head under
    the reindeer-skin curtain in the outer, where the food
    was. After the meal was partaken of, their heads were
    drawn within the curtain, our host divested himself of all
    his clothes, the trousers excepted, which were allowed to
    remain. Our hostess let her _pesk_ fall down from her
    shoulders, so that the whole upper part of the body thus
    became bare. The reindeer-skin boots were taken off, and
    turned outside in, they were carefully dried and hung up
    in the roof over the lamp to dry during the night. We
    treated the women to some sugar, which, in consequence of
    their want of acquaintance with it, they at first examined
    with a certain caution, finding afterwards that it tasted
    exceeding well. After the meal our host appeared to become
    sleepy, we accordingly said good-night, and went to our
    own tent, where it was quite otherwise than warm, the
    temperature during the night being about -11° C.

    "After for the most part a sleepless night, we rose at
    half-past six next morning. When we came out of the tent
    we saw all the reindeer advancing in a compact troop. At
    the head was an old reindeer with large horns, that went
    forward to his master, who had in the meantime gone to
    meet the herd, and bade him good-morning by gently rubbing
    his nose against his master's hands. While this was going
    on the other reindeer stood drawn up in well-ordered
    ranks, like the crew in divisions on board a man-of-war.
    The owner then went forward and saluted every reindeer,
    they were allowed to stroke his hands with their noses. He
    on his part took every reindeer by the horn and examined
    it in the most careful way. After the inspection was ended
    at a sign given by the master the whole herd wheeled round
    and returned in closed ranks, with the old reindeer in
    front, to the previous day's pasture.

    "The whole scene made a very favourable impression on us,
    it was not the grim hard savage showing in a coarse and
    barbarous way his superiority over the animals, but the
    good master treating his inferiors kindly, and having a
    friendly word for each of them. Here good relations
    prevailed between man and the animals. Rotschitlen himself
    was a stately young man, with an intelligent appearance
    and a supple handsome figure. His dress, of exceedingly
    good cut and of uncommonly fine reindeer skin, sat close
    to his well-grown frame, and gave us an opportunity of
    seeing his graceful and noble bearing, which was most
    observable when he was in motion.

    "On our repeating our proposal to purchase reindeer we
    again met with a refusal, on which we struck our tent and
    commenced our return journey. We came on board on the 18th
    March at 3 o'clock P.M., after a march of four hours and
    three-quarters.

    "The way to the reindeer camp rose and fell gently. The
    snow was hard and even, so that we could go forward
    rapidly. On the way out four foxes and some ravens were
    seen. At one place we found a large number of lemming
    passages excavated through the snow in an oblique
    direction towards the ground. Most of them were scratched
    up by foxes. The descent to an untouched lemming nest was
    cylindrical, and four and a half centimetres in diameter.
    During both days we had snow, and a thick and foggy
    atmosphere, so that we could see only a short distance
    before us, we did not however go astray, thanks to the
    good eyes and strongly developed sense of locality of our
    guide, the native."

_Brusewitz's and Nordquist's Excursion to Nutschoitjin_

Of this Nordquist gives the following account:--

    "On the 20th March, at 9 o'clock A.M. Lieut Brusewitz,
    boatswain Lustig, the Norwegian hunters Johnsen and
    Sievertsen, the Chukch Notti, and I, left the _Vega_. Our
    equipment, which consisted of provisions for eight days,
    cooking apparatus, canvas tent, india-rubber mattrasses,
    reindeer-skin _pesks_, &c., we drew after us on a sledge.
    At 2.45 P.M. we came to Nutschoitjin (Coregonus Lake).
    During our journey we passed a river which flows between
    Nutschoitjin and the mountain Hotschkeanranga, about ten
    English miles south of this lake and falls into the great
    lagoon south of Prtlekaj. Farther into the interior this
    river, according to Notti's statement, flows through
    several lakes: he also informed us that in summer it
    abounds very much in salmon (_lienne_). Some sandy hills
    formed the watershed between it and Nutschoitjin. The only
    animal we saw during our outward journey was a fox. On the
    other hand we found traces of hares, ptarmigan, and a
    couple of lemmings. After we had found a suitable
    camping-place, we began to build a snow-house, which,
    however, we could not get ready till next day.

    "On the 21st Brusewitz and I went out to view our nearest
    surroundings. On a hill north of the lake, where
    Potentilla, Carex, and Poa stuck up through the
    snow-covering, we saw a large number of traces of the fox,
    the hare, and the ptarmigan. We employed the 22nd in
    cutting some holes in the ice, which was about one and a
    half metres thick, and in setting a net. For I wished to
    ascertain what species of Coregonus it is which, according
    to Notti's statement, occurs in abundance in this lake. At
    the place where the net was set there was something more
    than a metre of water under the ice The bottom consisted
    of mud. When we cut a hole in the middle of the lake in
    order to get deeper water we found that the ice, one and a
    half metres thick there, reached to the bottom.

    "Next morning we got in the net eleven Coregoni, of which
    the largest were about thirty-five centimetres long.
    Although the weather was grey and we could not see very
    far, we went the same day to the hill Hotschkeanranga;
    partly to determine its height, and partly from its
    summit, which is visible for a great distance, to get a
    view of the appearance of the surrounding country. After
    crossing the river which flows between Nutschoitjin and
    Hotchkeanranga, we began to ascend the long slope on whose
    summit Hotchkanrakenljeut (Hotchkeanranga's head) rises
    with steep sides above the surrounding country. Over the
    slope were scattered loose blocks of stone of an eruptive
    rock. The crest of "the head" was also closely covered
    with loose stones. On the north of wind side these stones
    were covered with a hard beaten crust of snow nearly two
    feet thick, on the south side most of them were bare.
    According to Brusewitz the southern slopes are still
    steeper than the northern. South of the hill he saw a
    large valley--probably a lake--through which flows the
    river which we crossed.

    "As on the outward journey I went with Notti, he advised
    me to offer a little food and brandy to the Spirit of the
    Lake, _itjaken kamak_, in order to get good net fishing.
    On my inquiring what appearance he had, Notti replied
    "_uinga lilapen_," "I have never seen him." Besides this
    spirit there are in his view others also in streams, in
    the earth, and in some mountains. The Chukches also
    sacrifice to the sun and moon. On the other hand they do
    not appear, as some other races, to pay any sort of
    worship to their departed friends. When I gave him a
    biscuit and bade him offer it, he made with the heel a
    little depression in the snow on Nutschoitjin, crumbled a
    little bit of the biscuit in pieces, and threw the crumbs
    into the hollow. The rest of the biscuit he gave back,
    declaring that _kamak_ did not require more, and that we
    should now have more fish in the net than the first time.
    Notti said also that the Chukches are wont to sacrifice
    something for every catch. Thus have probably arisen all
    the collections of bear and seal skulls and reindeer
    horns, which we often saw on the Chukch coast, especially
    on eminences.

    "After we had read off the aneroid, we speedily made our
    way to the snow-house, because during the interval a
    violent storm of drifting snow had arisen, so that we
    could not see more than half a score of paces before us.
    On the slope below "the head" we had already on our way
    thither seen traces of two wild reindeer. Notti said that
    there are a few of them on the hill the whole winter. The
    greater number, however, draw farther southward, and
    approach the coast only during summer. Johnson had wounded
    an owl (_Strix nyctea_), which however made its escape. On
    the 24th snow fell and drifted during the whole day, so
    that we could not go out to shoot. On the 25th we came on
    board again.

    "According to the aneroid observations made during the
    journey, the highest summit we visited had a height of 197
    metres."

_Lieutenant Bove's Account of an Excursion to Najtskaj and Tjapka._

    "On the 19th April, at 4 o'clock A.M. the hunter Johnsen
    and I started on a short excursion eastward along the
    coast, with a view to pay a visit to the much frequented
    fishing station Najtskaj, where our old friends from
    Pitlekaj had settled. We had a little sledge which we
    ourselves drew, and which was laden with provisions for
    three days and some meteorological and hydrographical
    instruments.

    "At 6 o'clock A.M. we reached Rirajtinop, where we found
    Notti, a serviceable, talented, and agreeable youth. The
    village Rirajtinop, which formerly consisted of a great
    many tents, now had only one tent, Notti's, and it was
    poor enough. It gave the inhabitants only a slight
    protection against wind and cold. Among household articles
    in the tent I noticed a face-mask of wood, less shapeless
    than those which according to Whymper's drawings are found
    among the natives along the river Youcon, in the territory
    of Alaska, and according to Dr. Simpson among the
    West-Eskimo. I learned afterwards that this mask came from
    Päk, Behring's Straits, whither it was probably carried
    from the opposite American shore.

[Illustration: THE SLEEPING CHAMBER IN A CHUKCH TENT.
(After a drawing by the seaman Hansson.) ]

    "The village Irgunnuk lies from three to four hundred
    metres from Rirajtinop, and consists of five tents, one of
    which two days before had been removed from Yinretlen. The
    tents are as usual placed on earthy eminences, and have if
    possible the entrance a couple of paces from some steep
    escarpment, manifestly in order that the door opening may
    not be too much obstructed with snow. I reckon the
    population of Irgunnuk at forty persons.

    "Off this village the ice is broken up even close to the
    land into _torosses_, five to six metres high, which form
    a chain which closely follows the shore for a distance of
    five to six hundred metres to the eastward. The coast from
    Irgunnuk to Najtskaj runs in a straight line, is low, and
    only now and then interrupted by small earthy eminences,
    which all bear traces of old dwellings. Each of these
    heights has its special name: first Uelkantinop, then
    Tiumgatti, and lastly Tiungo, two miles west of Najtskaj.
    In the neighbourhood of Uelkantinop we were overtaken by a
    reindeer-Chukch, who accompanied us to Najtskaj in order
    there to purchase fish and seal-blubber. At noon we
    reached Najtskaj, where our arrival had been announced by
    a native, who, with his dog-team, had driven past us on
    the way. Accordingly on our entrance we were surrounded by
    the youth of the village, who deafened us with then
    unceasing cries for bread (_kauka_), tobacco, _ram_, &c.
    After some moments the begging urchins were joined both by
    women and full-grown men. We entered a tent, which
    belonged to a friend or perhaps relation of Notti. There
    we were very well received. In the same tent the
    reindeer-Chukch also lodged who had given us his company
    on the way. He went into the sleeping chamber, threw
    himself down there, took part in the family's evening
    meal, all almost without uttering a word to the hostess,
    and the next morning he started without having saluted the
    host. Hospitality is here of a peculiar kind. It may
    perhaps be expressed thus _To-day I eat and sleep in your
    tent, to-morrow you eat and sleep in mine_; and
    accordingly, as far as I saw, all, both rich and poor,
    both those who travelled with large sledges, and those who
    walked on foot, were received in the same way. All are
    sure to find a corner in the tent-chamber.

[Illustration: CHUKCH LAMPS.
 _a._ Wooden cup to place under the lamp.
 _b._ Lamp of burned clay. One-fifth of the natural size. ]

    "The tent-chamber, or _yaranga_, as this part of the tent
    is called by the natives, takes up fully a third-part of
    the whole tent, and is at the same time work-room,
    dining-room, and sleeping chamber. Its form is that of a
    parallelepiped; and a moderately large sleeping chamber
    has a height of 1.80 metre, a length of 3.50, and a
    breadth of 2.20 metres. The walls are formed of reindeer
    skin with the hair inwards, which are supported by a
    framework of posts and cross-bars. The floor consists of a
    layer of grass undermost, on which a walrus skin is
    spread. The grass and the skin do not form a very soft
    bed, yet one on which even a tried European wanderer may
    find rest. The interior of the sleeping-chamber is lighted
    and warmed by lamps, whose number varies according to the
    size of the room. A moderately large chamber has three
    lamps, the largest right opposite the entrance, the two
    others on the cross walls. The lamps are often made of a
    sort of stone, which is called by the natives _ukulschi_.
    They have the form of a large ladle. The fuel consists of
    train-oil, and moss is used for the wick. These lamps
    besides require constant attention, because half-an-hour's
    neglect is sufficient to make them smoke or go out. The
    flame is at one corner of the lamp, whose moss wick is
    trimmed with a piece of wood of the shape shown in the
    drawing. The lamp rests on a foot, and it in its turn in a
    basin. In this way every drop of oil that may be possibly
    spilled is collected. If there is anything that this
    people ought to save, it is certainly oil, for this
    signifies to them both light and heat. In the roof of the
    bedchamber some bars are fixed over the lamps on which
    clothes and shoes are hung to dry. The lamps are kept
    alight the whole day, during night they are commonly
    extinguished, as otherwise they would require continual
    attention. Some clothes and fishing implements, two or
    three reindeer skins to rest upon--these are the whole
    furniture of a Chukch tent.

[Illustration: SECTION OF A CHUKCH LAMP. (After a drawing by G. Bove.)
 _a._ The oil.
 _b._ The wick.
 _c._ The foot.
 _d._ The basin under it.
 _e._ Stick for trimming the wick. ]

    "Every tent is besides provided with some drums (_yárar_).
    These are made of a wooden ring, about seventy centimetres
    in diameter, on which is stretched a skin of seal or
    walrus gut. The drum is beaten with a light stick of
    whalebone. The sound thus produced is melancholy, and is
    so in a yet higher degree when it is accompanied by the
    natives' monotonous, commonly rhythmical songs, which
    appear to me to have a strong resemblance to those we hear
    in Japan and China. A still greater resemblance I thought
    I observed in the dances of these peoples. Notti is a
    splendid _yárar_-player. After some pressing he played
    several of their songs with a feeling for which I had not
    given him credit. The auditors were numerous, and by their
    smiles and merry eyes one could see that they were
    transported by the sounds which Notti knew how to call
    from the drum. Notti was also listened to in deep silence,
    with an admiration like that with which in a large room we
    listen to a distinguished pianist. I saw in the tent no
    other musical instrument than that just mentioned.

[Illustration: CHUKCH SHAMAN DRUM. One eighth the natural size. ]

    "The day we arrived at Najtskaj we employed in viewing the
    neighbourhood of the village. We accordingly ascended a
    hill about thirty metres high to the south of the village
    in order to get a clear idea of the region. From the
    summit of the hill we had a view of the two lagoons west
    and east of Najtskaj. The western appeared, with the
    exception of some earthy heights, to embrace the whole
    stretch of coast between Najtskaj, the hill at Yinretlen,
    and the mountains which are visible in the south from the
    Observatory. The lagoon east of Najtskaj is separated from
    the sea by a high rampart of sand, and extends about
    thirty kilometres into the interior, to the foot of the
    chain of hills which runs along there. To the eastward the
    lagoon extends along the coast to the neighbourhood of
    Serdze Kamen. This cape was clearly seen and, according to
    an estimate which I do not think was far from the truth,
    was situated at a distance of from twenty-five to twenty-six
    kilometres from Najtskaj. It sinks terracewise towards the
    sea, and its sides are covered with stone pillars, like
    those we saw in the neighbourhood of Cape Great Baranoff.
    Serdze Kamen to the south is connected with mountain heights
    which are the higher the farther they are from the sea.
    Some of these have a conical form, others are table-shaped,
    reminding us of the Ambas of Abyssinia. Ten or twelve miles
    into the interior they appear to reach a height of
    six hundred to nine hundred metres.

    "The fishing in the eastern lagoon takes place mainly in
    the neighbourhood of Najtskaj, at a distance of about five
    kilometres from the village. Hooks are exclusively used,
    and no nets or other fishing implements. In a few minutes
    I saw twenty cod (_urokadlin_) caught, and about as many
    small fish, called by the natives _nukionukio_. For the
    fishing the natives make a hole in the ice, a decimetre in
    diameter. Round the hole they build, as a protection
    against wind and drifting snow, a snow wall eighty
    centimetres high, forming a circle with an inner diameter
    of a metre and a half. The fish-hooks are of iron and are
    not barbed. The line is about five metres long, and is
    fixed to a rod nearly a metre in length. At the end of the
    angling line hangs a weight of bone, and beside it the
    hook. It is generally the women who fish, yet there are
    generally two or three men about to open the holes, build
    the walls, and keep the fishing-places clear. All the
    holes with their shelter-walls lie in an arc, about a
    kilometre in length, whose convex side is turned to the
    east. The ice in the lagoon was 1.7 metre thick, the water
    3.2 metres deep, and the thickness of snow on the ice 0.3
    metre.

[Illustration: THE COAST BETWEEN PADLJONNA AND ENJURMI.
To the west Idlidlja Island, in the background the village Tjapka,
to the right the great lagoon. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

    "The day after our arrival at Najtskaj we visited the
    village Tjapka, which lies at a distance of six
    kilometres. This village contains thirteen tents, some of
    which are more roomy and better built than any Chukch tent
    I have previously seen. We lodged in a tent which belonged
    to Erere, a friendly man with a face that was always
    cheerful. His sleeping-chamber was so large that it could
    hold more than one family. We found the inmates there
    completely naked, Erere's wife, Kedlanga, not excepted.
    Kedlanga was well formed, her bosom full, her stomach
    somewhat projecting, the thighs poor, the legs slender,
    the feet small. The men appeared to have a greater
    disposition to stoutness than the women. Some of the
    children had disproportionately large stomachs. Both men
    and women wore copper rings on the legs, the wrists, and
    the upper arms. On festivals they decorate themselves with
    iron rings, with which some reminiscence appears to be
    connected, to judge by the fact that they will not part
    with them.

    "Erere's family was very numerous, according to the
    prevailing state of matters here. He had five children,
    whose names, according to their age, were, Hatanga,
    Etughi, Vedlat, Uai, and Umonga. In all the tents which I
    visited I have inquired the number of children. Only two
    or three wives had more than three; the average may be
    estimated at two.

[Illustration: BRACELET OF COPPER. Half the natural size. ]

    "The children are from their tenderest years set apart for
    each other, thus Etughi, Erere's second son, who was
    little more than eight, was set apart for Keipteka, a girl
    of six or seven. Etughi and Keipteka slept under the same
    roof, though apart. "When they grow bigger," said Erere to
    me, "then sleeping-places will be put alongside each
    other". At what age this takes place I have not
    ascertained, but I suppose that it is very early, as is
    common with all Oriental races.

    "Right opposite Tjapka lies a small island, by the natives
    called Idlidlja, which is about 800 metres in
    circumference. Its shores rise perpendicularly on all
    sides except that which is opposite Tjapka, in which
    direction it sinks with a steep slope. On the north end of
    it we found three or four whales' bones and some pieces of
    driftwood, but nothing to indicate that there had been any
    Onkilon dwellings there. The island swarmed with hares,
    which the inhabitants of Tjapka hunt with the bow. For
    this hunting they are accustomed to build circular walls
    of snow, pierced with loopholes, through which they shoot
    the unsuspecting animals.

    "Regarding life in the tent I have still the following
    notes. The most troublesome work is given to the older
    women. They rise early to light and attend to the lamps,
    yoke the dogs, and go fishing. The young women, on the
    other hand, sleep far into the day. The housewives return
    at noon, then work is then finished, if we do not consider
    as work the constant motion of the tongue in talk and
    gossip. The younger people have it assigned to them to sew
    clothes, arrange the fishing-lines and nets, prepare
    skins, &c. Sewing-thread is made from the back sinews of
    the reindeer, which they procure by barter from the
    reindeer-Chukches, giving for them fish and seal-blubber.

[Illustration: THE NORTH END OF IDLIDLJA ISLAND. (After a drawing by
O. Nordquist.) ]

    "One cannot, without having seen it, form any idea of the
    large quantity of food they can consume. One evening I saw
    eight persons, including one child, eat about 30 lbs. of
    food. The bill of fare was: 1, raw fish; 2, soup; 3,
    boiled fish; 4, seal-blubber; 5, seal-flesh. The raw fish
    commonly consists of frozen cod. The soup is made partly
    of vegetables, partly of seal-blood; I saw both kinds.
    Vegetable soup was prepared by boiling equal quantities of
    water and vegetables, till the mixture formed a thick pap.
    The blood soup is cooked by boiling the blood together
    with water, fish, and fat. They are very fond of this
    soup. The seal-blubber they eat by stuffing into the mouth
    the piece which has been served to them, and then cutting
    a suitable mouthful with the knife, which they bring close
    to the lips. In the same way they do with the flesh.

    "With the exception of the old women's gossip the greatest
    quietness prevails in the sleeping-chamber. It is not
    uncommon for men to visit each other. Thus the first night
    we spent at Najtskaj the tent where we lodged was full of
    people, but without the least disturbance arising. If one
    had anything to say he talked in quite a low tone, as if
    he were shy. He was listened to attentively, without any
    interruption. First when he had finished another began.

    "Affection between spouses and parents and children is
    particularly strong. I have seen fathers kiss and caress
    their children before they went to rest, and what I found
    most remarkable was that the children never abused this
    tender treatment. Whatever one gave them, it was their
    first thought to divide it with their parents. In this
    respect and in many others they were far in advance of a
    large number of European children."

_Lieutenant Bove's Report on an Excursion along with Dr. Almquist to
the Interior of the Chukch Peninsula, from the 13th to the 17th
June, 1879._

    "We started from the vessel on the morning of the 13th June
    with a view to penetrate as far as possible into the
    interior of the Chukch peninsula. For the journey we had
    hired, for a liberal payment, two sledges drawn by dogs
    from Rotschitlen, a Chukch at Irgunnuk. The dogs and
    sledges surpassed our expectation. In fourteen hours we
    traversed a distance of nearly forty minutes, including
    bends, which corresponds to a speed of three, perhaps four,
    English miles an hour, if we deduct the rests which were
    caused by the objects of the journey--scientific
    researches. This speed strikes me as not inconsiderable,
    if we consider the weight which the dogs must draw, and
    the badness and unevenness of the way. For the ground was
    undulating, like a sea agitated by a storm. But pleased as
    we were with our sledges and dogs, we were as dissatisfied
    with Rotschitlen, a faint-hearted youth, without activity
    or experience. With another driver we might have been able
    in a few days to penetrate as far as the bottom of
    Kolyutschin Bay, which differs greatly in its form, from
    that which Russian, English, and German maps give to it.
    It is not improbable that it is almost connected by lakes,
    lagoons, and rivers with St. Lawrence Bay or Metschigme
    Bay, whose inner parts are not yet investigated.

    "After we left the lagoons at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, the
    coast began gradually to rise by escarpments, each about
    five metres in height. The plains between the escarpments
    are full of lagoons or marshes. Such a terrain continued
    until, about five hours' way from the vessel, we came to a
    height of twenty-seven metres. From this point the
    terrace-formations cease, and the terrain then consists of
    a large number of ranges of heights, intersected by
    rivulets, which during the snow-melting season must be very
    much flooded. Seven or eight hours' way from the vessel we
    met with such a rivulet, which farther to the S.S.E. unites
    with another which runs between two rocky escarpments
    twenty metres high. On one of these we pitched our tent, in
    order to draw and examine some hills which were already
    divested of the winter dress they had worn for nine long
    months. On the top of one of the hills we found marks of
    two recently-struck tents, which probably belonged to a
    reindeer Chukch, who had now settled halfway between
    Pitlekaj and Table Mount upon a chain of heights which
    appears to separate the Irgunnuk lagoon from the rocky
    eastern shore of Kolyutschin Bay. At our resting place we
    found a large number of reindeer horns and a heap of broken
    bones.

    "After resuming our journey we came in a short time to the
    foot of Table Mount, whose height I reckoned at 180 meters.
    It slopes gently to the west and south (about 10°),
    but more steeply to the east and north (about 15°).
    The animal world there showed great activity. In less than
    an hour we saw more than a dozen foxes that ran up and down
    the hills and circled round us, as if they ran with a line.
    Fortunately for them they kept at a respectful distance from
    our doctor's sure gun.

    "On the other side of Table Mount the ground sinks
    regularly towards Kolyutschin Bay. Here for a while we
    sought in vain for Yettugin's tent, in which we intended to
    pass the night, and which had been fixed upon as the
    starting-point of future excursions, till at last reindeer
    traces and afterwards the sight of some of these friendly
    animals brought us to the right way, so that about 9
    o'clock P.M. we got sight of the longed-for dwelling in the
    middle of a snow-desert. At the word _yaranga_ (tent) the
    dogs pointed their ears, uttered a bark of joy, and ran at
    full speed towards the goal. We arrived at 10.30 P.M. In
    the tent we were hospitably received by its mistress, who
    immediately made the necessary preparations for our
    obtaining food and rest. Yettugin himself was not at home,
    but he soon returned with a sledge drawn by reindeer. These
    animals had scarcely been unharnessed when they ran back to
    the herd, which according to Yettugin's statement was six
    kilometres east of the tent.

    "I have never seen a family so afflicted with ailments as
    Yettugin's. The sexagenarian father united in himself
    almost all the bodily ailments which could fall to the lot
    of a mortal. He was blind, leprous (?), and had no use of
    the left hand, the right side of the face, and probably of
    the legs. His body was nearly everywhere covered with the
    scars of old sores from four to five centimetres in
    diameter. As Dr. Almquist and I were compelled to pass the
    night in the same confined sleeping-chamber with him, it
    was therefore not to be wondered at that we drew ourselves
    as much as possible into our corner. The sleeping-chamber
    or inner tent of a reindeer-Chukch is besides much more
    habitable than that of a coast-Chukch, the air, if not
    exactly pure, may at least be breathed, and the thick layer
    of reindeer skins which covers the tent floor may well
    compare in softness with our beds on board. Yettugin, his
    wife Tengaech, and his brother Keuto, slept out of doors in
    order to give us more room and not to disturb us when
    rising. Keuto had inherited no small portion of his
    father's calamity. He was deaf, half idiotic, and on his
    body there were already traces of such spots as on the old
    man's. Keuto was however an obliging youth, who during our
    stay in the tent did all that he could to be of use to us,
    and constantly wandered about to get buds and plants for
    us. He was a skilful archer; I saw him at a distance of
    twenty or twenty-five paces kill a small bird with a blunt
    arrow, and when I placed myself as a target he hit me right
    in the middle of the breast at a distance of perhaps thirty
    metres.

    "The 14th was employed by me in astronomical and geodetical
    observations, and by Dr. Almquist in excursions in the
    neighbourhood of Yettugin's tent in order to investigate
    the fauna and flora of the neighbourhood. About 10 o'clock
    P.M. he returned, quite exhausted after eight hours'
    walking in deep water-drenched snow under a perceptible
    solar heat. The results of the excursion were in all
    respects exceedingly good, not only in consequence of a
    number of _finds_ in natural history, but also through the
    discovery that the shore of Kolyutschin Bay runs
    three-quarters of a mile south-west of Yettugin's tent,
    which was situated in 66° 42' 4" North Lat, and 186°
    24' 0" Long, east from Greenwich. Dr. Almquist had
    walked four or five miles along the eastern shore of the
    bay, which at most places is perpendicular with a height of
    fifteen metres. In consequence of this discovery we
    determined to continue our hydrographical observations as
    far as the bottom of the bay, which, according to
    Yettugin's account, was two days' march from the tent.
    But we could not carry out our plan in consequence of our
    guide's laziness, for he declared that on no conditions
    would he accompany us farther. Neither entreaties nor
    threats availed to disturb this his resolution. I
    endeavoured myself to drive the sledges, but the dogs would
    not move out of the spot, though, following Rotschitlen's
    system, I thrashed them very soundly.

    "The place where Yettugin's tent was pitched offered us a
    view of an extensive snow-plain, which was enclosed on all
    sides by high hills. In the north and north-east Table
    Mount and the Tenen hill keep off the north winds, and to
    the south the encampment is protected by a long and high
    mountain chain from the winds coming from that quarter. I
    calculated the height of some of the mountains at from 1200
    to 1500 metres, and their azure-blue colour furrowed by
    dark lines appeals to me to indicate the presence of ice on
    the slopes. One of the summits of this mountain chain was
    easily recognisable. It was a truncated cone, perhaps 1500
    metres high. Kolyutschin Bay lies between these mountains
    and Yettugin's tent. Its western shore also appears to rise
    perpendicularly from the sea, and it is higher than the
    eastern. The bay, which appears to be much larger than it
    is represented on the maps, was covered with level ice,
    only here and there a piece of ice covered with snow was
    seen sticking up.

    "As we were forced to desist from visiting the interior of
    Kolyutschin Bay, we determined to go to the ground where
    Yettugin's reindeer pastured. We therefore left the tent on
    the evening of the 15th and travelled E.N.E. The warmth,
    which had now commenced, began to make travelling over snow
    fields difficult, the dogs sank to the stomach, and not
    unfrequently we had to alight in order to help the poor
    animals to climb the hills we were obliged to ascend.
    Scarcely however had they come to the reindeer tracks
    before even the most exhausted of them rushed along at the
    top of their speed, which might be pleasant enough uphill,
    but when they were coming down it was very dangerous,
    because the slope nearly always ends with a steep
    escarpment. We came once, without observing it, to the edge
    of such a precipice, and if we had not succeeded in time in
    slackening our speed a nice confused mass of men, dogs,
    and sledges would have tumbled over it. In order to excite
    their draught animals the Chukches avail themselves of
    their dogs' inclination to run after the reindeer, and
    during their journeys they endeavour to spur them on yet
    more by now and then imitating the reindeer's cry. After
    two or three hours travelling we fell in with the first
    reindeer, and then by degrees with more and more, until
    finally about 11 o'clock P.M. we came to a numerous herd,
    tended by Yettugin. I applied to him, asking him to barter
    a reindeer in good condition for a gun which I had brought
    along with me. After various evasions Yettugin at length
    promised to give us next day the reindeer for the gun. He
    would not however himself, or with his own knife, kill the
    reindeer, on which account I requested Dr. Almquist to give
    it the _coup de grâce_.

    "In consequence of the soft state of the snow we were
    obliged to defer the commencement of our return journey to
    the evening of the 16th. We now travelled over the chain of
    hills which unites Table Mount with Tenen, and descended
    their northern steep slope towards an extensive plain,
    studded for the most part with bogs and marshes. The 17th
    came in with mist and considerable warmth. The mist limited
    the circle of vision to a distance of some few metres, and
    the high temperature in a short time destroyed the crust
    which had been formed in the course of the preceding night
    on the surface of the snow, and melted the layers of snow
    which still covered the northern slopes of these two hills.
    The southern slopes on the other hand were almost quite
    bare, and the valleys began to be filled with water. Four
    or five days as warm as these and I believe there scarcely
    would be any snow remaining round Kolyutschin Bay. The
    illusions caused by the white fog illuminated by the
    sunlight were very astonishing. Every small spot of ground
    appeared as an extensive snow-free field, every tuft of
    grass as a bush, and a fox in our immediate neighbourhood
    was for a moment taken for a gigantic bear. Besides, during
    such a fog the action of the sunlight on the eyes was
    exceedingly painful even in the case of those who carried
    preservers. During the return Rotschitlen lost his way in
    consequence of the numerous different tracks. Fortunately I
    had observed how we travelled, and could with the help of
    the compass pilot our two small craft to a good haven. On
    the 17th of June at 1.30 P.M. we were again in good
    condition on board the _Vega_."

In the society on board the prospects of an alteration in the
constant north winds, the perpetual snow-storms and the unceasing
cold, and the hope of a speedy release from the fetters of the ice,
were naturally constantly recurring topics of conversation. During
this time many lively word-battles were fought between the weather
prophets in the gunroom, and many bets made in jest between the
optimists and pessimists. The former won a great victory, when at
noon on the 8th February the temperature lose to + 0.1° C.,
but with the exception of this success fortune always went against
them. The north wind, the drifting snow and the cold, would never
cease. A blue water-sky indeed was often visible at the horizon to
the north and north-east, but the "clearing" first reached our
vessel a couple of hours before we left our winter haven for ever,
and up to the 15th June the thickness of the ice was almost
undiminished (1-1/2 metre) The sun rose higher and higher, but
without forming any crust upon the snow, although upon the black
hull of the _Vega_, perhaps with the help of the heat in the
interior, it had by the 14th March melted so much snow that small
icicles were formed at the gunwale. It was one of the many deceptive
prognostications of spring which were hailed with delight. However,
immediately after severe cold recommenced and continued during the
whole of the month of April, during which the temperature of the an
never rose above -4.6°, the mean temperature being -18.9°.

May began with a temperature of -20.1°. On the 3rd the
thermometer showed -26.8°, and in the "flower-month" we had
only for a few hours mild weather with an air temperature +1.8°.
Even the beginning of June was very cold, on the 3rd we
had -14.3°, with a mean temperature for the twenty-four hours
of -9.4°. Still on the 13th the thermometer at midnight showed
-8.0°, but the same day at noon with a gentle southerly wind a
sudden change took place, and after that date it was only
exceptionally that the thermometer in the open air sank below the
freezing-point. The melting and evaporation of snow now began, and
went on so rapidly that the land in the end of the month was almost
free of snow.

Under what circumstances this took place is shown by the following
abstract of the observations of temperature at Pitlekaj from the
13th June to the 18th July, 1879:--

         Max     Min    Mean          Max    Min    Mean
          °       °      °             °      °      °
June 13 +3.6    -8.0   -1.95  July 1 +0.8   -0.6   +0.07
     14 +2.6    +0.2   +1.47       2 +1.1   -1.0   +0.40
     15 +3.1    +1.7   +2.28       3 +5.0   +1.0   +2.28
     16 +1.6    -0.6   +0.90       4 +3.8   +1.4   +2.68
     17 +3.0    +0.2   +1.22       5 +5.2   +2.0   +3.60
     18 +2.4    -0.6   +1.23       6 +8.6   +1.0   +2.28
     19 +3.6    +1.4   +2.43       7 +5.0   +1.4   +2.68
     20 +3.5    +1.7   +2.50       8 +8.6   +0.6   +4.82
     21 +2.6    +1.5   +2.07       9 +1.8   +0.4   +0.97
     22 +3.0    +1.5   +2.28      10 +1.4   +0.5   +0.90
     23 +4.1    +1.8   +3.00      11 +1.4   +0.6   +1.00
     24 +6.8    +0.9   +3.18      12 +9.0   +0.5   +4.73
     25 +4.4    +0.4   +2.30      13 +6.5   +3.7   +5.03
     26 +3.8    +0.6   +1.77      14 +5.4   +1.8   +3.68
     27 +1.4    +0.7   +1.02      15 +1.6   +0.6   +1.13
     28 +2.1    +0.2   +0.92      16 +3.0   +0.6   +1.52
     29 +0.9    -1.0   +0.12      17 +11.5  +8.8   +7.80
     30 +1.0    -1.8   -0.27      18 +9.2   +6.2   +7.52


The figures in the maximum column, it will be seen, are by no means
very high. That the enormous covering of snow, which the north winds
had heaped on the beach, could disappear so rapidly notwithstanding
this low temperature probably depends on this, that a large portion
of the heat which the solar rays bring with them acts directly in
melting the snow without sun-warmed air being used as an
intermediate agent or heat-carrier, partly also on the circumstance
that the winds prevailing in spring come from the sea to the
southward, and before they reach the north coast pass over
considerable mountain heights in the interior of the country. They
have therefore the nature of _föhn_ winds, that is to say, the whole
mass of air, which the wind carries with it, is heated, and its
relative humidity is slight, because a large portion of the water
which it originally contained has been condensed in passing over the
mountain heights. Accordingly when the dry _föhn_ winds prevail, a
considerable evaporation of the snow takes place. The slight content
of watery vapour in the atmosphere diminishes its power of absorbing
the solar heat, and instead increases that portion of it which is
found remaining when the sun's rays penetrate to the snowdrifts, and
there conduce, not to raise the temperature, but to convert the snow
into water. [261]


The aurora is, as is well-known, a phenomenon at the same time
cosmic and terrestrial, which on the one hand is confined within the
atmosphere of our globe and stands in close connection with
terrestrial magnetism, and on the other side is dependent on certain
changes in the envelope of the sun, the nature of which is as yet
little known, and which are indicated by the formation of spots on
the sun; the distinguished Dutch physicist, VON BAUMHAUER, has even
placed the occurrence of the aurora in connection with cosmic
substances which fall in the form of dust from the interstellar
spaces to the surface of the earth. Thus splendid natural phenomenon
besides plays, though unjustifiably, a great _rôle_ in imaginative
sketches of winter life in the high north, and it is in the popular
idea so connected with the ice and snow of the Polar lands, that
most of the readers of sketches of Arctic travel would certainly
consider it an indefensible omission if the author did not give an
account of the aurora as seen from his winter station. The
scientific man indeed knows that this neglect has, in most cases,
been occasioned by the great infrequency of the strongly luminous
aurora just in the Franklin archipelago on the north coast of
America, where most of the Arctic winterings of this century have
taken place, but scarcely any journey of exploration has at all
events been undertaken to the uninhabited regions of the high north,
which has not in its working plan included the collection of new
contributions towards dealing up the true nature of the aurora and
its position in the heavens. But the scientific results have seldom
corresponded to the expectations which had been entertained. Of
purely Arctic expeditions, so far as I know, only two, the
Austrian-Hungarian to Franz Josef Land (1872-74) and the Swedish to
Mussel Bay (1872-73), have returned with full and instructive lists
of auroras[262] Ross, PARRY, KANE, McCLINTOCK, HAYES, NARES, and
others, have on the other hand only had opportunities of registering
single auroras; the phenomenon in the case of their winterings has
not formed any distinctive trait of the Polar winter night. It was
the less to be expected that the _Vega_ expedition would form an
exception in this respect, as its voyage happened during one of the
years of which we knew beforehand that it would be a minimum aurora
year. It was just this circumstance, however, which permitted me to
study, in a region admirably suited for the purpose, a portion of
this natural phenomenon under uncommonly favourable circumstances.
For the luminous arcs, which even in Scandinavia generally form
starting-points for the radiant auroras, have here exhibited
themselves undreamed by the more splendid forms of the aurora I have
thus, undisturbed by subsidiary phenomena, been able to devote
myself to the collection of contributions towards the ascertaining
of the position of these luminous arcs, and I believe that I have in
this way come to some very remarkable conclusions, which have been
developed in detail in a separate paper printed in _The Scientific
Work of the Vega Expedition_ (Part I. p. 400). Here space permits me
only to make the following statement.

The appearance of the aurora at Behring's Straits in 1878-79 is shown in
the accompanying woodcuts. We never saw here the magnificent bands or
draperies of rays which we are so accustomed to in Scandinavia, but only
halo-like luminous arcs, which hour after hour, day after day, were
unaltered in position. When the sky was not clouded over and the faint
light of the aurora was not dimmed by the rays of the sun or the full
moon, these arcs commonly began to show themselves between eight and
nine o'clock P.M., and were then seen without interruption during
midwinter till six, and farther on in the year to three o'clock in
the morning. It follows from this that the aurora even during a minimum
year is a permanent natural phenomenon. The nearly unalterable position
of the arcs has further rendered possible a number of measurements of
its height, extent, and position from which I believe I may draw the
following inferences that our globe even during a minimum aurora year is
adorned with an almost constant, single, double, or multiple luminous
crown, whose inner edge is situated at a height of about 200 kilometres
or 0.03 radius of the earth above its surface, whose centre, "the
aurora-pole," lies somewhat under the earth's surface, a little north of
the magnetic-pole, and which, with a diameter of 2,000 kilometres or 0.3
radius of the earth, extends in a plane perpendicular to the radius of
the earth, which touches the centre of the circle.

[Illustration: THE COMMON AURORA ARC AT THE "VEGA'S" WINTER
QUARTERS. ]

[Illustration: AURORA AT THE "VEGA'S" WINTERER QUARTERS, 3RD MARCH
1879, AT 9 P.M. ]

[Illustration: DOUBLE AURORA ARCS SEEN 20TH MARCH 1879,
AT 9.30 P.M. ]

[Illustration: ELLIPTIC AURORA SEEN 21ST MARCH, 1879, AT 2.15 A.M. ]

[Illustration: ELLIPTIC AURORA SEEN 21ST MARCH, 1879, AT 3 A.M. ]

I have named this luminous crown _the aurora glory_ on account of
its form and its resemblance to the crown of rays round the head of
a saint. It stands in the same relation to the ray and drapery
auroras of Scandinavia as the trade and monsoon winds in the south
to the irregular winds and storms of the north. The light of the
crown itself is never distributed into rays, but resembles the light
which passes through obscured glass. When the aurora is stronger,
the extent of the light-crown is altered double or multiple arcs are
seen, generally lying in about the same plane and with a common
centre, and rays are cast between the different arcs. Arcs are
seldom seen which lie irregularly to or cross each other.

The area in which the common arc is visible is bounded by two circles
drawn upon the earth's surface, with the aurora-pole for a centre and
radii of 8° and 28° measured on the circumference of the globe. It
touches only to a limited extent countries inhabited by races of
European origin (the northernmost part of Scandinavia, Iceland, Danish
Greenland), and even in the middle of this area there is a belt passing
over middle Greenland, South Spitzbergen, and Franz Josef Land, where
_the common arc_ forms only a faint, very widely extended, luminous veil
in the zenith, which perhaps is only perceptible by the winter darkness
being there considerably diminished. This belt divides the regions where
these luminous arcs are seen principally to the south from those in
which they mainly appear on the northern horizon. In the area next the
aurora-pole only the smaller, in middle Scandinavia only the larger,
more irregularly formed luminous crowns are seen. But in the latter
region, as in southern British America, aurora storms and ray and
drapery auroras are instead common, and these appear to be nearer the
surface of the earth than the arc aurora. Most of the Polar expeditions
have wintered so near the aurora-pole that _the common aurora arc_ there
lay under or quite near the horizon, and as the ray aurora appears to
occur seldom within this circle, the reason is easily explained why the
winter night was so seldom illuminated by the aurora at the winter
quarters of these expeditions, and why the description of this
phenomenon plays so small a part in their sketches of travel.

[Illustration: SONG BIRDS IN THE RIGGING OF THE "VEGA." May 1879. ]


Long before the ground became bare and mild weather commenced,
migratory birds began to arrive, first the snow-bunting on the 23rd
April, then large flocks of geese, eiders, long-tailed ducks,
gulls, and several kinds of waders and song-birds. First among the
latter was the little elegant _Sylvia Ewersmanni_, which in the
middle of June settled in great flocks on the only dark spot which
was yet to be seen in the quarter--the black deck of the _Vega_.
All were evidently much exhausted, and the first the poor things did
was to look out convenient sleeping places, of which there is
abundance in the rigging of a vessel when small birds are concerned.
I need scarcely add that our new guests, the forerunners of spring,
were disturbed on board as little as possible.

We now began industriously to collect material for a knowledge of
the avi- and mammal-fauna of the region. The collections, when this
is being written, are not yet worked out, and I can therefore only
make the following statement on this point:

From the acquaintance I had made during my own preceding journeys and
the study of others', with the bird-world of the high north, I had got
the erroneous idea that about the same species of birds are to be met
with everywhere in the Polar lands of Europe, Asia, and America.
Experience gained during the expedition of the _Vega_ shows that this is
by no means the case, but that the north-eastern promontory of Asia, the
Chukch peninsula, forms in this respect a complete exception. Birds
occur here in much fewer numbers, but with a very much greater variety
of types than on Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen, and Greenland, in
consequence of which the bird-world on the Chukch peninsula has in its
entirety a character differing wholly from that of the Atlantic Polar
lands. We indeed meet here with types closely allied to the glaucous
gull (_Larus glaucus_, Brünn), the ivory gull (_L. eburneus_, Gmel.),
the kittiwake (_L. tridactylus_, L.), the long-tailed duck (_Harelda
glacialis_, L.), the king duck (_Somateria spectabilis_, L.),[263] the
phalarope (_Phalaropus fulicarius_, Bonap.), the purple sandpiper
(_Tringa maritima_, Brünn.), &c., of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, but
along with these are found here many peculiar species, for instance the
American eider (_Somateria V-nigrum_, Gray), a swanlike goose, wholly
white with black wing points (_Anser hyperboreus_, Pall.), a
greyish-brown goose with bushy yellowish-white feather-covering on the
head (_Anser pictus_, Pall), a species of Fuligula, elegantly coloured
on the head in velvet-black, white, and green, (_Fuligula Stelleri_,
Pall), the beautifully marked, scarce _Larus Rossii_, Richards, of
which Dr. Almquist on the 1st July, 1879, shot a specimen from the
vessel, a little brown sandpiper with a spoonlike widened bill-point
(_Eurynorhynchus pygmæus_, L.) and various song-birds not found in
Sweden, &c. Besides, a number of the Scandinavian types living here
also, according to Lieutenant Nordquist, are distinguished by less
considerable differences in colour-marking and size. The singular
spoon-billed sandpiper was at one time in spring so common that it was
twice served at the gunroom table, for which after our return home we
had to endure severe reproaches from animal collectors. This bird is
found only in some few museums. It was first described by LINNÆUS in
_Museum Adolphi Friderici, Tomi secundi predromus_, Holmiæ 1764, and
then by C.P. THUNBERG in the _Transactions_ of the Swedish Academy of
Sciences for 1816 (p. 194), where it is stated that the homeland of this
bird is tropical America. It has since been caught a few times in
south-eastern Asia. Probably, like _Sylvia Ewersmanni_, it passes the
winter in the Philippine group of islands, but in summer visits the high
north. Like several other birds which appeared in spring with the first
bare spots it disappeared in July. Perhaps it retired to the interior to
breed in the bush, or, which is more probable, went farther north to the
islands or continents not yet discovered by Europeans, which in all
probability connect Wrangel Land with the Franklin Archipelago.

[Illustration: SPOON BILLED SANDPIPER FROM CHURCH LAND.
_Eurynorhynchus pygmæus_, L. At the side the bird's bill seen from
above, of the natural size. ]

The higher animal forms which, along with the Polar traveller, dare
to brave the cold and darkness of the Arctic night, exert on him a
peculiar attraction. Regarding these, Lieutenant Nordquist has given
me the following notes:--

    "The mammal most common in winter on the north coast of the
    Chukch peninsula is the _hare_. It differs from the fell
    hare (_Lepus borealis_, Lillj.) by its larger size, and by
    the bones of its nose not tapering so rapidly. It is
    generally met with in flocks of five or six on the hills in
    the neighbourhood of the tents, which are covered only with
    a thin layer of snow, notwithstanding the large number of
    hungry dogs which wander about there.

    "The _Arctic foxes_ (_Vulpes lagopus_, L.) are very
    numerous. The common _fox_ (_Vulpes vulgaris_, Gray)
    appears also to be common. A red fox, which Lieutenant
    Brusewitz shot from the vessel in October, differed
    considerably from the common fox, and approached the Arctic
    fox. The food of the fox appears in winter to consist of
    hares, ptarmigan, and lemmings. I have twice seen holes in
    the snow about a metre deep and at the mouth not more than
    thirty centimetres wide, which the Chukches said were
    excavated by foxes searching for lemmings.

    "Of the _lemming_ I have seen three varieties, viz. _Myodes
    obensis, M. torquatus_, and _Arvicola obscurus_. There is
    found here, also, according to the statements of the
    Chukches, a little mouse, in all probability a Sorex.
    _Myodes torquatus_ were got the first time on the 12th
    January, _Myodes obensis_ on the 13th February. Both
    species were afterwards frequently brought on board by
    Chukches, and during the winter lemmings were seen not
    unfrequently running on the snow. _Myodes obensis_ appeared
    to be more numerous than the other species. It is singular
    that all the nine specimen of _Myodes torquatus_ I obtained
    during the winter were males. Differing from both these
    species, _Arvicola obscurus_ does not appear to show itself
    above the snow during winter. Of the latter I got eight
    specimens from the village Tjapka, lying between Yinretlen
    and Behring's Straits. I afterwards got another from the
    village Irgunnuk, situated five English miles east of
    Yinretlen.

[Illustration: MARMOTS FROM CHUKCH LAND. ]

    "The more uncommon land mammals wintering in these regions
    are the _wolf_ and the _wild reindeer_. Footprints of the
    latter were seen on the 23nd March, in the mountain region,
    fifteen to twenty miles south of Yinretlen. According to
    the Chukches' account some few reindeer remain on the hills
    along the coast, while the greater number migrate
    southwards towards winter. Besides these, two other mammals
    live here during winter, though they are only seen during
    summer and autumn, because they hibernate the rest of the
    time. These are the _land bear_ and the _marmot_ (_Arctomys
    sp._). We saw no land bear, but on the 8th October
    Lieutenant Hovgaard and I found traces of this animal two
    or three English miles from the coast. The Chukches say
    that the land bear is not uncommon in summer. The marmot
    occurs in large numbers. It was brought on board for the
    first time by a Chukch, and the following day I myself saw
    it sitting on the top of a little hill, where it had its
    dwelling.

    "Besides the animals enumerated above the natives talked of
    another, which is called by them _nennet_, and is said to
    live by the banks of rivers. According to their description
    it appears to be the common _otter_. As at most places
    where the lemming is common the _weasel_ (_Mustela
    vulgaris_, Briss.) is also found here. I got from the
    Chukches two skins of this animal. Whether the beaver
    occurs in the part of Chukch Land which we visited I cannot
    say with certainty. It is probable, because the Chukches
    informed me that there was found here a weasel which has
    the point of the tail black.

    "Only two sea mammals have been seen in this region in the
    course of the winter, viz. the _rough_ or _bristled seal_
    and the _Polar bear_. On two occasions traces of the latter
    have been observed in the neighbourhood of land. They
    appear, however, for the most part to keep by openings in
    the ice farther out to sea, where during our stay two of
    them were killed by Chukches from the neighbouring
    villages. The rough seal is probably the only species that
    occurs near the coast during winter. It is caught in great
    numbers, and forms, along with fish and various vegetable
    substances, the main food of the Chukches.

    "Of land birds there winter in the region only three
    species, viz. an _owl_ (_Strix nyctea_, L.), a _raven_
    (_Corvus sp._), and a _ptarmigan_ (_Lagopus subalpina_,
    Nilss.); the last-named is the most common. On the 14th
    December, during a sledge journey into the country I saw,
    about ten or twelve English miles from the coast, two large
    coveys of ptarmigan, one of which probably numbered over
    fifty. Nearer the coast, on the other hand, there were
    found, especially during spring, for the most part only
    single birds. The raven is common at the Chukch villages,
    and builds its nest in the neighbouring cliffs. The first
    egg was got on the 31st May. The mountain owl was seen for
    the first time on the 11th March, but, according to the
    statements of the Chukches, it is to be met with during the
    whole winter. In April and May we also saw some mountain
    owls, on the 21st May I saw two.

    "At open places in the sea there are found here in winter,
    the Chukches say, two swimming birds, the _loom_ (_Uria
    Brünnichii_, Sabine) and the _Black guillemot_ (_Uria
    grylle_, L.) Of the former we obtained two specimens for
    the first time on the 1st May, of the latter on the 19th of
    the same month. Possibly there winter in open places of the
    sea besides these birds a species of Mergulus, one of which
    came to the winter quarters of the _Vega_ on the 3rd
    November, and a Fuligula, a specimen of which was sold to
    us on the 9th March by a Chukch, who said he had killed it
    at a clearing off the coast."

After the arrival of the migratory birds hunting excursions began to
form a welcome interruption in our monotonous winter life, and the
produce of the hunting a no less agreeable change from the preserved
provisions. The Chukches besides offered us daily a large number of
different kinds of birds, especially when they observed that we paid
a higher price for many rare kinds of birds, though small and of
little use for food, than for a big, fat goose. The Chukches killed
small birds either by throwing stones, or by shooting them with bow
and arrows, in connection with which it may be observed that most of
them were very poor archers. They also caught them with whalebone
snares set on bare spots on the beach, generally between two
vertebræ of the whale. For pebbles are very scarce, but the bones
of the whale are found, as has been already stated, at most places
in large numbers on the strand-banks where the tents are pitched. In
June we began to get eggs of the gull, eider, long-tailed duck,
goose, and loom, in sufficient number for table use. The supply,
however, was by no means so abundant as during the hatching season
on Greenland, Spitzbergen, or Novaya Zemlya.


A little way from the vessel there were formed, in the end of May,
two "leads," a few fathoms in breadth. On the 31st May I sent some
men to dredge at these places. They returned with an abundant yield,
but unfortunately the openings closed again the next day, and when I
and Lieutenant Bove visited the place there was a large,
newly-formed _toross_ thrown up along the edge of the former
channel. Another "lead" was formed some days after, but closed again
through a new disturbance of the position of the ice, a high
ice-rampart, formed of loose blocks, heaped one over another,
indicating the position of the former opening. Even the strongest
vessel would have been crushed in such a channel by the forcing
together of the ice. Of a different sort from both these occasional
leads was an extensive opening, which showed itself a kilometre or
two north of the vessel. It is probable that with few interruptions,
which, however, might have been difficult to pass, it extended as
far as Behring's Straits, where, according to the statements of the
Chukches, several whalers had already made their appearance. Round
the vessel itself, however, the ice still lay fast and unbroken. Nor
did the Chukches appear to expect that it would break up very soon,
to judge by the number of vehicles drawn by dogs or reindeer which
still passed us, both to the east and west. One of these travellers
must here be specially mentioned, as his journey has been talked
about as an expedition sent to our relief.

[Illustration: STEGOCEPHALUS KESSLERI (STUXB). Natural size. ]

[Illustration: SABINEA SEPTEMCARINATA (SABINE). Natural size.
EVERTEBRATES FROM THE SEA AT THE "VEGA'S" WINTER QUARTERS. ]

[Illustration: ACANTHOSTEPHIA MALMGRENI, (GOËS). Magnified twice. ]

[Illustration: OPHIOGLYPHA NODOSA, (LÜTKEN). Magnified twice
EVERTEBRATES FROM THE SEA AT THE "VEGA'S" WINTER QUARTERS. ]

It was the 19th June. A large number of Chukches travelling past us
as usual came on board, partly to receive the tribute of hospitality
to which they considered themselves entitled, partly to satisfy an
easily understood curiosity and gossip a little about the most
important occurrences of the preceding day. One of them, a
middle-aged man, whom we had not seen before, with a friendly and
self-satisfied bearing, whose face was a mere collection of
wrinkles, and over whose _pesk_ was drawn an old velvet shirt,
presented himself with a certain pretentiousness as the chief NOAH
ELISEJ. Since the mistake with the stately Chepurin, and since even
Menka's supposed slave declared himself to be at least as good as
Menka, we had begun to be rather indifferent to the rank of chief
among the Chukches. Noah Elisej however, notwithstanding he thus
brought forward his pretensions, was received like a common man, at
which he appeared to be a little offended. But our behaviour soon
changed, when Notti, or some other of our daily guests, who had
become quite familiar with our fancies, tastes weaknesses, informed
us that Noah Elisej had with him a large, a very large letter. Old
Noah thus carried a mail, perhaps a European mail. At once he became
in our eyes a man of importance. After being stormed for a time with
questions, he took from a bag which hung from his neck the ordinary
pieces of board fastened together, which here serve as a postbag.
They were found however to contain only a letter of a couple of
lines from a Russian official at Nischm Kolymsk, without any news
from Europe, but informing us that chief Noah Elisej was sent to us
to assist us, if necessary. Noah first patted his stomach to
indicate that he was hungry and wanted food, and hawked and pointed
with his finger at his throat to let us know that a _ram_ would
taste well. He then told us something which we did not then exactly
understand, but which we now have reason to interpret as a statement
that Noah was the leader of an expedition sent by the Siberian
authorities to our relief, and that he was therefore willing in
return for suitable compensation to give us some reindeer I availed
myself of the offer, and purchased three animals for sugar, tea, and
a little tobacco. Noah besides was a friendly and easy-going man,
who, Christian though he was, travelled about with two wives and a
large number of children, who all of course would see the vessel and
get their treat of tobacco, clay pipes, sugar, _ram_, &c.

[Illustration: NOAH ELISEJ. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

So much flood water had now begun to collect on the ice, especially
near the land, that it was exceedingly difficult to walk from the
vessel to the shore and back. Many a proposed land excursion was
broken off by somebody, immediately after leaving the vessel,
sinking into some deep hole in the ice and thus getting a cold bath.
Excursions on land however began to be exceedingly interesting to
the botanists and zoologists, and therefore to avoid the
inconveniences mentioned I caused a tent to be pitched by the side
of the large lagoon between Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, and a light boat
to be carried thither. The bottom of the lagoon was still filled
with ice, above which however the water stood so high that the boat
floated in it. The naturalists settled by turns in the tent, and
from it made excursions in different directions, as I hope with the
result that the neighbourhood of Pitlekaj is now the best known
tract on the north of Asia, which after all is not saying much. The
first plant in flower (_Cochlearia fenestrata_, R. Br.) was seen on
the 23rd June.[264] A week after the ground began to grow green and
flowers of different kinds to show themselves in greater and greater
numbers.[265] Some flies were seen on a sunshiny day in May (the 27th)
in motion on the surface of the snow, but it was not until the end
of June that insects began to show themselves in any large numbers,
among them many Harpalids, two large species of Carabus, and a large
Curculionid. The insects occurring here however are not very
numerous either in respect of species or individuals, which is not
strange when we consider that the earth at a limited depth from the
surface is constantly frozen. As even the shallow layer, which thaws
in summer, is hard frozen in winter, all the insects which occur
here must in one or other phase of their development endure being
frozen solid for some time. But it may be remarked with reason with
reference to this, that if life in an organism may so to speak be
suspended for months by freezing stiff without being destroyed, what
is there to prevent this suspension being extended over years,
decades, or centuries?

The common idea, that all animal life ceases, when the interior
animal heat sinks under the freezing-point of water, is besides not
quite correct. This is proved by the abundant evertebrate life which
is found at the bottom of the Polar Sea, even where the water all
the year round has a temperature of -2° to -2.7° C, and
by the remarkable observation made during the wintering at Mussel
Bay in 1872-73, that small Crustacea can live by millions in
water-drenched snow at a temperature of from -2° to -10.2° C.
On this point I say in my account of the expedition of 1872-73:--[266]

 [Illustration: BEETLES FROM PITLEKAJ.
 _a._ _Carabus truncaticollis_ ESCHSCHOLTZ.
 (One and a half the natural size.)
 _b._ _Alophus sp._ (One find two-thirds the natural size.) ]

    "If during winter one walks along the beach on the snow
    which at ebb is dry, but at flood tide is more or less
    drenched through by sea-water, there rises at every step
    one takes, an exceedingly intense, beautiful, bluish-white
    flash of light, which in the spectroscope gives a
    one-coloured labrador-blue spectrum. This beautiful flash
    of light arises from the snow, before completely dark, when
    it is touched. The flash lasts only a few moments after the
    snow is left untouched, and is so intense, that it appears
    as if a sea of fire would open at every step a man takes.
    It produces indeed a peculiar impression on a dark and
    stormy winter day (the temperature of the air was sometimes
    in the neighbourhood of the freezing-point of mercury) to
    walk along in this mixture of snow and flame, which at
    every step one takes splashes about in all directions,
    shining with a light so intense that one is ready to fear
    that his shoes or clothes will take fire."

[Illustration: PHOSPHORESCENT CRUSTACEAN FROM MUSSEL BAY.
_Metridia armata_, A. Boeck.
 1. A male magnified twelve times.
 2. A foot of the second pair. ]

On a closer examination it appeared that this light-phenomenon proceeded
from a minute crustacean, which according to the determination of Prof
W. LILLJEBORG belongs to the species _Metridia armata_, A. Boeck, and
whose proper element appears to be snow-sludge drenched with salt water
cooled considerably under 0° C. First when the temperature sinks below
-10° does the power of this small animal to emit light appear to cease.
But as the element in which they live, the surface of the snow nearest
the beach, is in the course of the winter innumerable times cooled
twenty degrees more, it appears improbable that these minute animals
suffer any harm by being exposed to a cold of from -20° to -30°, a very
remarkable circumstance, as they certainly do not possess in their
organism any means of raising the internal animal heat in any noteworthy
degree above the temperature of the surrounding medium.

We did not see these animals at Pitlekaj, but a similar phenomenon,
though on a smaller scale, was observed by Lieut. BELLOT[267] during
a sledge-journey in Polar America. He believed that the light arose
from decaying organic matter.

[Illustration: REITINACKA. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

After the Chukches had told us that an exceedingly delicious black
fish was to be found in the fresh-water lagoon at Yinretlen, which
is wholly shut off from the sea and in winter freezes to the bottom,
we made an excursion thither on the 8th July. Our friends at the
encampment were immediately ready to help us, especially the women,
Artanga, and the twelve-year-old, somewhat spoiled _Vega_-favourite
Reitinacka. They ran hither and thither like light-hearted and
playful children, to put the net in order and procure all that was
needed for the fishing. We had carried with us from the vessel a net
nine metres long and one deep. Along its upper border floats were
fixed, to the lower was bound a long pole, to which were fastened
five sticks, by which the pole was sunk to the bottom of the lagoon,
a little way from the shore. Some natives wading in the cold water
then pushed the net towards the land with sticks and the pole, which
glided easily forward over the bottom of the lake, overgrown as it
was with grass. In order to keep the fish from swimming away, the
women waded at the sides of the net with their _pesks_ much tucked
up, screaming and making noise, and now and then standing in order
to indicate by a violent shaking that the water was very cold. The
catch was abundant. We caught by hundreds a sort of fish altogether
new to us, of a type which we should rather have expected to find in
the marshes of the Equatorial regions than up here in the north. The
fish were transported in a dog sledge to the vessel, where part of
them was placed in spirits for the zoologists and the rest fried,
not without a protest from our old cook, who thought that the black
slimy fish looked remarkably nasty and ugly. But the Chukches were
right it was a veritable delicacy, in taste somewhat resembling eel,
but finer and more fleshy. These fish were besides as tough to kill
as eels, for after lying an hour and a half in the air they swam, if
replaced in the water, about as fast as before. How this species of
fish passes the winter is still more enigmatical than the winter
life of the insects. For the lagoon has no outlet and appears to
freeze completely to the bottom. The mass of water which was found
in autumn in the lagoon therefore still lay there as an unmelted
layer of ice not yet broken up, which was covered with a stratum of
flood water several feet deep, by which the neighbouring grassy
plains were inundated. It was in this flood water that the fishing
took place.

After our return home the Yinretlen fish was examined by Professor F.A.
SMITT in Stockholm, who stated, in an address which he gave on it before
the Swedish Academy of Sciences, that it belongs to a new species to
which Professor Smitt gave the name _Dallia delicatissima_. A closely
allied form occurs in Alaska, and has been named _Dallia pectoralis_,
Bean. These fishes are besides nearly allied to the dog-fish (_Umbra
Krameri_, Fitzing), which is found in the Neusidler and Platten Lakes,
and in grottos and other water-filled subterranean cavities in southern
Europe. It is remarkable that the European species are considered
uneatable, and even regarded with such loathing that the fishermen throw
them away as soon as caught because they consider them poisonous, and
fear that their other fish would be destroyed by contact with it. They
also consider it an affront if one asks them for dog-fish.[268] If we
had known thus we should not now have been able to certify that _Dallia
delicatissima_, SMITT, truly deserves its name.

[Illustration: DOG FISH FROM THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. _Dallia
delicatissima_, Smitt. Half the natural size. ]

In the beginning of July the ground became free of snow, and we
could now form an idea of how the region looked in summer in which
we had passed the winter. It was not just attractive. Far away in
the south the land rose with terrace-formed escarpments to a hill,
called by us Table Mount, which indeed was pretty high, but did not
by any steep or bold cliffs yield any contribution to such a
picturesque landscape border as is seldom wanting on the portions of
Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the north part of Novaya Zemlya which I
have visited, south Novaya Zemlya has at least at most places bold
picturesque shore-cliffs. If I except the rocky promontory at
Yinretlen, where a cliff inhabited by ravens rises boldly out of the
sea, and some cliffs situated farther in along the beach of
Kolyutschin Bay, the shore in the immediate neighbourhood of our
wintering station consisted everywhere only of a low beach formed of
coarse sand. Upon this sand, which was always frozen, there ran
parallel with the shore a broad bank or dune, 50 to 100 metres
broad, of fine sand, not water-drenched in summer, and accordingly
not bound together by ice in winter. It is upon this dune that the
Chukches erect their tents. Marks of them are therefore met with
nearly everywhere, and the dune accordingly is everywhere bestrewed
with broken implements or refuse from the chase. Indeed it may be
said without exaggeration that the whole north-eastern coast of the
Siberian Polar Sea is bordered with a belt of sweepings and refuse
of various kinds.

The coarse sand which underlies the dune is, as has been stated,
continually frozen, excepting the shallow layer which is thawed in
summer. It is here that the "frost formation" of Siberia begins,
that is to say, the continually frozen layer of earth, which, with
certain interruptions, extends from the Polar Sea far to the south,
not only under the treeless _tundra_, but also under splendid
forests and cultivated corn-fields.[269] To speak correctly, however,
the frozen earth begins a little from the shore _under the sea_.[270]
For on the coast the bottom often consists of hard frozen
sand--"rock-hard sand," as the dredgers were accustomed to report.
The frost formation in Siberia thus embraces not only terrestrial
but also marine deposits, together with pure clear layers of ice,
these last being formed in the mouths of rivers or small lakes by
the ice of the river or lake frozen to the bottom being in spring
covered with a layer of mud sufficiently thick to protect the ice
from melting during summer. The frozen sea-bottom again appears to
have been formed by the sand washed down by the rivers having
carried with it when it sank some adhering water from the warm and
almost fresh surface strata. At the sea-bottom the sand surrounded
by _fresh_ water freezing at 0° C thus met a stratum of _salt_
water whose temperature was two or three degrees under 0°, in
consequence of which the grains of sand froze fast together. That it
may go on thus we had a direct proof when in spring we sank from the
_Vega_ the bodies of animals to be skeletonised by the crustacea
that swarmed at the sea-bottom. If the sack, pierced at several
places, in which the skeleton was sunk was first allowed to fill
with the slightly salt water from the surface and then sink rapidly
to the bottom, it was found to be so filled with ice, when it was
taken up a day or two afterwards, that the crustacea were prevented
from getting at the flesh. We had already determined to abandon the
convenient cleansing process, when I succeeded in finding means to
avoid the inconvenience, this was attained by drawing the sack,
while some distance under the surface, violently hither and thither
so that the surface water carried down with it was got rid of.
Frozen clay and ooze do not appear to occur at the bottom of the
Polar Sea. Animal life on the frozen sand was rather scanty, but
algæ were met with there though in limited numbers.

From the shore a plain commences, which is studded with extensive
lagoons and a large number of small lakes. In spring this plain is
so water-drenched and so crossed by deep rapid snow-rivulets, that
it is difficult, often impossible, to traverse it. Immediately after
the disappearance of the snow a large number of birds at all events
had settled there. The Lapp sparrow had chosen a tuft projecting
from the marshy ground on which to place its beautiful roofed
dwelling, the waders in the neighbourhood had laid their eggs in
most cases directly on the water-drenched moss without trace of a
nest, and on tufts completely surrounded by the spring floods we met
with the eggs of the loom, the long-tailed duck, the eider and the
goose. Already during our stay, the water ran away so rapidly, that
places, which one day were covered with a watery mirror, over which
a boat of light draught could be rowed forward, were changed the
next day to wet marshy ground, covered with yellow grass-straws from
the preceding year. At many places the grassy sward had been torn up
by the ice and carried away, leaving openings sharply defined by
right lines in the meadows, resembling a newly worked off place in a
peat moss.

In summer there must be found here green meadows covered with pretty
tall grass, but at the time of our departure vegetation had not
attained any great development, and the flowers that could be
discovered were few. I presume however that a beautiful Arctic
flower-world grows up here, although, in consequence of the exposure
of the coast-country to the north winds, poor in comparison with the
vegetation in sheltered valleys in the interior of the country.
There are found there too pretty high bushes, but on the other hand
trees are represented at Pitlekaj only by a low species of willow
which creeps along the ground.

[Illustration: CRAB FROM THE SEA NORTH OF BEHRING'S STRAITS.
_Chionoecetes opilio_ Kröyer. Half the natural size. ]

[Illustration: TREE FROM PITLEKAJ. _Salix arctica_, PALLAS.
(Natural size.) ]

We did not, however, see even this "wood" in full leaf. For in order
that full summer heat may begin it is necessary, even here, that the
ice break up, and this longed-for moment appeared to be yet far
distant. The ice indeed became clear of snow in the beginning of
July, and thus the slush and the flood water were lessened, which
during the preceding weeks had collected on its surface and made it
very difficult to walk from the vessel to land. Now, again pretty
dry-shod and on a hard blue ice-surface, we could make excursions in
the neighbourhood of the vessel. We had however to be cautious. The
former cracks had in many places been widened to greater or smaller
openings by the flood water running down, and where a thin black
object--a little gravel, a piece of tin from the preserved
provision-cases, &c.--had lain on the ice there were formed round
holes, resembling the seal-holes which I saw in spring laid bare
after the melting of the snow on the ice in the fjords of
Spitzbergen. The strength of the ice besides was nearly unaltered,
and on the 16th July a heavily loaded double sledge could still be
driven from the vessel to the shore.

On the 17th the "year's ice" next the land at last broke up, so that
an extensive land clearing arose. But the ground-ices were still
undisturbed, and between these the "year's ice" even lay so fast,
that all were agreed that at least fourteen days must still pass
before there was any prospect of getting free.

When on the 16th the reindeer-Chukch Yettugin came on board, and,
talking of the collection of whale-bones in which we had been
engaged some days before, informed us that there was a mammoth bone
at his tent, and that a mammoth tusk stuck out at a place where the
spring floods had cut into the bank of a river which flows from
Table Mount to Riraitinop, I therefore did not hesitate to undertake
an excursion to the place. Our absence from the vessel was reckoned
at five or six days. It was my intention to go up the river in a
skin boat belonging to Notti to the place where the mammoth tusk
was, and thence to proceed on foot to Yettugin's tent. Yettugin
assured us that the river was sufficiently deep for the
flat-bottomed boat. But when we had travelled a little way into the
country it appeared that the river had fallen considerably during
the day that Yettugin passed on the vessel. So certain was I however
that the ice-barrier would not yet for a long time be broken up,
that I immediately after my return from the excursion, which had
thus been rendered unsuccessful, made arrangements for a new journey
in order with other means of transport to reach the goal.

While we were thus employed the forenoon of the 18th passed. We sat
down to dinner at the usual time, without any suspicion that the
time of our release was now at hand. During dinner it was suddenly
observed that the vessel was moving slightly Palander rushed on
deck, saw that the ice was in motion, ordered the boiler fires to be
lighted, the engine having long ago been put in order in expectation
of this moment, and in two hours, by 3:30 P.M. on the 18th July, the
_Vega_, decked with flags, was under steam and sail again on the way
to her destination.

We now found that a quite ice-free "lead" had arisen between the
vessel and the open water next the shore, the ice-fields west of our
ground-ices having at the same time drifted farther out to sea, so that
the clearing along the shore had widened enough to give the _Vega_ a
sufficient depth of water. The course was shaped at first for the N.W.
in order to make a _détour_ round the drift-ice fields lying nearest us,
then along the coast for Behring's Straits. On the height at Yinretlen
there stood as we passed, the men, women, and children of the village
all assembled, looking out to sea at the fire-horse--the Chukches would
perhaps say fire-dog or fire-reindeer--which carried their friends of
the long winter months for ever away from their cold, bleak shores.
Whether they shed tears, as they often said they would we could not see
from the distance which now parted us from them. But it may readily have
happened that the easily moved disposition of the savage led them to do
this. Certain it is that in many of us the sadness of separation mingled
with the feelings of tempestuous joy which now rushed through the breast
of every _Vega_ man.

The _Vega_ met no more ice-obstacles on her course to the Pacific.
Serdze Kamen was passed at 1:30 A.M. of the 19th, but the fog was so
dense that we could not clearly distinguish the contours of the
land. Above the bank of mist at the horizon we could only see that
this cape, so famous in the history of the navigation of the
Siberian Polar Sea, is occupied by high mountains, split up, like
those east of the Bear Islands, into ruin-like gigantic walls or
columns. The sea was mirror-bright and nearly clear of ice, a walrus
or two stuck up his head strangely magnified by the fog in our
neighbourhood, seals swam round us in large numbers, and flocks of
birds, which probably breed on the steep cliffs of Serdze Kamen,
swarmed round the vessel. The trawl net repeatedly brought up from
the sea bottom a very abundant yield of worms, molluscs, crustacea,
&c. A zoologist would here have had a rich working field.

The fog continued, so that on the other side of Serdze Kamen we lost
all sight of land, until on the morning of the 20th dark heights
again began to peep out. These were the mountain summits of the
easternmost promontory of Asia, East Cape, an unsuitable name, for
which I have substituted on the map that of Cape Deschnev after the
gallant Cossack who for the first time 230 years ago circumnavigated
it.

By 11 A.M. we were in the middle of the sound which unites the North
Polar Sea with the Pacific, and from this point the _Vega_ greeted
the old and new worlds by a display of flags and the firing of a
Swedish salute.

[Illustration: A.L. PALANDER. ]

Thus finally was reached the goal towards which so many nations had
struggled, all along from the time when Sir Hugh Willoughby, with
the firing of salutes from cannon and with hurrahs from the
festive-clad seamen, in the presence of an innumerable crowd of
jubilant men certain of success, ushered in the long series of
North-East voyages. But, as I have before related, then hopes were
grimly disappointed. Sir Hugh and all his men perished as pioneers
of England's navigation and of voyages to the ice-encumbered sea
which bounds Europe and Asia on the north. Innumerable other marine
expeditions have since then trodden the same path, always without
success, and generally with the sacrifice of the vessel and of the
life and health of many brave seamen. Now for the first time, after
the lapse of 336 years, and when most men experienced in sea matters
had declared the undertaking impossible, was the North-East Passage
at last achieved. This has taken place, thanks to the discipline,
zeal, and ability of our man-of-war's-men and their officers,
without the sacrifice of a single human life, without sickness among
those who took part in the undertaking, without the slightest damage
to the vessel, and under circumstances which show that the same
thing may be done again in most, perhaps in all years, in the course
of a few weeks. It may be permitted us to say, that under such
circumstances it was with pride we saw the blue-yellow flag rise to
the mast-head and heard the Swedish salute in the sound where the
old and the new worlds reach hands to each other. The course along
which we sailed is indeed no longer required as a commercial route
between Europe and China. But it has been granted to this and the
preceding Swedish expeditions to open a sea to navigation, and to
confer on half a continent the possibility of communicating by sea
with the oceans of the world.


[Footnote 258: And Hellant, _Anmärkningar om en helt ovanlig köld i
Torne (Remarks on a Quite Unusual Cold in Torne_), Vet.-akad. Handl.
1759, p. 314, and 1760, p. 312. In the latter paper Hellant himself
shows that the column of mercury in a strongly cooled thermometer
for a few moments _sinks farther_ when the ball is rapidly heated.
This is caused by the expansion of the glass when it is warmed
before the heat has had time to communicate itself to the
quicksilver in the ball, and therefore of course can happen only at
a temperature above the freezing-point of mercury. ]

[Footnote 259: That mercury solidifies in cold was discovered by some
academicians in St. Petersburg on the 25th December, 1759, and caused
at the time a great sensation, because by this discovery various
erroneous ideas were rooted out which the chemists had inherited
from the alchemists, and which were based on the supposed property
of mercury of being at the same time a metal and a fluid. ]

[Footnote 260: During the market the Russian priest endeavours to make
proselytes, he succeeds, too, by distributing tobacco to induce one
or two to subject themselves to the ceremony of baptism. No true
conversion, however, can scarcely come in question on account of the
difference of language. As an example of how this goes on, the
following story of Wrangel's may be quoted. At the market a young
Chukch had been prevailed upon, by a gift of some pounds of tobacco,
to allow himself to be baptised. The ceremony began in presence of a
number of spectators. The new convert stood quiet and pretty decent
in his place till he should step down into the baptismal font, a
large wooden tub filled with ice-cold water. In this, according to
the baptismal ritual, he ought to dip three times. But to this he
would consent on no condition. He shook his head constantly, and
brought forward a large number of reasons against it, which none
understood. After long exhortations by the interpreter, in which
promises of tobacco probably again played the principal part, he
finally gave way and sprang courageously down into the ice-cold
water, but immediately jumped up again trembling with cold; crying,
"My tobacco! my tobacco!" All attempts to induce him to renew the
bath were fruitless, the ceremony was incomplete, and the Chukch
only half baptised. ]

[Footnote 261: In Lapland, too, the melting of the snow in spring is
brought about in no inconsiderable degree by similar causes, _i.e._
by dry warm winds which come from the fells. On this point the
governor of Norbotten län, H.A. Widmark, has sent me the following
interesting letter--"However warm easterly and southerly winds may
be in the parts of Swedish Lapland lying next the Joleen mountains,
they are not able in any noteworthy degree to melt the masses of
snow which fall in those regions during the winter months. On the
other hand there comes every year, if we may rely on the statements
of the Lapps, in the end of April or beginning of May, from the west
(_i.e._ from the fells), a wind so strong and at the same time so
warm, that in quite a short time--six to ten hours--it breaks up the
snow-masses, makes them shrink together, forces the mountain sides
from their snow covering, and changes the snow which lies on the ice
of the great fell lakes to water. I have myself been out on the
fells making measurements on two occasions when this wind came. On
one occasion I was on the Great Lule water in the neighbourhood of
the so-called Great Lake Fall. The night had been cold but the day
became warm. Up to 1 o'clock P.M. it was calm, but immediately after
the warm westerly wind began to blow, and by 6 o'clock P.M. all the
snow on the ice was changed to water, in which we went wading to the
knees. The Lapps in general await these warm westerly winds before
they go to the fells in spring. Until these winds begin there is no
pasture there for their reindeer herds." ]

[Footnote 262: I do not include _La Recherché's_ wintering in 1838-39
at Bosekop, in the northernmost part of Norway, as it took place in
a region which is all the year round inhabited by hundreds of
Europeans. During this expedition very splendid auroras were seen,
and the studies of them by LOITIN, BRAVAIS, LILLIEHÖÖK, and
SILJESTRÖÖM, are among the most important contributions to a
knowledge of the aurora we possess, while we have to thank the
draughtsmen of the expedition for exceedingly faithful and masterly
representations of the phenomenon. ]

[Footnote 263: The common eider (_S. mollissima_, L.) is absent
here, or at least exceedingly rare. ]

[Footnote 264: During the expedition of 1861, when we were shut up by
ice in Treurenberg Bay on Spitzbergen (79° 57' N.L.) the
first flower (_Saxifraga oppositifolia_, L.), was pulled on the 22nd
June. After the wintering in 1872-73, Palander and I during our
journey round North-east Land, saw the first flower on the same
species of saxifrage as early as the 15th June, in the bottom of
Wahlenberg Bay (79° 46' N.L.) ]

[Footnote 265: For the sake of completeness, I shall here also
enumerate the plants which Dr. Kjellman found at Pitlekaj. Those
marked with an * either themselves occur in Scandinavia or are
represented by nearly allied forms.

   Leucanthemum arcticum (L.) DC.
   Artemisia arctica LESS.
 *     ,,    vulgaris L. f. Tilesii LEDEB.
   Cineraria frigida RICHARDS.
 *     ,,    palustris L. f. congesta HOOK.
 * Antennaria alpina (L.) R. BR. f. Friesiana TRAUTV.
 * Petasites frigida.
 * Saussurea alpina (L.) DC. f. angustifolia (DC.)
 * Taraxacum officinale WEB.
   Valeriana capitata PALL.
   Gentiana glauca PALL.
   Pedicularis sudetica WILLD.
        ,,     Langsdorffii FISCH.
        ,,     lanata WILLD. f. leiantha TRAUTV.
        ,,     capitata ADAMS.
 * Polemonium coeruleum L.
 * Diapensia lapponica L.
 * Armeria sibirica TURCZ.
   Primula nivalis PALL. f. pygmæa LEDEB.
    ,,    borealis DUBY.
 * Loiseleuria procumbens (L.) DESV.
 * Ledum palustre L. f. decumbens AIT.
 * Vaccinium vitis idæa L.
 * Arctostaphylos alpina (L.) SPRENG.
 * Cassiope tetragona (L.) DON.
   Hedysarum obscurum L.
   Oxytropis nigrescens (PALL.) FISCH. f. pygmæa CHAM.
    ,,    species?
 * Rubus Chamæmorus L.
 * Comarum palustre L.
   Potentilla fragiformis L. f. parviflora TRAUTV. f. villosa (PALL.)
 * Sibbaldia procumbens L.
 * Dryas octopetala L.
   Spiræa betulæfolia PALL. f. typica MAXIM.
 * Hippuris vulgaris L.
 * Saxifraga stellaris L f. comosa POIR.
       ,,     punctata L.
 *     ,,     cernua L.
 *     ,,     rivularis L.
 * Rhodiola rosea L.
 * Empetrum nigrum L.
 * Cardamine bellidifolia L.
   Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR. f. typica MALMGR. f. prostrata MALMGR.
   Ranunculus Pallasii SEHLECHT.
 *     ,,      nivalis L.
 *     ,,      pygmæus WG.
 *     ,,      hyperboreus ROTTB.
 * Aconitum Napellus L. f. delphinifolia REICHENB.
   Claytonia acutifolia WILLD.
 * Wahlbergella apetala (L.) FR.
 * Stellaria longipes GOLDIE. f. humilis FENZL.
 *     ,,     humifusa ROTTB.
   Cerastium maximum L.
 *     ,,     alpinum L. f. hirsuta KOCH.
 * Halianthus peploides (STEV.) FENZL.
   Alsine artica (STEV.) FENZL.
 * Sagina nivalis (LINDBL.) FR.
 * Polygonum Bistorta L.
 *     ,,     viviparum L.
 *     polymorphum L. f. frigida CHAM.
   Rumex arcticus TRAUTV.
 * Oxyria digyna (L.) HILL.
   Salix boganidensis TRAUTV. f. latifolia.
   Salix Chamissonis ANDERS.
     ,,   arctica PALL.
     ,,   euneata TURCZ.
 *   ,,   reticulata L.
     ,,   species?
   Betula glandulosa MICHX. f. rotundifolia REGEL.
   Elymus mollis TRIN.
 * Festuca rubra L. f. arenaria OSB.
 * Poa flexuosa WG.
   Arctophila effusa J. LGE.
   Glyceria vilfoidea (ANDS.) TH. FR.
      ,,     vaginata J. LGE. f. contracta J. LGE.
 * Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.
 * Colpodium latifolium R. BR.
   Dupontia Fischeri R. BR.
 * Trisetum subspicatum (L.) P.B.
 * Aira cæspitosa L. f. borealis TRAUTV.
   Alopecurus alpinus SM.
 * Hierochloa alpina (LILJEBL.) ROEM. and SCH.
 * Carex rariflora (WG.) SM.
 *   ,,   aqvatilis f. epijegos LAEST.
 *   ,,   glareosa WG.
 *   ,,   lagopina WG.
 * Eriophorum angustifolium ROTH.
 *     ,,      vaginatum L.
 *     ,,      russeolum FR.
 * Luzula parviflora (EHRH.) DESV.
 *    ,,   Wahlenbergii RUPR.
 *    ,,   arcuata (WG.) SW. f. confusa LINDEB.
 * Juncus biglumis L.
   Lloydia serotina (L.) REICHENB.
 ]

[Footnote 266: _Redogörelse för den svenska polarexpeditionen år_
1872-73. Bihang till Vet.-Akad. Handl. Bd. 2, No. 18, p. 52. ]

[Footnote 267: _Journal d'un Voyage aux Mers Polaires._ Paris, 1854.
Pp. 177 and 223. ]

[Footnote 268: Heckel and Kner, _Die Süsswasserfische Oesterreichs_,
p. 295. ]

[Footnote 269: Even pretty far south, in Scandinavia, there occur
places with frozen earth which seldom thaws. Thus in Egyptinkorpi
mosses in Nurmi and Pjeli parishes in Finland pinewoods are found
growing over layers or "tufts" of frozen sand, but also, in other
places in Eastern Finland, we find layers containing stumps, roots,
&c., of different generations of trees, alternating with layers of
frozen mould, according to a communication from the agronomic Axel
Asplund. A contribution to the knowledge of the way, or one of the
ways, in which such formations arise, we obtain from the known fact
that mines with an opening to the air, so far south as the middle of
Sweden, are filled in a few years with a coherent mass of ice if the
opening is allowed to remain open. If it is shut the ice melts
again, but for this decades are required. ]

[Footnote 270: Middendorff already states that the bottom of the sea
of Okotsk is frozen (_Sibirische Reise_, Bd. 4, 1, p. 502). ]



CHAPTER XII.

    The history, physique, disposition, and manners of the Chukches.


The north coast of Siberia is now, with the exception of its
westernmost and easternmost parts, literally a desert. In the west
there projects between the mouth of the Ob and the southern portion
of the Kara Sea the peninsula of Yalmal, which by its remote
position, its grassy plains, and rivers abounding in fish, appears
to form the earthly paradise of the Samoyed of the present day. Some
hundred families belonging to this race wander about here with their
numerous reindeer herds. During winter they withdraw to the interior
of the country or southwards, and the coast is said then to be
uninhabited. This is the case both summer and winter, not only with
Beli Ostrov and the farthest portion of the peninsula between the Ob
and the Yenisej (Mattesol), but also with the long stretch of coast
between the mouth of the Yenisej and Chaun Bay. During the voyage of
the _Vega_ in 1878 we did not see a single native. No trace of man
could be discovered at the places where we landed, and though for a
long time we sailed quite near land, we saw from the sea only a
single house on the shore, viz, the before-mentioned wooden hut on
the east side of Chelyuskin peninsula. Russian _simovies_ and native
encampments are indeed still found on the rivers some distance from
their mouths, but the former coast population has withdrawn to the
interior of the country or died out,[271] and the north coast of Asia
first begins again to be inhabited at Chaun Bay, namely, by the
tribe with whom we came in contact during the latter part of the
coast voyage of the _Vega_ in 1878 and during the wintering.

I have already, it is true, given an account of various traits of
the Chukches' disposition and mode of life, but I believe at all
events that a more exhaustive statement of what the _Vega_ men
experienced in this region will be interesting to my readers, even
if in the course of it I am sometimes compelled to return to
subjects of which I have already treated.

In West-European writings the race, which inhabits the
north-easternmost portion of Asia, is mentioned for the first time,
so far as I know, by WITSEN, who in the second edition of his work
(1705, p. 671) quotes a statement by VOLODOMIR ATLASSOV, that the
inhabitants of the northernmost portions of Siberia are called
_Tsjuktsi_, without, however, giving any detailed description of the
people themselves. In maps from the end of the seventeenth century
names are still inscribed on this portion of land which were
borrowed from the history of High Asia, as "Tenduc," "Quinsai,"
"Catacora," &c., but these are left out in VAN KEULEN'S atlas of
1709, and instead there stands here _Zuczari_. From about the same
time we fall in with some accounts of the Chukches in the narrative
of the distinguished painter CORNELIS DE BRUIN'S travels in Russia.
A Russian merchant, MICHAEL OSTATIOF, who passed fourteen years in
travelling in Siberia, gave de Bruin some information regarding the
countries he had travelled through; among others he spoke of
_Korakie_ and _Socgtsie_ The latter were sketched as a godless pack,
who worship the devil and carry with them then fathers' bones to be
used in their magical arts. The same Russian who made these
statements had also come in contact with "stationary" (settled)
Soegtsi, so called "because they pass the whole winter hibernating,
lying or sitting in their tents."[272] I have found the first
somewhat detailed accounts of the race in the note on p. 110 of the
under-quoted work, _Histoire généalogique des Tartares_, Leyden,
1726. They are founded on the statements of Swedish prisoners of
war in Siberia.

The Russians, however, had made a much earlier acquaintance with the
Chukches; for during their conquest of Siberia they came in contact
with this race before the middle of the seventeenth century. A
company of hunters in 1646 sailed down the Kolyma river to the Polar
Sea. East of the Kolyma they fell in with the Chukches, with whom
they dealt in this way they laid down their goods on the beach and
then retired, on which the Chukches came thither, took the goods,
and laid furs, walrus tusks, or carvings in walrus ivory, in their
place.[273] How such journeys were repeated and finally led to the
circumnavigation of the north-easternmost promontory of Asia belongs
to a following chapter.

During these journeys the Russians often came in contact with the
tribe which inhabited the north-eastern part of Asia, a contact
which in general was not of a friendly nature. The bold hunters who
contributed powerfully to the conquest of Siberia, and who even at
their own hand entered into conflicts with whole armies from the
heavenly empire, appear not to have behaved well when confronted
with the warriors of the Chukch race. Even the attempts that were
made with professional soldiers to conquer the land of the Chukches
were without result, less however, perhaps, on account of the armed
opposition which the Chukches made than from the nature of the
country and the impossibility of even a small body of troops
supporting themselves. The following may be quoted as examples of
these campaigns which throw light upon the former disposition and
mode of life of this tribe.

In 1701 some Yukagires who were tributary to Russia determined to
make an attack on the Chukches, and requested from the commandant at
Anadyrsk assistance against these enemies. A body of troops
numbering twenty-four Russians and 110 Yukagires, was accordingly
sent on a campaign along the coast from Anadyrsk to Chukotskojnos.
By the way they fell in with thirteen tents, inhabited by Chukches
who owned no reindeer. The inhabitants were required to submit and
pay tribute. This the Chukches refused to do, on which the Russians
killed most of the men and took the women and children prisoners.
The men who were not cut down killed one another, preferring death
to the loss of freedom. Some days after there was another fight with
300 Chukches, which, however, was so unfortunate for the latter that
200 are said to have fallen. The rest fled, but returned next day
with a force ten times as strong, which finally compelled the
Russo-Yukagnean troop to return with their object unaccomplished.

A similar campaign on a small scale was undertaken in 1711, but with
the same issue. On a demand for tribute the Chukches answered: "the
Russians have before come to us to demand tribute and hostages, but
this we have refused to give, and thus we also intend to do in
future."[274]

About fifteen years after this resultless campaign the Cossack
colonel AFFANASSEJ SCHESTAKOV proposed to the Government again to
subdue this obstinate race, intending also to go over to the
American side, yet known only by report, in order to render the
races living there tributary to the Russians. The proposal was
accepted. A mate, JACOB HENS, a land-measurer, MICHAEL GVOSDEV, an
ore-tester, HERDEBOL, and ten sailors were ordered by the Admiralty
to accompany the expedition. At Yekaterinenburg Schestakov was
provided with some small cannon and mortars with ammunition, and at
Tobolsk with 400 Cossacks. In consequence of a great number of
misfortunes, among them shipwreck in the sea of Okotsk, there stood
however but a small portion of this force at his disposal when he
began his campaign by marching into the country from the bottom of
Penschina Bay. This campaign too was exceedingly unfortunate. After
only a few days' march he came unexpectedly on a large body of
Chukches, who themselves had gone to war with the Koryäks. A fight
took place on the 25th/14th March, 1730, in which Schestakov himself
fell, hit by an arrow, and his followers were killed or put to
flight.

Among those who were ordered to accompany Schestakov in this
unfortunate campaign was Captain DMITRI PAULUTSKI. Under his command
a new campaign was undertaken against the Chukches With a force of
215 Russians, 160 Cossacks and 60 Yukagires, Paulutski left Anadyrsk
on the 23rd/12th March, 1731, and marched east of the sources of the
Anadyr to the Polar Sea, which was only reached after two mouths'
march. Then he went along the coast, partly by land, partly on the
ice, to the eastward. After fourteen days he fell in with a large
Chukch army, and having in vain summoned it to surrender, he
delivered a blow on the 18/7th June, and obtained a complete victory
over the enemy. During the continuation of the campaign along the
coast he was compelled to fight on two other occasions, one on the
11th July/30th June and the other on the 26/11th July, at
Chukotskojnos itself, over which promontory he wished to march to
the mouth of the Anadyr. In both cases the victory lay with the
Russians, who, according to Müller's account based on the official
documents, in all three engagements lost only three Cossacks, one
Yukagire and five Koryäks. But notwithstanding all these defeats the
Chukches refused to submit and pay tribute to the Russians, on which
account the only gain of the campaign was the honour of avenging
Schestakov's defeat and of marching in triumph over Chukotskojnos.
For this, ten days were required. On the promontory, hills of
considerable height had to be passed. It appears as if Paulutski
followed the shore of Kolyutschin Bay to the south, and then marched
over the tongue of land which separates this bay from Anadyr Bay, or
to express it otherwise, which unites the Chukch peninsula to the
mainland of Siberia.

Many mistakes in comprehending the accounts of old travels to these
regions have arisen from our ignorance of the great southern
extension of Kolyutschin Bay, and from the same name being
frequently used to distinguish different places on the coasts of
Siberia. Thus we find on the map by A. ARROW-SMITH annexed to
Sauer's account of Billings' travels a Seidze Kamen on the south
side of Chukch peninsula, and it was perhaps just this Seidze Kamen,
known and so named by the dwellers on the Anadyr, that is mentioned
in Müller's account of Paulutski's campaign.

On the 1st Nov./21st Oct. Paulutski returned to Anadyrsk, crowned
with victory indeed, but without having brought his adversaries to
lasting submission. No new attempt was made to induce the Chukches
to submit, perhaps because Paulutski's campaign had rendered it
evident that it was easier to win victories over the Chukches than
to subdue them, and that the whole treasures of walrus tusks and
skins belonging to the tribe would scarcely suffice to pay the
expenses of the most inconsiderable campaign.

Perhaps too the accounts of Paulutski's victories may not be quite
correct, at least the old repute of Chukches as a brave and savage
race remained undiminished. Thus we read in a note already quoted at
page 110 of the _Histoire généalogique des Tartares_ [275] "The
north-eastern part of Asia is inhabited by two allied races,
_Tzuktzchi_ and _Tzchalatzki_, and south of them on the Eastern
Ocean by a third, called _Olutorski_. They are the most savage tribe
in the whole north of Asia, and will have nothing to do with the
Russians, whom they inhumanly kill when they fall in with them, and
when any of them fall into the hands of the Russians they kill
themselves". On the map of LOTTERUS (1765) the Chukch Peninsula is
coloured in a way differing from Russian Siberia, and there is the
following inscription _Tjukzchi natio ferocissima et bellicosa
Russorum inimica, qui capti se invicem interficiunt_. In 1777
GEORGIUS says in his _Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen
Reichs_ (part ii., p. 350) of the Chukches "They are more savage,
coarse, proud, refractory, thievish, false, and revengeful, than the
neighbouring nomads the Koryäks. They are as bad and dangerous as
the Tunguses are friendly. Twenty Chukches will beat fifty Koryäks.
The _Ostrogs_ (fortified places) lying in the neighbourhood of their
country are even in continual fear of them, and cost so much that
the Government has recently withdrawn the oldest Russian settlement
in those regions, Anadyrsk". Other statements to the same effect
might be quoted, and even in our day the Chukches are, with or
without justification, known in Siberia for stubbornness, courage,
and love of freedom.

But what violence could not effect has been completely accomplished
in a peaceful way.[276] The Chukches indeed do not pay any other
taxes than some small market tolls, but a very active traffic is now
carried on between them and the Russians, and many travellers have
without inconvenience traversed their country, or have sailed along
its pretty thickly inhabited coast.

Among former travellers on the Chukch peninsula, who visited the
encampments of the coast Chukches, besides Behring, Cook, and other
seafarers, the following may be mentioned:--

The Cossack, PETER ILIIN SIN POPOV, was sent in 1711 with two
interpreters to examine the country of the Chukches, and has left
some interesting accounts of his observations there (MÜLLER,
_Sammlung Russischer Geschichten_, iii. p. 56).[277]

BILLINGS, with his companions SAUER, SARYTSCHEV, &c., visited
Chukch-land in 1791. Among other things, accompanied by Dr. MERK,
two interpreters and eight men, he made a journey from Metschigme
Bay over the interior of Chukch-land to Yakutsk. Unfortunately the
account we have of this remarkable journey is exceedingly
incomplete.[278]

FERDINAND VON WRANGEL during his famous Siberian travels was much in
contact with the Chukches, and among his other journeys travelled in
the winter of 1823 in dog sledges along the coast of the Polar Sea
from the Kolyma to Kolyutschin Island (Wrangel, _Reise_, ii. pp.
176-231). There are besides many notices of the Chukches at other
places in the same work (i. pp. 267-293, ii. pp. 156, 168, &c.).

FRIEDRICH VON LÜTKE in the course of his circumnavigation of the
globe in 1826-29, came in contact with the population of the Chukch
peninsula, whom he described in detail in Erman's _Archiv_ (iii. pp.
446-464). Here it ought to be noted that, while the population on
the North coast consists of true Chukches, the coast population of
the region which Lütké visited, the stretch between the Anadyr and
Cape Deschnev consists of a tribe, _Namollo_, which differs from the
Chukches, and is nearly allied to the Eskimo on the American side of
Behring's Straits.

The English Franklin Expedition in the _Plover_, commanded by
Captain MOORE, wintered in 1848-49 at Chukotskojnos, and, both at
the winter station and in the course of extensive excursions with
dogs along the coast and to the interior of the country, came much
into contact with the natives. The observations made during the
wintering were published in a work of great importance for a
knowledge of the tribes in question by Lieutenant W.H. HOOPER, _Ten
Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, London, 1853.

C VON DITTMAR[279] travelled in 1853 in the north part of Kamchatka,
and there came in contact with the reindeer nomads, especially with
the Koryäks. The information he gives us about the Chukches (p. 126)
he had obtained from the Nischni-Kolymsk merchant, TRIFONOV, who had
traded with them for twenty-eight years, and had repeatedly
travelled in the interior of the country.

Interesting contributions to a knowledge of the mode of living of
the reindeer-Chukches were also collected by Baron G. VON MAYDELL,
who, in 1868 and 1869, along with Dr. CARL VON NEUMANN and others,
made a journey from Yakutsk by Sredni-Kolymsk and Anjui to
Kolyutschin Bay. Unfortunately, with regard to this expedition, I
have only had access to some notices in the _Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society_ (vol. 21, London 1877, p. 213), and _Das
Ausland_ (1880, p. 861). The proper sketch of the journey is to be
found in _Isvestija_, published by the Siberian division of the
Russian Geographical Society, parts 1 and 2.

With reference to the other travellers whose writings are usually
quoted as sources for a knowledge of the Chukches, it may be
mentioned that STELLER and KRASCHENINNIKOV only touch in passing on
the true Chukches, but instead give very instructive and detailed
accounts of the Koryäks, who are as nearly allied to the Chukches as
the Spaniards to the Portuguese, but yet differ considerably in
their mode of life, also that a part of these authors' statements
regarding the Chukches do not at all refer to that tribe, but to the
Eskimo. It appears indeed that recently, after the former national
enmity had ceased, mixed races have arisen among these tribes. But
it ought not to be forgotten that they differ widely in origin,
although the Chukches as coming at a later date to the coast of the
Polar Sea have adopted almost completely the hunting implements and
household furniture of the Eskimo; and the Eskimo again, in the
districts where they come in contact with the Chukches, have adopted
various things from their language.

Like the Lapps and most other European and Asiatic Polar races, the
Chukches fall into two divisions speaking the same language and
belonging to the same race, but differing considerably in their mode
of life. One division consists of reindeer nomads, who, with their
often very numerous reindeer herds, wander about between Behring's
Straits, and the Indigirka and the Penschina Bays. They live by
tending reindeer and by trade, and consider themselves the chief
part of the Chukch tribe. The other division of the race are the
coast Chukches, who do not own any reindeer, but live in fixed but
easily moveable and frequently moved tents along the coast between
Chaun Bay and Behring's Status. But beyond East Cape there is found
along the coast of Behring's Sea another tribe, nearly allied to the
Eskimo. This is Wrangel's _Onkilon_, Lütké's _Namollo_. Now,
however, Chukches also have settled at several points on this line
of coast, and a portion of the Eskimo have adopted the language of
the superior Chukch race. Thus the inhabitants at St. Lawrence Bay
spoke Chukch, with little mixture of foreign words, and differed in
their mode of life and appearance only inconsiderably from the
Chukches, whom during the course of the winter we learned to know
from nearly all parts of the Chukch peninsula. The same was the case
with the natives who came on board the _Vega_ while we sailed past
East Cape, and with the two families we visited in Konyam Bay. But
the natives in the north-west part of St. Lawrence Island talked an
Eskimo dialect, quite different from Chukch. There were, however,
many Chukch words incorporated with it. At Port Clarence on the
contrary there lived pure Eskimo. Among them we found a Chukch woman
who informed us that there were Chukch villages also on the American
side of Behring's Strait, north of Prince of Wales Cape. These
cannot, however, be very numerous or populous, as they are not
mentioned in the accounts of the various English expeditions to
those regions, they die not noticed for instance in Dr. JOHN
SIMPSON'S instructive memoir on the Eskimo at Behring's Straits.

We were unable during the voyage of the _Vega_ to obtain any data
for estimating the number of the reindeer-Chukches. But the number
of the coast Chukches may be arrived at in the following way.
Lieutenant Nordquist collected from the numerous foremen who rested
at the _Vega_ information as to the names of the encampments which
are to be found at present on the coast between Chaun Bay and
Behring's Straits, and the number of tents at each village. He thus
ascertained that the number of the tents in the coast villages
amounts to about 400. The number of inhabitants in every tent may
be, according to our experience, averaged at five. The population on
the line of coast in question may thus amount to about 2,000, at
most to 2,500, men, women, and children. The number of the
reindeer-Chukches appears to be about the same. The whole population
of Chukch Land may thus now amount to 4,000 or 5,000 persons. The
Cossack Popov already mentioned, reckoned in 1711 that all the
Chukches, both reindeer-owning and those with fixed dwellings,
numbered 2,000 persons. Thus during the last two centuries, if these
estimates are correct, this Polar race has doubled its numbers.

In order to give the reader an idea of the language of the Chukches,
I have in a preceding chapter given an extract from the large
vocabulary which Nordquist has collected. There appear to be no
dialects differing very much from each other. Whether foreign words
borrowed from other Asiatic languages have been adopted in Chukch we
have not been able to make out. It is certain that no Russian words
are used. The language strikes me as articulate and euphonious. It
is nearly allied to the Koryäk, but so different from other, both
East-Asiatic and American, tongues, that philologists have not yet
succeeded in clearing up the relationship of the Chukches to other
races.

Like most other Polar tribes, the Chukches now do not belong to any
unmixed race. This one is soon convinced of, if he considers
attentively the inhabitants of a large tent-village. Some are tall,
with tallowlike, raven-black hair, brown complexion, high aquiline
nose--in short, with an exterior that reminds us of the descriptions
we read of the North American Indians. Others again by their dark
hair, slight beard, sunk nose or rather projecting cheek-bones and
oblique eyes, remind us distinctly of the Mongolian race, and
finally we meet among them with very fair faces, with features and
complexion which lead us to suspect that they are descendants of
runaways or prisoners of war of purely Russian origin. The most
common type is--straight, coarse, black hair of moderate length, the
brow tapering upwards, the nose finely formed, but with its root
often flattened eyes by no means small, well-developed black
eyebrows, projecting cheeks often swollen by frostbite, which is
specially observable when the face is looked at from the side,
light, slightly brown complexion, which in the young women is often
nearly as red and white as in Europeans. The beard is always scanty.
Nearly all are stout and well grown, we saw no cripples among them.
The young women often strike one as very pretty if one can rid
oneself of the unpleasant impression of the dirt, which is never
washed away but by the drifting snow of winter, and of the nauseous
train-oil odour which in winter they carry with them from the close
tent-chamber. The children nearly always make a pleasant impression
by their healthy appearance, and their friendly and becoming
behaviour.

[Illustration: TYPICAL CHUKCH FACES.
 1. Manschetsko a man from Pitlekaj.
 2. Young man from Irgunnuk.
 3. Chajdodlin a man from Irgunnuk.
 4. Reindeer Chukch.
 5. Old man from Irgunnuk.
 6. Man from Yinretlen. (After photographs by L. Palander.) ]

[Illustration: TYPICAL CHUKCH FACES.
 1., 2. Nautsing, a woman from Pitlekaj.
 3., 4. Rotschitlen  5. Young man from Vankarema.
 6. Young man from Irgunnuk. (After photographs by L. Palander.) ]

The Chukches are a hardy race, but exceedingly indolent when want of
food does not force them to exertion. The men during their hunting
excursions pass whole days in a cold of -30° to -40° out
upon the ice, without protection and without carrying with them food
or fuel. In such cases they slake their thirst with snow, and
assuage their hunger, if they have been successful in hunting, with
the blood and flesh of the animals they have killed. Women nearly
naked often during severe cold leave for a while the inner tent, or
tent-chamber, where the train-oil lamp maintains a heat that is at
times oppressive. A foreigner's visit induces the completely naked
children to half creep out from under the curtain of reindeer skin
which separates the sleeping chamber from the exterior tent, in
which, as it is not heated, the temperature is generally little
higher than that of the air outside. In this temperature the mothers
do not hesitate to show their naked children, one or two years of
age, to visitors for some moments.

Diseases are notwithstanding uncommon, with the exception that in
autumn, before the severe cold commences, nearly all suffer from a
cough and cold. Very bad skin eruptions and sores also occur so
frequently that a stay in the inner tent is thereby commonly
rendered disgusting to Europeans. Some of the sores however are
merely frostbites, which most Chukches bring on themselves by the
carelessness with which during high winds they expose the bare neck,
breast and wrists to the lowest temperature. When frostbite has
happened it is treated, even though of considerable extent, with
extreme carelessness. They endeavour merely to thaw the frozen place
as fast as possible partly by chafing, partly by heating. On the
other hand we never saw anyone who had had a deep frostbite on the
hands or feet, a circumstance which must be ascribed to the
serviceable nature of their shoes and gloves. From the beginning of
October 1878 to the middle of July 1879 no death appears to have
happened at any of the encampments near us. During the same time the
number of the inhabitants was increased by two or three births.
During the wife's pregnancy the husband was very affectionate to
her, gave her his constant company in the tent, kissed and fondled
her frequently in the presence of strangers, and appeared to take a
pride in showing her to visitors.

We had no opportunity of witnessing any burial or marriage. It
appears as if the Chukches sometimes burn their dead, sometimes
expose them on the _tundra_ as food for beasts of prey, with
weapons, sledges, and household articles. They have perhaps begun to
abandon the old custom of burning the dead, since the hunting has
fallen off so that the supply of blubber for burning has diminished.
I have before described the pits filled with burned bones which Dr.
Stuxberg found on the 9th September, 1878, by the bank of a dried-up
rivulet. We took them for graves, but not having seen any more at
our winter station, we began to entertain doubts as to the
correctness of our observation[280]. It is at least certain that the
inhabitants of Pitlekaj exclusively bury their dead by laying them
out on the _tundra_.

Regarding the man, buried or exposed in this way, whom Johnsen found
on the 15th October, Dr. Almquist, who himself visited the place the
next day, makes the following statement--

[Illustration: PLAN OF A CHUKCH GRAVE. (After a drawing by A.
Stuxberg.) ]

    "The place was situated five to seven kilometres from the
    village Yinretlen, near the bottom of the little valley
    which runs from this village in a southerly direction into
    the interior. The body was exposed on a little low knoll
    only two fathoms across. It was covered with loose snow,
    and was not frozen very hard. When it was loosened there
    was no proper pit to be seen in the underlying snow and
    ice. The corpse lay from true N.N.W. to S.S.E., with the
    head to the former quarter. Under the head lay two black
    rounded stones, such as the Chukches use in housekeeping.
    Besides these there was no trace of anything underlying or
    covering the corpse. The clothes had been torn by beasts of
    prey from the body, the back was quite untouched, but the
    face and breast were much wasted, and the arms and legs
    almost wholly eaten up. On the knoll evident traces of the
    wolf, the fox, and the raven were visible. Close to the
    right side of the corpse had lain the weapons which Johnson
    had brought home the day before. Near the feet was found a
    sledge completely broken in pieces, evidently new and
    smashed on the spot. Not far off, we found lying on the
    snow pieces of a _pesk_ and of foot-coverings, both new and
    of the finest quality. Beasts of prey had undoubtedly torn
    them off and pulled them about. On the knoll there were
    found besides five or six other graves, distinguished by
    small stones or a wooden block lying on the even ground.
    Two of the graves were ornamented by a collection of
    reindeer horns. The severe cold prevented me from
    ascertaining whether these stones concealed the remains of
    buried corpses. I considered that I might take the Chukch's
    head, as otherwise the wolves would doubtless have eaten it
    up. It was taken on board and skeletonised."


    In the spring of 1879, after the snow was melted, we had
    further opportunities of seeing a large number of
    burying-places, or more correctly of places where dead
    Chukches had been laid out. They were marked by stones
    placed in a peculiar way, and were measured and examined in
    detail by Dr. Stuxberg, who gives the following description
    of them:--

[Illustration: TENT FRAME AT PITLEKAJ. (After a drawing by G. Bove.) ]

    "The Chukch graves on the heights south of Pitlekaj and
    Yinretlen, which were examined by me on the 4th and 7th
    July, 1879, were nearly fifty in number. Every grave
    consisted of an oval formed of large lying stones. At one
    end there was generally a large stone raised on its edge,
    and from the opposite end there went out one or two pieces
    of wood lying on the ground. The area within the stone
    circle was sometimes over-laid with small stones, sometimes
    free and overgrown with grass. At all the graves, at a
    distance of four to seven paces from the stone standing on
    its edge in the longitudinal axis of the grave or a little
    to the side of it, there was another smaller circle of
    stones inclosing a heap of reindeer horns, commonly
    containing also broken seals' skulls and other fragments of
    bones. Only in one grave were found pieces of human bones.
    The graves were evidently very old, for the bits of wood at
    the ends were generally much decayed and almost wholly
    covered with earth, and the stones were completely
    overgrown with lichens on the upper side. I estimate the
    age of these graves at about two hundred years."

The Chukches do not dwell in snow huts, nor in wooden houses,
because wood for building is not to be found in the country of the
coast Chukches, and because wooden houses are unsuitable for the
reindeer nomad. They live summer and winter in tents of a peculiar
construction, not used by any other race. For in order to afford
protection from the cold the tent is double, the outer envelope
inclosing an inner tent or sleeping chamber. This has the form of a
parallelopiped, about 3.5 metres long, 2.2 metres broad, and 1.8
metre high. It is surrounded by thick, warm, reindeer skins, and is
further covered with a layer of grass. The floor consists of a
walrus skin stretched over a foundation of twigs and straw. At night
the floor is covered with a carpet of reindeer skins, which is
taken away during the day. The rooms at the sides of the inner tent
are also shut off by curtains, and serve as pantries. The inner tent
is warmed by three train-oil lamps, which together with the heat
given off by the numerous human beings packed together in the tent,
raise the temperature to such a height that the inhabitants even
during the severest winter cold may be completely naked. The work of
the women and the cooking are carried on in winter in this
tent-chamber, very often also the calls of nature are obeyed in it.
All this conduces to make the atmosphere prevailing there
unendurable. There are also, however, cleanlier families, in whose
sleeping chamber the air is not so disgusting.

In summer they live during the day, and cook and work, in the outer
tent. This consists of seal and walrus skins sewed together, which
however are generally so old, hairless, and full of holes, that they
appear to have been used by several generations. The skins of the
outer tent are stretched over wooden ribs, which are carefully bound
together by thongs of skin. The ribs rest partly on posts, partly on
tripods of driftwood. The posts are driven into the ground, and the
tripods get the necessary steadiness by a heavy stone or a seal-skin
sack filled with sand being suspended from the middle of them.
In order further to steady the tent a yet heavier stone is in the
same way suspended by a strap from the top of the tent-roof, or the
summit of the roof is made fast to the ground by thick thongs.
At one place a tackle from a wrecked vessel was used for this purpose,
being tightened with a block between the top of the roof and an
iron hook frozen into the ground. The ribs in every tent are besides
supported by T-formed cross stays.

The entrance consists of a low door, which, when necessary, may be
closed with a reindeer skin. The floor of the outer tent consists of
the bare ground. This is kept very clean, and the few household
articles are hung up carefully and in an orderly manner along the
walls on the inner and outer sides of the tent. Near the tent are
some posts, as high as a man, driven into the ground, with cross
pieces on which skin boats, oars, javelins, &c., are laid, and from
which fishing and seal nets are suspended.

In the neighbourhood of the dwellings the storehouse is placed. It
consists of a cellar excavated at some suitable place. The sites of
old Onkilon dwellings are often used for this purpose. The descent
is commonly covered with pieces of driftwood which are loaded with
stones, at one place the door, or rather the hatch, of the cellar
consisted of a whale's shoulder-blade. In consequence of the
unlimited confidence which otherwise was wont to prevail between the
natives and us, we were surprised to find them unwilling to give the
_Vega_ men admittance to their storehouses. Possibly the report of
our excavations for old implements at the sites of Onkilon dwellings
at Irkaipij had spread to Kolyutschin, and been interpreted as
attempts at plunder.

[Illustration: CHUKCH OAR. One-sixteenth of the natural size. ]

The tents were always situated on the sea shore, generally on the
small neck of land which separates the strand lagoons from the sea.
They are erected and taken down in a few hours. A Chukch family can
therefore easily change its place of residence, and does remove very
often from one village to another. Sometimes it appears to own the
wooden frame of a tent at several places, and in such cases at
removal there are taken along only the tent covering, the dogs, and
the most necessary skin and household articles. The others are left
without inclosure, lock, or watch, at the former dwelling-place, and
one is certain to find all untouched on his return. During short
stays at a place there are used, even when the temperature of the
air is considerably under the freezing-point, exceedingly defective
tents or huts made with the skin boats that may happen to be
available. Thus a young couple who returned in spring to Pitlekaj
lived happy and content in a single thin and ragged tent or conical
skin hut which below where it was broadest was only two and a half
metres across. An accurate inventory, which I took during the
absence of the newly married pair, showed that their whole household
furniture consisted of a bad lamp, a good American axe, some
reindeer skins, a small piece of mirror, a great many empty preserve
tins from the _Vega_, which among other things were used for
cooking, a fire-drill, a comb, leather for a pair of moccassins,
some sewing implements, and some very incomplete and defective
tools.

The boats are made of walrus skin, sewed together and stretched over
a light frame-work of wood and pieces of bone. The different parts
of the frame-work are bound together with thongs of skin or strings
of whalebone. In form and size the Chukches' large boat, _atkuat_,
called by the Russians _baydar_, corresponds completely with the
Greenlander's _umiak_ or woman's boat. It is so light that four men
can take it upon their shoulders, and yet so roomy that thirty men
can be conveyed in it. One seldom sees _anatkuat_, or boats intended
for only one man; they are much worse built and uglier than the
Greenlander's _kayak_. The large boats are rowed with broad-bladed
oars, of which every man or woman manages only one. By means of
these oars a sufficient number of rowers can for a little raise the
speed of the boat to ten kilometres per hour. Like the Greenlanders,
however, they often cease rowing in order to rest, laugh, and
chatter, then row furiously for some minutes rest themselves again,
row rapidly, and so on. When the sea is covered with thin newly
formed ice they put two men in the fore of the boat with one leg
over in order to trample the ice in pieces.

During winter the boats are laid up, and instead the dog-sledges are
put in order. These are of a different construction from the
Greenland sledges, commonly very light and narrow, made of some
flexible kind of wood, and shod with plates of whales' jawbones,
whales' ribs, or whalebone. In order to improve the running, the
runners before the start are carefully covered with a layer of ice
from two or three millimetres in thickness by repeatedly pouring
water over them.[281] The different parts of the sledge are not
fastened together by nails, but are bound together by strips of skin
or strings of whalebone. On the low uncomfortable seat there
commonly lies a piece of skin, generally of the Polar bear. The
number of dogs that are harnessed to each sledge is variable. I have
seen a Chukch riding behind two small lean dogs, who however
appeared to draw their heavy load over even hard snow without any
extraordinary exertion. At other sledges I have seen ten or twelve
dogs, and a sledge laden with goods was drawn by a team of
twenty-eight. The dogs are generally harnessed one pair before
another to a long line common to all,[282] sometimes in the case of
short excursions more than two abreast, or so irregularly that their
position in relation to the sledge appears to have depended merely
on the accidental length of the draught-line and the caprice of the
driver. The dogs are guided not by reins but by continual crying and
shouting, accompanied by lashes from a long whip. There is, besides,
in every properly equipped sledge a short and thick staff mounted
with iron, with a number of iron rings attached to the upper end.
When nothing else will do, this staff is thrown at the offending
animal. The staff is so heavy that the animal may readily get its
death by such a throw. The dogs know this, and in consequence are so
afraid of this grim implement that the rattling of the rings is
sufficient to induce them to put forth extreme efforts. During rests
the team is tied to the staff, which is driven into the snow.

The dog harness is made of inch-wide straps of skin, forming a neck
or shoulder band, united on both sides by a strap to a girth, to one
side of which the draught strap is fastened. Thanks to the excellent
protection against the harness galling which the bushy coat of the
dogs affords, little attention is needed for the harness, and I have
never seen a single dog that was idle in consequence of sores from
the harness. On the other hand, their feet are often hurt by the
sharp snow. On this account the equipment of every sledge embraces a
number of dog shoes of the appearance shown in the accompanying
woodcut. They are used only in case of need.

[Illustration: DOG SHOE. One-third of natural size. ]

The Chukch dogs are of the same breed, but smaller, than the Eskimo
dogs in Danish Greenland. They resemble wolves, are long-legged,
long-haired, and shaggy. The ears are short, commonly upright, their
colour very variable, from black or white, and black or white
spotted, to grey or yellowish-brown. For innumerable generations
they have been used as draught animals, while as watch dogs they
have not been required in a country where theft or robbery appears
never to take place. The power of barking they have therefore
completely lost, or perhaps they never possessed it. Even a European
may come into the outer tent without any of the dogs there informing
their owners sleeping in the inner tent by a sound of the
foreigner's arrival.

On the other hand, they are good though slow draught animals, being
capable of long-continued exertion. They are as dirty and as
peaceable as their owners. There are no fights made between
dog-teams belonging to different tents, and they are rare between
the dogs of an encampment and those of strangers. In Europe dogs are
the friends of their masters and the enemies of each other, here
they are the friends of each other and the slaves of their masters.
In winter they appear in case of necessity to get along with very
little food, they are then exceedingly lean, and for the most part
are motionless in some snow-drift. They seldom leave the
neighbourhood of the tent alone, not even to search for food or hunt
at their own hand and for their own account. This appears to me so
much the more remarkable, as they are often several days, I am
inclined to say weeks, in succession without getting any food from
their masters. A piece of a whale, with the skin and part of the
flesh adhering, washed out of frozen sandy strata thus lay untouched
some thousand paces from Pitlekaj, and the neighbourhood of the
tents, where the hungry dogs were constantly wandering about,
formed, as has been already stated, a favourite haunt for ptarmigan
and hares during winter. Young dogs some months old are already
harnessed along with the team in order that they may in time become
accustomed to the draught tackle. During the cold season the dogs
are permitted to live in the outer tent, the females with their
young even in the inner. We had two Scotch collies with us on the
_Vega_. They at first frightened the natives very much with their
bark. To the dogs of Chukches they soon took the same superior
standing as the European claims for himself in relation to the
savage. The dog was distinctly preferred by the female Chukch canine
population, and that too without the fights to which such favour on
the part of the fair commonly gives rise. A numerous canine progeny
of mixed Scotch-Chukch breed has thus arisen at Pitlekaj. The young
dogs had a complete resemblance to their father, and the natives
were quite charmed with them.

When a dog is to be killed the Chukch stabs it with his spear, and
then lets it bleed to death. Even when the scarcity was so great
that the natives at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen lived mainly on the food
we gave them, they did not eat the dogs they killed. On the other
hand they had no objection to eating a shot crow.

When the Chukch goes out on the ice to hunt seals he takes his dogs
with him, and it is these which take home the catch, commonly with
the draught-line fastened directly to the head of the killed seal,
which is then turned on its back and dragged over the ice without
anything under it. One of the inhabitants of Yinretlen returned from
the open water off the coast after a successful hunting expedition
with five seals, of which the smallest was laid on the sledge, the
others being fastened one behind the other in a long row. After the
last was drawn a long pole, which was used in setting the net.

The dress of the Chukches is made of reindeer or seal-skin. The
former, because it is warmer, is preferred as material for the
winter dress. The men in winter are clad in two _pesks_, that which
is worn next the body is of thin skin with the hair inwards, the
outer is of thick skin with the hair outwards. Besides, they wear,
when it rains or wet snow falls, a great coat of gut or of cotton
cloth, which they call _calico_. On one occasion I saw such an
overcoat made of a kind of reindeer-chamois leather, which was of
excellent quality and evidently of home manufacture. It had been
originally white, but was ornamented with broad brown painted
borders. Some red and blue woollen shirts which we gave them were
also worn above the skin clothes, and by then showy colours awakened
great satisfaction in the owners. The Chukch _pesk_ is shorter than
the Lapp one. It does not reach quite to the knees, and is confined
at the waist with a belt. Under the _pesk_ are worn two pairs of
trousers, the inner pair with the hair inwards, and the outer with
the hair outwards. The trousers are well made, close fitting, and
terminate above the foot. The foot-covering consists of reindeer or
seal-skin moccasins, which above the foot are fastened to the
trousers in the way common among the Lapps. The soles are of
walrus-skin or bear-skin, and have the hair side inwards. On the
other parts of the moccasin the hair is outwards. Within the shoes
are seal-skin stockings and hay. The head covering consists of a
hood embroidered with beads, over which in severe cold is drawn an
outer hood bordered with dog-skin. The outer hood is often quite
close under the chin, and extends in a very well-fitting way over
the shoulders. To a complete dress there also belong a skin
neckerchief or boa, and a neck covering of multiple reindeer-skins,
or of different kinds of skins sewn together in chess-board-like
squares. In summer and far into the autumn the men go bareheaded,
although they clip the hair on the crown of the head close to the
root.

During the warm season of the year a number of the winter wraps are
laid off in proportion to the increase of the heat, so that the
dress finally consists merely of a _pesk_, an overcoat, and a pair
of trousers. The summer moccassins are often as long in the leg as
our sea-boots. In the tent the men wear only short trousers reaching
to the hip, together with leather belts (health-belts) at the waist
and on the arms. The man's dress is not much ornamented. On the
other hand the men often wear strings of beads in the ears, or a
skin band set with large, tastefully arranged beads or a leather
band with some large beads on the brow. The leather band they will
not willingly part with, and a woman told us that the beads in it
indicate the number of enemies the wearer has killed. I am, however,
quite certain that this was only an empty boast. Probably our
informant referred to a tradition handed down from former warlike
periods to the present time, and thus we have here only a Chukch
form of the boasting about martial feats common even among civilised
nations.

To the dress of the men there belongs further a screen for the eyes,
which is often beautifully ornamented with beads and silver mounting.
This screen is worn especially in spring as a protection from the strong
sunlight reflected from the snow-plains. At this season of the year
snow-blindness is very common, but notwithstanding this snow-spectacles
of the kind which the Eskimo and even the Samoyeds use are unknown here.

The men are not tattooed, but have sometimes a black or red cross
painted on the cheek. They wear the hair cut close to the root, with
the exception of a short tuft right on the crown of the head and a
short fringe above the brow. The women have long hair, parted right
in the middle, and plaited along with strings of beads into plaits
which hang down by the ears. They are generally tattooed on the
face, sometimes also on the arms or other parts of the body. The
tattooing is done by degrees, possibly certain lines are first made
at marriage.

The dress of the women, like that of the men, is double during winter.
The outer _pesk_, which is longer and wider than the man's, passes
downwards into a sort of very wide trousers. The sleeves too are
exceedingly wide, so that the arm may easily be drawn in and stuck out.
Under the outer _pesk_ there is an inner _pesk_, or skin-shirt, and
under them a pair of very short trousers is worn. Where the outer _pesk_
ends the _moccassins_ begin. At the neck the _pesk_ is much cut away, so
that a part of the back is bare. I have seen girls go with the upper
part of the back exposed in this way even in a cold of -30° or -40°. The
stockings have the hair inwards, they are bordered with dog-skin, and go
to the knees. The moccasins, chin-covers, hoods, and neckerchiefs differ
little from the corresponding articles of men's dress The woman's dress
is in general more ornamented than the man's, and the skins used for it
appear to be more carefully chosen and prepared. In the inner tent the
women go nearly naked, only with quite short under-trousers of skin or
_calico_ or a narrow _cingulum pudicitiæ_ On the naked body there are
worn besides one or two leather bands on one arm, a leather band on the
throat, another round the waist, and some bracelets of iron or less
frequently of copper on the wrists. The younger women however do not
like to show themselves in this dress to foreigners, and they therefore
hasten at their entrance to cover the lower part of the body with the
_pesk_, or some other piece of dress that may be at hand.

[Illustration: CHUKCH FACE TATTOOING. (After a drawing by A.
Stuxberg.) ]

[Illustration: CHUKCH CHILDREN.
 _a._ Girl from Irgunnuk. (After a photograph by L. Palander.)
 _b._ Boy from Pitlekaj, with his mother's hood on.
      (After a drawing by the seaman Hansson.) ]

When the children are some years old they get the same dress as
their parents, different for boys and girls. While small they are
put into a wide skin covering with the legs and arms sewed together
downwards. Behind there is a four-cornered opening through which
moss (the white, dead part of Sphagnum), intended to absorb the
excreta, is put in and changed. At the ends of the arms two loops
are fastened, through which the child's legs are passed when the
mother wishes to put it away in some corner of the tent. The dress
itself appears not to be changed until it has become too small. In
the inner tent the children go completely naked.

[Illustration: SNOW SHOES.
 _a._ The common kind.
 _b._ Intended to be used in the way shown in the drawing on the
      opposite page. (One-thirteenth of the natural size.) ]

Both men and women use snow-shoes during winter. Without them they
will not willingly undertake any long walk in loose snow. They
consider such a walk so tiresome, that they loudly commiserated one
of my crew, who had to walk without snow-shoes after drifting
weather from the village Yinretlen to the vessel, about three
kilometres distant. Finally a woman's compassion went so far that
she presented him with a pair, an instance of generosity on the part
of our Chukch friends which otherwise was exceedingly rare. The
frame of the snow-shoes is made of wood, the cross-pieces are of
strong and well-stretched thongs. This snow-shoe corresponds
completely with that of the Indians, and is exceedingly serviceable
and easy to get accustomed to. Another implement for travelling over
snow was offered by a Chukch who drove past the vessel in the
beginning of February. It consisted of a pair of immensely wide
skates of thin wood, covered with seal-skin, and raised at both
sides. I had difficulty in understanding how these broad shapeless
articles could be used with advantage until I learned from the
accompanying drawing that they may be employed as a sort of sledges.
The drawing is taken from a Japanese work, whose title when
translated runs thus: A Journey to the north part of Japan (Yezo),
1804 (No. 565 of the Japanese library I brought home with me).

[Illustration: AN AINO MAN SKATING AFTER A REINDEER. (Japanese
drawing.) ]

In consequence of the difficulty which the Chukch has during winter
in procuring water by melting snow over the train-oil lamp, there
can be no washing of the body at that season of the year. Faces are
however whipped clean by the drifting snow, but at the same time are
generally swollen or sore from frostbite. On the whole, the
disposition of the Chukches to cleanliness is slight, and above all,
their ideas of what is clean or unclean differs considerably from
ours. Thus the women use urine as a wash for the face. At a common
meal the hand is often used as a spoon, and after it is finished, a
bowl filled with newly-passed urine instead of water is handed round
the company for washing the hands. Change of clothes takes place
seldom, and even when the outer dress is clean, new and well cut, of
carefully-chosen beautiful skins, the under-dress is very dirty, and
vermin numerous enough, though less so than might have been
expected. Food is often eaten in a way which we consider disgusting,
a titbit, for instance, is passed from mouth to mouth. The vessels
in which food is served are used in many ways and seldom cleaned. On
the other hand it may be stated that, in order not to make a stay in
the confined tent-chamber too uncomfortable, certain rules are
strictly observed. Thus, for instance, it is not permitted in the
interior of the tent to spit on the floor, but this must be done
into a vessel which in case of necessity is used as a night-utensil.
In every outer tent there lies a specially carved reindeer horn,
with which snow is removed from the clothes, the outer _pesk_ is
usually put off before one goes into the inner tent and the shoes
are carefully freed from snow. The carpet of walrus-skin, which
covers the floor of the inner tent, is accordingly dry and clean.
Even the outer tent is swept clean and free from loose snow, and the
snow is daily shovelled away from the tent doors with a spade of
whalebone. Every article both in the outer and inner tent is laid in
its proper place, and so on.

[Illustration: _a._ HUNTING CUP (sucking tube)
 (One-fourth of the natural size.)
 _b._ SNOW SCRAPER. (One-eighth of the natural size.) ]

As ornaments glass beads are principally used, some of them being
suspended from the neck and ears, others sewed upon the hood and
other articles of dress, or plaited into the hair embroidery of very
pleasing patterns is also employed. In order to embellish the
_pesks_ strips of skin or marmots' and squirrels' tails, &c., are
sewed upon them. Often a variegated artificial tail of different
skins is fixed to the hood behind, or the skin of the hood is so
chosen that the ears of the animal project on both sides of the
head. Along with the beads are fixed amulets, wooden tongs, small
bone heads or bone figures, pieces of metal, coins, &c. One child
had suspended from its neck an old Chinese coin with a square hole
in the middle, together with a new American five-cent piece.

[Illustration: CHUKCH WEAPONS AND HUNTING IMPLEMENTS.
 1. Harpoon (one-fifteenth of the natural size).
 2. Spear found at a grave (one-fourth).
 3. Bird sling (one-eighth).
 4. Darts with whipsling for casting them (one-seventh).
 5. Bird Dart with wooden handle for throwing (one-twelfth).
 6. Leister of bone (one-fourth).
 7. Ivory coat of mail (one-ninth). ]

[Illustration: CHUKCH BOW AND QUIVER.
(One-eighth of the natural size.) ]

In former times beautiful and good weapons were probably highly
prized by so warlike a people as the Chukches, but now weapons are
properly scarce antiquities, which, however, are still regarded with
a certain respect, and therefore are not readily parted with. The
lance which was found beside the corpse (fig. 2 on p. 105) shows by
its still partially preserved gold decorations that it had been
forged by the hand of an artist. Probably it has formed part of the
booty won long ago in the fights with the Cossacks. I procured by
barter an ivory coat of mail (fig. 7 on p. 105), and remains of
another. The ivory plates of the coat of mail are twelve centimetres
in length, four in breadth, and nearly one in thickness, holes being
bored at their edges for the leather thongs by which the plates are
bound together. This binding has been so arranged that the whole coat
of mail, when not in use, may be rolled together.

[Illustration: CHUKCH ARROWS. (One-ninth of the natural size.)
_a._ An arrowhead (one-half the natural size.) ]

Along with the spear and the coat of mail the old Chukches used the
bow for martial purposes. Now this weapon is employed only for
hunting, but it appears as if even for this purpose it would soon go
out of use. Some of the natives, however, use the bow with great
accuracy of aim. The bows which I procured commonly consisted of a
badly worked, slightly bent, elastic piece of wood, with the ends
drawn together by a skin thong. Only some old bows had a finer form.
They were larger, and made with care, for instance, they were
covered with birch-bark, and strengthened by an artistic plaiting of
sinews on the outer side. The arrows are of many kinds, partly with
bone or wooden, and partly with iron, points. Feathers are generally
wanting. The shaft is a clumsily worked piece of wood. Crossbows are
occasionally used. We have even seen bows for playthings, with
carefully made, non-pointed arrows. At the encampments near the
winter station we found a couple of percussion-lock guns, with caps,
powder and lead. They were evidently little used, and my attempt to
induce the Chukches to undertake long journeys by promises of a gun
with the necessary supply of powder and lead completely failed. When
the Chukch, who carried our letters to Nischni Kolymsk, was after
his return rewarded with a red shirt, a gun, caps, powder and ball,
he wished to exchange the gun and ammunition for an axe.

The principal livelihood of the Chukches is derived from hunting and
fishing. Both are very abundant at certain seasons of the year, but
are less productive during the cold season, in which case, in
consequence of the little forethought of the savage, there arises
great scarcity both of food and fuel and the means of melting snow.
Of their hunting and fishing implements I cannot give so complete
accounts as I should wish, because they very carefully avoided
taking any of the _Vega's_ hunters with them on their hunting
excursions.

The rough seal is taken with nets, made of strong seal-skin thongs.
The nets are set in summer among the ground-ices along the shore.
The animal gets entangled in the net and is suffocated, as it can no
longer come to the surface to breathe. In winter the seal is taken
partly with nets in "leads" among the ice, partly with the harpoon
when it crawls out of its hole, it is also taken by means of a noose
of thongs placed over its hole. In order to avoid the loss of the
valuable seal-blood, which is considered an extraordinary delicacy
by the Chukches, the animal is never killed by an edged tool, if
that can be avoided, but by repeated blows on the head. The bear is
killed by the lance or knife, the latter, according to the statement
of a Chukch, being the surest weapon, the walrus and the largest
kind of seals with the harpoon (fig. 1, p. 105), or a lance
resembling the Greenlander's. Even the whale is harpooned, but with
a harpoon considerably larger than the common, and to which as many
as six inflated seal-skins are fastened. In order to kill a whale a
great many such harpoons must be struck into it. Birds are taken in
snares, or killed with bird-javelins, arrows, and slings. The last
mentioned (fig. 3, p. 105) consist of a number of round balls of
bone fastened to leather thongs, which are knotted together. Some
feathers are often fixed to the knot in order to increase the
resistance of the air to this part of the sling. When the sling is
thrown the bone balls are thereby scattered in all directions, and
the probability of hitting becomes greater. Every man and boy in
summer carries with him such a sling, often bound round his head,
and is immediately prepared to cast it at flocks of birds flying
past. Common slings are also used, consisting of two thongs and a
piece of skin fastened to them. The bird-dart (fig. 5, p. 105)
completely resembles that used by the Eskimo. A kind of snare was
used by the boys at Yinretlen to catch small birds for our
zoologist. They were made of whalebone fibres.

Fish are caught partly with nets, partly with the hook or with a
sort of leister (fig. 6, p. 105). The nets are made of sinew-thread.
I procured several of these, and was surprised at the small value
which the natives set upon them, notwithstanding the hard labour
which must have been required for preparing the thread and making
the net. The nets are also sometimes used as drift-nets. The
fishing-rod consists of a shaft only thirty centimetres long, to
which is fixed a short line made of sinews. The extreme end of the
line passes through a large sinker of ivory, to which are attached
two or three tufts each with its hook of bone only, or of bone and
copper, or bone and iron. The hook has three or four points
projecting in different directions. I have before described how the
hook is used in autumn in fishing for roach, also how the productive
fishing goes on in the neighbourhood of Tjapka.

Even for the coast Chukch reindeer flesh appears to form an
important article of food. He probably purchases his stock of it
from the reindeer-Chukches for train-oil, skin straps, walrus tusks,
and perhaps fish. I suppose that part of the frozen reindeer blood,
which the inhabitants of the villages at our winter station used for
soup, had been obtained in the same way. Wild reindeer, or reindeer
that had run wild, were hunted with the lasso. Such animals,
however, do not appear now to be found in any large numbers on the
Chukch peninsula.

Besides fish and flesh the Chukches consume immense quantities of
herbs and other substances from the vegetable kingdom.[283] The most
important of these are the leaves and young branches of a great many
different plants (for instance Salix, Rhodiola, &c.) which are
collected and after being cleaned are preserved in seal-skin sacks.
Intentionally or unintentionally the contents of the sacks sour
during the course of the summer. In autumn they freeze together to a
lump of the form of the stretched seal-skin. The frozen mass is cut
in pieces and used with flesh, much in the same way as we eat bread.
Occasionally a vegetable soup is made from the pieces along with
water, and is eaten warm. In the same way the contents of the
reindeer stomach is used. Algæ and different kinds of roots are
also eaten, among the latter a kind of wrinkled tubers, which, as
already stated (Vol. I., p. 450) have a very agreeable taste.

In summer the Chukches eat cloud-berries, red bilberries, and other
berries, which are said to be found in great abundance in the
interior of the country. The quantity of vegetable matter which is
collected for food at that season of the year is very considerable,
and the natives do not appear to be very particular in their choice,
if the leaves are only green, juicy, and free from any bitter taste.
When the inhabitants, in consequence of scarcity of food, removed in
the beginning of February from Pitlekaj, they carried with them
several sacks of frozen vegetables, and there were still some left
in the cellars to be taken away as required. In the tents at St.
Lawrence Bay there lay heaps of leaf-clad willow-twigs and sacks
filled with leaves and stalks of Rhodiola. The writers who quote the
Chukches as an example of a race living exclusively on substances
derived from the animal kingdom thus commit a complete mistake. On
the contrary, they appear at certain seasons of the year to be more
"graminivorous" than any other people I know, and with respect to
this their taste appears to me to give the anthropologist a hint of
certain traits of the mode of life of the people of the Stone Age
which have been completely overlooked. To judge from the Chukches
our primitive ancestors by no means so much resembled beasts of prey
as they are commonly imagined to have done, and it may, perhaps,
have been the case that "bellum omnium inter omnes" was first
brought in with the higher culture of the Bronze or Iron Age.

The cooking of the Chukches, like that of most wild races, is very
simple. After a successful catch all the dwellers in the tent
gormandise on the killed animal, and appear to find a special
pleasure in making their faces and hands as bloody as possible.
Alternately with the raw flesh are eaten pieces of blubber and
marrow, and bits of the intestines which have been freed from their
contents merely by pressing between the fingers. Fish is eaten not
only in a raw state, but also frozen so hard that it can be broken
in pieces. When opportunity offers the Chukches do not, however,
neglect to boil their food, or to roast pieces of flesh over the
train-oil lamp--the word _roast_ ought however in this case to be
exchanged for _soot_. At a visit which Lieutenant Hovgaard made at
Najtskaj, the natives in the tent where he was a guest ate for
supper first seal-flesh soup, then boiled fish, and lastly, boiled
seal-flesh. They thus observed completely the order of eating
approved in Europe. The Chukches are unacquainted with other forks
than their fingers, and even the use of the spoon is not common.
Many carry about with them a spoon of copper, tinned iron, or bone
(fig. 8, p. 117). The soup is often drunk directly out of the
cooking vessel, or sucked up through hollow bones (see the figure on
p. 104). Those are used as dunking cups, and like the spoons
are worn in the belt. As examples of Chukch dishes I may further
mention, vegetable soup, boiled seal-flesh, boiled fish, blood soup,
soup of seal-blood and blubber. To these we may add soup from finely
crushed bones, or from seal-flesh, blubber, and bones. For crushing
the bones there is in every tent a hammer, consisting of an oval
stone with a hollow round it for a skin thong, with which the stone
is fastened to the short shaft of wood or bone. The bones which are
used for food are finely crushed with this implement against a stone
anvil or a whale's vertebra, and then boiled with water and blood,
before being eaten. At first we believed that this dish was intended
for the dogs, but afterwards I had an opportunity of convincing
myself that the natives themselves ate it, and that long before the
time when they suffered from scarcity of provisions. The hammer is
further of interest as forming one of the stone implements which are
most frequently found in graves from the Stone Age. That the hammer
was mainly intended for kitchen purposes appears from the
circumstance that the women alone had it at their disposal, and were
consulted when it was parted with. Along with such hammers there was
to be found in every tent an anvil, consisting of a whale's vertebra
or a large round stone with a bowl-formed depression worn or cut out
in the middle of it.

[Illustration: STONE HAMMERS AND ANVIL FOR CRUSHING BONES.
(One-sixth of the natural size.) ]

During winter a great portion of the inhabitants of Yinretlen,
Pitlekaj, and as far as from Irgunnuk, came daily on board to beg or
buy themselves provisions, and during this period they were fed
mainly by us. They soon accustomed themselves to our food. They
appeared specially fond of pea-soup and porridge. The latter they
generally laid out on a snow-drift to freeze, and then took it in
the frozen form to the tents. Coffee they did not care for unless it
was well sugared. Salt they did not use, but with sugar they were
all highly delighted. They also drank tea with pleasure. Otherwise
water forms their principal drink. They were, however, often
compelled in winter, in consequence of the difficulty of melting
over the train-oil lamps a sufficient quantity of snow, to quench
their thirst with snow. On board they often asked for water, and
drank at once large quantities of it.

Spirits, to which they are exceedingly addicted, they call, as has
been already stated, in conversation with Europeans, "ram," the
pronouncing of the word being often accompanied by a hawking noise,
a happy expression, and a distinctive gesture, which consisted in
carrying the open right hand from the mouth to the waist, or in
counterfeiting the unintelligible talk of a drunken man. Among
themselves they call it fire-water (_akmimil_). The promise of it
was the most efficient means of getting an obstinate Chukch to
comply with one's wishes. In case they undertook to drive us with
their dog-teams, they were never desirous of finding out whether any
stock of provisions was taken along, but warned by our parsimony in
dealing out spirituous liquor, they were unwilling to start until
they had examined the stock of "ram." That drunkenness, not the
satisfying of the taste, was in this case the main object, is shown
by the circumstance that they often fixed, as price for the articles
they saw we were anxious to have, such a quantity of brandy as would
make them completely intoxicated. When on one occasion I appeared
very desirous of purchasing a fire-drill, which was found in a tent
inhabited by a newly-wedded pair, the young and very pretty
housewife undertook the negotiation, and immediately began by
declaring that her husband could not part with the fire-producing
implement unless I gave him the means of getting quite drunk, for
which, according to her statement, which was illustrated by lively
gesticulations representing the different degrees of intoxication,
eight glasses were required. Not until the man had got so many would
he be content, that is, dead drunk. I have myself observed, however,
on several occasions that two small glasses are sufficient to make
them unsteady on the legs. Under the influence of liquor they are
cheerful, merry, and friendly, but troublesome by their excessive
caressing. When in the company of intoxicated natives, one must take
good care that he does not unexpectedly get a kiss from some old
greasy seal-hunter. Even the women readily took a glass, though
evidently less addicted to intoxicants than the men. They however
got their share, as did even the youngest of the children. When, as
happened twice in the course of the winter, an encampment was
fortunate enough to get a large stock of brandy sent it from
Behring's Straits, the intoxication was general, and, as I have
already stated, the bluish-yellow eyes the next day showed that
quarrelsomeness had been called forth even among this peace-loving
people by their dear _akmimil_. During our stay at the villages
nearer Behring's Straits two murders even took place, of which one
at least was committed by an intoxicated man.

However slight the contact the Chukches have with the world that has
reached the standpoint of the brandy industry is, this means of
enjoyment, however, appears to be the object of regular barter. Many
of the Chukches who travelled past us were intoxicated, and shook
with pride a not quite empty keg or seal-skin sack, to let us hear
by the dashing that it contained liquid. One of the crew, whom I
asked to ascertain what sort of spirit it was, made friends with the
owner, and induced him at last to part with about a thimbleful of
it, more could not be given. According to the sailor's statement it
was without colour and flavour, clear as crystal, but weak. It was
thus probably Russian corn brandy, not gin.

During a visit which Lieutenants Hovgaard and Nordquist made in the
autumn of 1878 to the reindeer-Chukches in the interior of the
country, much diluted American gin was on the contrary presented,
and the tent-owner showed his guests a tin drinking-cup with the
inscription, "Capt. Ravens, Brig _Timandra_, 1878". Some of the
natives stated distinctly that they could purchase brandy at
Behring's Straits all the year round. All the men in the tent
village, and most of the women, but not the children, had at the
time got completely intoxicated in order to celebrate the arrival of
the foreigners, or perhaps rather that of the stock of brandy. As
there are no Europeans settled at Behring's Straits, at least on the
Asiatic side, we learn from the traffic in brandy that there are
actually natives abstemious enough to be able to deal in it.

Tobacco is in common use, both for smoking and chewing.[284] Every
native carries with him a pipe resembling that of the Tunguse, and a
tobacco-pouch (fig 7, p. 117). The tobacco is of many kinds, both
Russian and American, and when the stock of it is finished native
substitutes are used. Preference is given to the sweet, strong
chewing tobacco, which sailors generally use. In order to make the
tobacco sweet which has not before been drenched with molasses, the
men are accustomed, when they get a piece of sugar, to break it down
and place it in the tobacco-pouch. The tobacco is often first
chewed, then dried behind the ear, and kept in a separate pouch
suspended from the neck, to be afterwards smoked. The pipes are so
small that, like those of the Japanese, they may be smoked out with
a few strong whiffs. The smoke is swallowed. Even the women and
children smoke and chew, and they begin to do so at so tender an age
that we have seen a child, who could indeed walk, but still sucked
his mother, both chew tobacco, smoke, and take a "ram".

Some bundles of Ukraine tobacco, which I took with me for barter
with the natives, put it into my power to procure a large number of
contributions to the ethnological collection, which in the absence
of other wares for barter I would otherwise have been unable to
obtain. For the Chukches do not understand money. This is so much
the more remarkable as they carry on a very extensive trade, and
evidently are good mercantile men. According to von Dittmar (_loc.
cit._ p. 129) there exists, or still existed in 1856, a steady,
slow, but regular transport of goods along the whole north coast of
Asia and America, by which Russian goods were conveyed to the
innermost parts of Polar America, and furs instead found their way
to the bazaars of Moscow and St. Petersburg. This traffic is carried
on at five market places, of which three are situated in America,
one on the islands at Behring's Straits, and one at Anjui near
Kolyma The last-mentioned is called by the Chukches "the fifth
beaver market."[285]

[Illustration: CHUKCH IMPLEMENTS.
 1. Scraper for currying (one-seventh of the natural size).
 2. Awls (one-half).
 3. Ice-scraper intended for decoying the seal from its hole,
    with bone amulet affixed (one-half).
 4. Bone knife (one-half).
 5., 6. Amulets of bone (natural size).
 7. Pipe and tobacco pouch (one-third).
 8. Metal spoons (one-third). ]

The Chukches' principal articles of commerce consist of seal-skin,
train-oil, fox-skins and other furs, walrus tusks, whalebone, &c.
Instead they purchase tobacco, articles of iron, reindeer skin and
reindeer flesh, and, when it can be had, spirit. A bargain is
concluded very cautiously after long-continued consultation in a
whispering tone between those present. I employed spirit as an
article for barter only in the last necessity, but they soon
observed that the desire to become owner of an uncommon article of
art or antiquity overcame my determination, and they soon learned to
avail themselves of this, especially as in all cases I made full
payment for the article and gave the fire-water into the bargain.

The lamp (see the figures at pp. 22, 23), with which light is
maintained in the tent, consists of a flat trough of wood, bone of
the whale, soap-stone or burned clay, broader behind than before,
and divided by an isolated toothed comb into two divisions. In the
front division wicks of moss (Sphagnum sp.) are laid in a long thin
row along the whole edge. Under the lamp there is always another
vessel intended to receive the train-oil which may possibly be
spilled.

In summer the natives also cook with wood in the open air or in the
outer tent, in winter only in the greatest necessity in the latter.
For they find the smoke, which the wood gives off in the close tent,
unendurable. Although driftwood is to be found in great abundance on
the beach, scarcity of train-oil was evidently considered by the
natives as great a misfortune as scarcity of food. _Uinqa eek_, no
fuel (properly, no fire), was the constant cry even of those who
drew loads of driftwood on board to earn bread for themselves. The
circumstance that their fuel does not give off any smoke has the
advantage that the eyes of the Chukches are not usually nearly so
much attacked as those of the Lapps.

In the tent the women have always a watchful eye over the trimming
of the lamp and the keeping up of the fire. The wooden pins she uses
to trim the wick, and which naturally are drenched with train-oil,
are used when required as a light or torch in the outer tent, to
light pipes, &c. In the same way other pins dipped in train-oil are
used.[286] Clay lamps are made by the Chukches themselves, the clay
being well kneaded and moistened with urine. The burning is
incomplete, and is indeed often wholly omitted.

Train-oil and other liquid wares are often kept in sacks of
seal-skin, consisting of whole hides, out of which the body has been
taken through the opening made by cutting off the head, and in which
all holes, either natural or caused by the killing of the animal,
have been firmly closed. In one of the forepaws there is then
inserted with great skill a wooden air- and water-tight cock with
spigot and faucet. In sacks intended for dry wares the paws are also
cut off, and the opening through which the contents are put in and
taken out is made right across the breast immediately below the
forepaws.

Fire is lighted partly in the way common in Sweden some decades ago
by means of flint and steel, partly by means of a drill implement.
In the former case the steel generally consists of a piece of a file
or some other old steel tool, or of pieces of iron or steel which
have been specially forged for the purpose. Commonly the form of
this tool indicates a European or Russian-Siberian origin, but I
also acquired clumsily hammered pieces of iron, which appeared to
form specimens of native skill in forging. A Chukch showed me a
large fire-steel of the last mentioned kind, provided with a special
handle of copper beautifully polished by long-continued use. He
evidently regarded it as a very precious thing, and I could not
persuade him to part with it. On the supposition that the metal of
the clumsily hammered pieces of iron might possibly be of meteoric
origin I purchased as many of them as I could. But the examination,
to which they were subjected after our return, showed that they
contain no traces of nickel. The iron was thus not meteoric.

The flint consists of a beautiful chalcedony or agate, which has
been formed in cavities in the volcanic rocks which occur so
abundantly in north-eastern Asia, and which probably are also found
here and there as pebbles in the beds of the _tundra_ rivers. As
tinder, are used partly the woolly hair of various animals, partly
dry fragments of different kinds of plants. The steel and a large
number of pieces of flint are kept in a skin pouch suspended from
the neck. Within this pouch there is a smaller one, containing the
tinder. It is thus kept warm by the heat of the body, and protected
from wet by its double envelope. Along with it the men often carry
on their persons a sort of match of white, well-dried, and crushed
willows, which are plaited together and placed in even rolls. This
match burns slowly, evenly, and well.

The other sort of fire-implement consists of a dry wooden pin, which
by a common bow-drill is made to rub against a block of dry
half-blackened wood. The upper part of this pin runs in a drill
block of wood or bone. In one of the tools which I purchased, the
astragalus of a reindeer was used for this purpose. In the
light-stock holes have been made to give support to the pin, and
perhaps to facilitate the formation of the half-carbonised wood-meal
which the drilling loosens from the light-stock and in which the red
heat arises. When fire is to be lighted by means of this implement,
the lower part of the drill pin is daubed over with a little
train-oil, one foot holds the light-stock firm against the ground,
the bowstring is put round the drill pin, the left hand presses the
pin with the drill block against the light-stock, and the bow is
carried backwards and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly,
steadily, and uninterruptedly, until fire appears. A couple of
minutes are generally required to complete the process The women
appear to be more accustomed than the men to the use of this
implement. An improved form of it consisted of a wooden pin on whose
lower part a lense-formed and perforated block of wood was fixed.
This block served as fly-wheel and weight. Across the wooden pin ran
a perforated cross-bar which was fastened with two sinews to its
upper end. By carrying this cross-bar backwards and forwards the pin
could be turned round with great rapidity. The implement appears to
me the more remarkable as it shows a new way of using the stone or
brick lenses, which are often found in graves or old house-sites
from the Stone Age.

[Illustration: FIRE DRILL. One-eighth of the natural size. ]

Among the Chukches, as among many other wild races, lucifer matches
have obtained the honour of being the first of the inventions of the
civilised races that have been recognised as indisputably superior
to their own. A request for lucifer matches was therefore one of the
most common of those with which our friends at Behring's Straits
tormented us during winter, and they were willing for a single box
to offer things that in comparison were very valuable. Unfortunately
we had no superfluous supply of this necessary article, or perhaps I
ought to say fortunately, for if the Chukches for some years were
able to get a couple of boxes of matches for a walrus tusk, I
believe that with their usual carelessness they would soon
completely forget the use of their own fire-implements.

Among household articles I may further mention the following:--

The _hide-scraper_ (fig. 1, p. 117) is of stone or iron and fastened
to a wooden handle. With this tool the moistened hide is cleaned
very particularly, and is then rubbed, stretched, and kneaded so
carefully that several days go to the preparation of a single
reindeer skin. That this is hard work is also shown by the woman who
is employed at it in the tent dripping with perspiration. While thus
employed she sits on a part of the skin and stretches out the other
part with the united help of the hands and the bare feet. When the
skin has been sufficiently worked, she fills a vessel with her own
urine, mixes this with comminuted willow bark, which has been dried
over the lamp, and rubs the blood-warm liquid into the reindeer
skin. In order to give this a red colour on one side, the bark of a
species of Pinus (?) is mixed with the tanning liquid. The skins are
made very soft by this process, and on the inner side almost
resemble chamois leather. Sometimes too the reindeer skin is tanned
to real chamois of very excellent quality.

[Illustration: ICE MATTOCKS. One-ninth of the natural size. ]

Two sorts of _ice mattocks_, the shaft is of wood, the blade of the
spade-formed one of whalebone, of the others of a walrus tusk, it is
fixed to the shaft by skin thongs with great skill.

Sometimes both the shaft and blade are of bone, fastened together in
a somewhat different way.

_Hones_ of native clay-slate. These are often perforated at one end
and carried along with the knife, the spoon, and the sucking-tube,
fastened with an ivory tongs in the belt.

Home-made _vessels of wood, bone of the whale, whalebone, and skin_
of different kinds.

_Knives, boring tools, axes and pots_ of European, American, or
Siberian origin, and in addition casks, pieces of cable, iron scrap,
preserved-meat tins, glasses, bottles, &c., obtained from ships which
have anchored along the coast. Vessels have regularly visited the
sea north of Behring's Straits only during the latest decades, and
the contact between the sailors and the Chukches has not yet exerted
any considerable influence on the mode of life of the latter. The
natives, however, complain that the whalers destroy the
walrus-hunting, while on the other hand they see with pleasure
trading vessels occasionally visiting their coasts.

During our stay off the considerable encampment, Irkaipij, we
believed, as I have already stated, that we had found a chief in a
native named Chepurin, who, to judge by his dress, appeared to be
somewhat better off than the others, had two wives and a stately
exterior. He was accordingly entertained in the gunroom, got the
finest presents, and was in many ways the object of special
attention. Chepurin took his elevation easily, and showed himself
worthy of it by a grave and serious, perhaps somewhat condescending
behaviour, which further confirmed our supposition and naturally
increased the number of our presents. Afterwards, however, we were
quite convinced that we had in this case committed a complete
mistake, and that now there are to be found among the Chukches
living at the coast neither any recognised chiefs nor any trace of
social organisation. During the former martial period of the history
of the race the state of things here was perhaps different, but now
the most complete anarchy prevails here, if by that word we may
denote a state of society in which disputes, crimes, and punishments
are unknown, or at least exceedingly rare. [287] A sort of
chieftainship appears, at all events, to be found among the
reindeer-Chukches living in the interior of the country. At least
there are among them men who can show commmissions from the Russian
authorities. Such a man was the starost Menka, of whose visit I have
already given an account. Everything, however, indicated that his
influence was exceedingly small. He could neither read, write, nor
speak Russian, and he had no idea of the existence of a Russian
Czar. All the tribute he had delivered for several years, according
to receipts which he showed to us, consisted of some few fox-skins,
which he had probably received as market-tolls at Anjui and Markova.
Menka was attended on his visit to the vessel by two ill-clad men
with a type of face differing considerably from that common among
the Chukches. Their standing appeared to be so inferior that we took
them for slaves, although mistakenly, at least with respect to one
of them--Yettugin. He afterwards boasted that he owned a much
larger reindeer-herd than Menka's, and talked readily, with a
certain scorn, of Menka's chieftain pretensions. According to
Russian authors there are actual slaves, probably the descendants of
former prisoners of war, among the Chukches in the interior of the
country. Among the dwellers on the coast, on the contrary, there is
the most complete equality. We could never discover the smallest
trace of any man exercising the least authority beyond his own
family or his own tent.

The coast Chukches are not only heathens, but are also, so far as we
could observe, devoid of every conception of higher beings. There
are, however, superstitions. Thus most of them wear round the neck
leather straps, to which small wooden tongs, of wooden carvings, are
fixed. These are not parted with, and are not readily shown to
foreigners. A boy had a band of beads sewed to his hood, and in
front there was fastened an ivory carving, probably intended to
represent a bear's head (fig. 6, on p. 117). It was so small, and so
inartistically cut, that a man could undoubtedly make a dozen of
them in a day. I, however, offered the father unsuccessfully a
clasp-knife and tobacco for it, but the boy himself, having heard
our bargaining, exchanged it soon after for a piece of sugar. When
the father knew this he laughed good-naturedly, without making any
attempt to get the bargain undone.

To certain tools small wooden images are affixed, as to the scraper
figured above (fig. 3, p. 117), and similar images are found in
large numbers in the lumber-room of the tent, where pieces of ivory,
bits of agate and scrap iron, are preserved. A selection from the
large collection of such images which I made is here reproduced in
woodcuts. If, also, these carvings may, in fact, be considered as
representations of higher beings, the religious ideas which are
connected with them, even judged from the Shaman standpoint, are
exceedingly indistinct, less a consciousness, which still lives
among the people, than a reminiscence from former times. Most of the
figures bear an evident stamp of the present dress and mode of life
of the people. It appears to me to be remarkable, that in all the
bone or wood carvings I have met with, the face has been cut flatter
than it is in reality in this race of men. Some of the carvings
appear to remind me of an ancient Buddhist image.


[Illustration: HUMAN FIGURES.
 Nos. 1, 3 and 5, represent women with tattooed faces.
 No. 4 is of wood.
 No. 6 of wood with eyes of tin; the rest are of ivory. ]

The drum, or more correctly, tambourine, so common among most of the
Polar peoples, European, Asiatic, and American, among the Lapps, the
Samoyeds, the Tunguses, and the Eskimo (see drawing on p. 24), is
found in every Chukch tent. A certain superstition is also attached
to it. They did not willingly play it in our presence, and they were
unwilling to part with it. If time permitted it was concealed on our
entrance into the tent. The drum consists of the peritoneum of a
seal, stretched over a narrow wooden ring fixed to a short handle.
The drumstick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400
millimetres long, which towards the end runs into a point so fine
and flexible, that it forms a sort of whipcord. When the thicker
part of the piece of whalebone is struck against the edge of the
drum-skin, the other end whips against the middle, and the skin is
thus struck twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by
the man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous song.
We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of the
countenance, or any other Shaman trick.

We did not see among the Chukches we met with any Shamans. They are
described by Wrangel, Hooper, and other travellers. Wrangel states
(vol. i. p. 284) that the Shamans in the year 1814, when a severe
epidemic broke out among the Chukches and their reindeer at Anjui,
declared that in order to propitiate the spirits they must sacrifice
Kotschen, one of the most highly esteemed men of the tribe. He was
so much respected that no one would execute the sentence, but
attempts were made to get it altered, first by presents to the
prophets, and then by flogging them. But when this did not succeed,
as the disease continued to ravage, and no one would execute the
doom, Kotschen ordered his own son to do it. He was thus compelled
to stab his own father to death and give up the corpse to the
Shamans. The whole narrative conflicts absolutely with the
disposition and manners of the people with whom we made acquaintance
at Behring's Straits sixty-five years after this occurrence, and I
would be disposed to dispute entirely the truthfulness of the
statement, had not the history of our own part of the world taught
us that blood has flowed in streams for dogmatic hair-splittings,
which no one now troubles himself about. Perhaps the breath of
indifferentism has reached even the ice-deserts of the Polar lands.

The drum has besides also another use, which appears to have little
connection with its property of Shaman psychograph or church bell.
When the ladies unravel and comb their long black hair, this is done
carefully over the drum, on whose bottom the numerous beings which
the comb brings with it from the warm hearth of home out into the
cold wide world, are collected and cracked--in case they are not
eaten up. They taste well according to the Chukch opinion, and are
exceedingly good for the breast. Even _gorm_ (the large, fully
developed, fat larva of the reindeer fly, _Oestrus tarandi_) is
pressed out of the skin of the reindeer and eaten, as well as the
full-grown reindeer fly.

Some more of the superstitious traits which we observed among the
Chukches may here be stated. After the good hunting in February we
endeavoured without success to induce the Chukches to give us a head
or a skull of some of the seals they had killed. Even brandy was
unsuccessfully offered for it, and it was only in the greatest
secrecy that Notti, one of our best friends from Irgunnuk, dared to
give us the foetus of a seal. A raven was once shot in the
neighbourhood of the ice-house. The shot then went to the magnetical
observatory, but before he entered, laid down the shot bird, the
gun, and other articles in the before-mentioned implement chest
placed in front of the observatory. A short time after there was
great excitement before the tent. Some men, women, and children
among the natives crowded round the chest screaming and shouting.
For the Chukches had observed that the raven, having been only
stunned by the shot, had begun to scream and flutter in the chest,
and they now indicated by word and gesture that a great misfortune
was about to happen. Pity is not, as is well known, one of the good
qualities of the savage. It was clear that in this case too it was
not this feeling, but fear of the evil which the wounded crow could
bring about, that caused this scene, and when a sailor immediately
after twisted the neck of the bird, the Chukches had no objection to
receive and eat it.

The winter of 1878-1879 appears to have been uncommonly severe, and
hunting less productive than usual. This was ascribed to our
presence. The Chukches asked us anxiously several times, whether we
intended to raise the water so high that the sea would reach their
tents. When on the 11th February, after the hunting had failed for a
long time, they succeeded at last in catching a number of seals,
they threw water in their mouths before they were carried into the
tents. This was done, they said, in order that the open "leads" in
the ice should not close too soon.

[Illustration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
 1. Whistle-pipe, natural size.
 2. Whistle-instrument, one-eighth of natural size;
 _a._ mouth-hole. ]

Besides the drum the Chukches also use as a musical instrument a
piece of wood, cloven into two halves, and again united after the
crack has been somewhat widened in the middle, with a piece of
whalebone inserted between the two halves. They also during the
course of the winter made several attempts to make violins after
patterns seen on board, and actually succeeded in making a better
sounding-box than could have been expected beforehand. On the
draught-strap of the dog sledge there was often a small bell bought
from the Russians, and the reindeer-Chukches are said sometimes to
wear bells in the belt.

The dance I saw consisted in two women or children taking each other
by the shoulders, and then hopping now on the one foot now on the
other. When many took part in the dance, they placed themselves in
rows, sang a monotonous, meaningless song, hopped in time, turned
the eyes out and in, and threw themselves with spasmodic movements,
clearly denoting pleasure and pain, now to the right, now to the
left "La saison" for dance and song, the time of slaughtering
reindeer, however, did not happen during our stay, on which account
our experience of the Chukches' abilities in this way is exceedingly
limited.

All sport they entered into with special delight, for instance, some
trial shooting which Palander set on foot on New Year's Day
afternoon, with a small rifled cannon on the _Vega_. At first the
women sat aft with the children, far from the dreadful shooting
weapon, and indicated their feelings by almost the same gestures as
on such occasions are wont to distinguish the weaker and fairer sex
of European race. But soon curiosity took the upper hand. They
pressed forward where they could see best, and broke out in a loud
"Ho, ho, ho!" when the shot was fired and the shells exploded in the
air.

Of what sort is the art-sense of the Chukches? As they still almost
belong to the Stone Age, and as their contact with Europeans has
been so limited that it has not perhaps conduced to alter their
taste and skill in art, this question appears to me to have a great
interest both for the historian of art, who here obtains information
as to the nature of the seed from which at last the skill of the
master has been developed in the course of ages and millenniums, and
for the archæologist, who finds here a starting point for forming a
judgment both of the Scandinavian rock-etchings and the palæolithic
drawings, which in recent times have played so great a part in
enabling us to understand the oldest history of the human race. We
have therefore zealously collected all that we could of Chukch
carvings, drawings, and patterns. The most remarkable of these in
one respect or another are to be found delineated in the woodcuts on
the preceding pages.[288]

[Illustration: DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES. ]

[Illustration: DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES. ]

Many of the ivory carvings are old and worn, showing that they have
been long in use, probably as amulets. Various of the animal images
are the fruit of the imagination, and as such may be instructive. In
general the carvings are clumsy, though showing a distinctive style.
If we compare them with the Samoyed images we brought home with us,
it appears that the genius of the Chukches for art has reached an
incomparably higher development than that of the Polar race which
inhabits the western portion of the north coast of Asia, on the
other hand, they are in this respect evidently inferior to the
Eskimo at Port Clarence. The Chukch drawings too are roughly and
clumsily executed, but many of them exhibit a certain power of
hitting off the object. These figures appear to me to show that the
objections which have been raised to the genuineness of various
palæolithic etchings, just on the ground of the artist's
comparatively sure hand, are not justified. Even patterns and ivory
buckles show a certain taste. Embroidery is done commonly on
red-coloured strips of skin partly with white reindeer hair, partly
with red and black wool, obtained in small quantity by barter from
Behring's Straits. The supply of colouring material is not
particularly abundant. It is obtained partly from the mineral
kingdom (limonite of different colours, and graphite), partly from
the vegetable kingdom (bark of various trees). The mineral colours
are ground with water between flat stones. Bark is probably treated
with urine. Red is the Chukches' favourite colour.

In order to make a contribution towards an answer to the disputed
question, in what degree is the colour-sense developed among
savages, Dr. Almquist during the course of the winter instituted
comprehensive researches according to the method worked out by
Professor FR. HOLMGREN. A detailed account of these is to be found
in _The Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition_, and in various
scientific journals. Here I shall only state that Dr. Almquist gives
the following as the final result of his investigation. "That the
Chukches in general possess as good an organ for distinguishing
colours as we Swedes. On the other hand, they appear not to be
accustomed to observe colours, and to distinguish sharply any other
colour than red. They bring together all reds as something special,
but consider that green of a moderate brightness corresponds less
with a green of less brightness than with a blue of the same
brightness. In order to bring all greens together the Chukches thus
require to learn a new abstraction". Of 300 persons who were
examined, 273 had a fully developed colour-sense, nine were
completely colour-blind, and eighteen incompletely colour-blind, or
gave uncertain indications.


From what has been stated above it appears that the coast Chukches
are without noteworthy religion, social organisation, or government.
Had not experience from the Polar races of America taught us
differently we should have believed that with such a literally
anarchic and godless crew there would be no security for life and
property, immorality would be boundless, and the weaker without any
protection from the violence of the stronger sex. This, however, is
so far from being the case that criminal statistics have been
rendered impossible for want of crimes, if we except acts of
violence committed under the influence of liquor.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BUCKLES AND HOOKS OF IVORY. Half the natural
size. ]

During the winter the _Vega_ was visited daily, as has been stated
in the account of the wintering, by the people from the neighbouring
villages, while our vessel at the same time formed a resting-place
for all the equipages which travelled from the western tent-villages
to the islands in Behring's Straits, and _vice versâ_. Not only our
neighbours, but people from a distance whom we had never seen
before, and probably would not see again, came and went without
hindrance among a great number of objects which in their hands would
have been precious indeed. We had never any cause to regret the
confidence we placed in them. Even during the very hard time, when
hunting completely failed, and when most of them lived on the food
which was served out on board, the large _depôt_ of provisions,
which we had placed on land without special watch, in case any
misfortune should befall our vessel, was untouched. On the other
hand, there were two instances in which they secretly repossessed
themselves of fish they had already sold, and which were kept in a
place on deck accessible to them. And with the most innocent
countenance in the world they then sold them over again. This sort
of dishonesty they evidently did not regard as theft but as a
permissible commercial trick.

This was not the only proof that the Chukches consider deception in
trade not only quite justifiable, but almost creditable. While their
own things were always made with the greatest care, all that they
did specially for us was done with extreme carelessness, and they
were seldom pleased with the price that was offered, until they
became convinced that they could not get more. When they saw that we
were anxious to get ptarmigan, they offered us from their winter
stock under this name the young of _Larus eburneus_, which is marked
in the same way, but of little use as food. When I with delight
purchased this bird, which in its youthful dress is rare, and
therefore valuable to the ornithologist, a self-satisfied smile
passed over the countenance of the seller. He was evidently proud of
his successful trick. Some prejudice, as has been already stated,
prevented the Chukches from parting with the heads of the seal,
though, in order to ascertain the species existing here, we offered
a high price for them "Irgatti" (to-morrow), or "Isgatti," if the
promise was given by a woman, was the usual answer. But the promise
was never kept. At last a boy came and gave us a skull, which he
said belonged to a seal. On a more minute examination, however, it
was found not to have belonged to a seal, but to an old dog, whose
head it was evidently thought might, without any damage to the
hunting, be handed over to the white magicians. This time it went
worse with the counterfeitor than in the case of the ptarmigan
bargain. For a couple of my comrades undertook to make the boy
ashamed in the presence of the other Chukches, saying with a laugh
"that he, a Chukch, must have been very stupid to commit such a
mistake," and it actually appeared as if the scoff had in this case
fallen into good ground. Another time, while I was in my watch in
the ice-house, there came a native to me and informed me that he had
driven a man from Irgunnuk to the vessel, but that the man had not
paid him, and asked me on that account to give him a box of matches.
When I replied that he must have been already well paid on the
vessel for his drive, he said in a whining tone, "only a very little
piece of bread." He was not the least embarrassed when I only
laughed at the, as I well knew, untruthful statement, and did not
give him what he asked.

The Chukches commonly live in monogamy; it is only exceptionally
that they have two wives, as was the case with Chepurin, who has
been already mentioned. It appeared as if the wives were faithful to
their husbands. It was only seldom that cases occurred in which
women, either in jest or earnest, gave out that they wished a white
man as a lover. A woman not exactly eminent for beauty or
cleanliness said, for instance, on one occasion, that she had had
two children by Chukches, and now she wished to have a third by one
of the ship's folk. The young women were modest, often very pretty,
and evidently felt the same necessity of attracting attention by
small coquettish artifices as Eve's daughters of European race. We
may also understand their peculiar pronunciation of the language as
an expression of feminine coquetry. For when they wish to be
attractive they replace the man's _r_-sound with a soft _s_; thus,
_kórang_ (reindeer) is pronounced by the women _kosang_, _tirkir_ (the
sun) _tiskis_, and so on.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.
 1. Dog, natural size.
 2., 3. Hares, natural size.
 4. Woman carrying her child on her shoulders, two-thirds.
 5. Mollusc from the inland lakes (Branchypus?) natural size.
 6. Monster, natural size.
 7. Fox, natural size.
 8. Animal with three heads, two-thirds.
 9. Asterid, natural size,
 10. Fish, natural size. ]

The women work very hard. Not only the management of the children,
the cooking, the melting of the ice, the putting the tent in order,
the sewing, and other "woman's work," lie to their hand, but they
receive the catch, in winter in the tent, in summer at the beach,
cut it in pieces, help with the fishing, at least when it is in the
neighbourhood of the tent, and carry out the exceedingly laborious
tanning of the hides, and prepare thread from sinews. In summer they
collect green plants in the meadows and hill-slopes in the
neighbourhood of the tents. They are therefore generally at home,
and always busy. The men have it for their share to procure for
their family food from the animal kingdom by hunting and fishing.
With this purpose in view they are often out on long excursions. In
the tent the man is for the most part without occupation, sleeps,
eats, gossips, chats with his children, and so on, if he does not
pass the time in putting his hunting implements in order in a quite
leisurely manner.

Within the family the most remarkable unanimity prevails, so that we
never heard a hard word exchanged, either between man and wife,
parents and children, or between the married pair who own the tent
and the unmarried who occasionally live in it. The power of the woman
appears to be very great. In making the more important bargains,
even about weapons and hunting implements, she is, as a rule,
consulted, and her advice is taken. A number of things which form
women's tools she can barter away on her own responsibility, or in
any other way employ as she pleases. When the man has by barter
procured a piece of cloth, tobacco, sugar, or such like, he
generally hands it over to his wife to keep.

The children are neither chastised nor scolded, they are, however,
the best behaved I have ever seen. Their behaviour in the tent is
equal to that of the best-brought-up European children in the
parlour. They are not, perhaps, so wild as ours, but are addicted to
games which closely resemble those common among us in the country.
Playthings are also in use, for instance, dolls, bows, windmills
with two sails, &c. If the parents get any delicacy they always give
each of their children a bit, and there is never any quarrel as to
the size of each child's portion. If a piece of sugar is given to
one of the children in a crowd it goes from mouth to mouth round the
whole company. In the same way the child offers its father and
mother a taste of the bit of sugar or piece of bread it has got.
Even in childhood the Chukches are exceedingly patient. A girl who
fell down from the ship's stair, head foremost, and thus got so
violent a blow that she was almost deprived of hearing, scarcely
uttered a cry. A boy, three or four years of age, much rolled up in
furs, who fell down into a ditch cut in the ice on the ship's deck,
and in consequence of his inconvenient dress could not get up, lay
quietly still until he was observed and helped up by one of the
crew.

[Illustration: CHUKCH DOLL. One-eighth of the natural size. ]

The Chukches' most troublesome fault is a disposition to begging
that is limited by no feeling of self-respect. This is probably
counterbalanced by their unbounded hospitality and great kindness to
each other, and is, perhaps, often caused by actual necessity. But
they thus became veritable torments, putting to a hard test the
patience, not only of the scientific men and officers, but also of
the crew. The good nature with which our sailors met their demands
was above all praise.

There was never any trace of disagreement between the natives and
us, and I have every reason to suppose that our wintering will long
be held in grateful remembrance by them, especially as, in order not
to spoil their seal-hunting, I strictly forbade all unnecessary
interference with it.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS. Seals, walrusses, a sea-bear
(the lowest figure to the left). The four lowest are of the natural
size, the others two-thirds of the natural size. ]

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS. Fishes, larvæ of flies (_gorm_),
molluscs and whales. Nos. 1 to 9 and 14, natural size. Nos. 10 to 13,
two-thirds of the natural size. ]

It is probably impossible for a Chukch to take the place of a
European workman. It has, however, happened that Chukches have gone
with whalers to the Sandwich Islands, and have become serviceable
seamen. During our wintering two young men got accustomed to come on
board and there to take a hand, in quite a leisurely way, at work of
various kinds, as sawing wood, shovelling snow, getting ice on
board, &c. In return they got food that had been left over, and
thus, for the most part, maintained not only themselves, but also
their families, during the time we remained in their neighbourhood.

If what I have here stated be compared with Sir EDWARD PARRY'S
masterly sketches of the Eskimo at Winter Island and Iglolik, and
Dr. SIMPSON'S of the Eskimo in North-western America, or with the
numerous accounts we possess of the Eskimo in Danish Greenland, a
great resemblance will be found to exist between the natural
disposition, mode of life, failings and good qualities of the
Chukches, the savage Eskimo, and the Greenlanders. This resemblance
is so much more striking, as the Chukch and the Eskimo belong to
different races, and speak quite different languages, and, as the
former, to judge by old accounts of this people, did not, until the
most recent generations, sink to the unwarlike, peace-loving,
harmless, anarchic, and non-religious standpoint which they have now
reached. It ought to be observed, however, that in the Eskimo of
Danish Greenland no considerable alteration has been brought about
by them all having learned to read and write and profess the
Christian religion--although with an indifference to the
consequences of original sin, the mysteries of redemption, and the
punishments of hell, which all imaginable missionary zeal has not
succeeded in overcoming. Their innocent natural state has not been
altered in any considerable degree by being subjected to these
conditions of culture. It is certain besides, that the blood which
flows in the veins of the Greenlander is not pure Eskimo blood, but
is mingled with the blood of some of the proudest martial races in
the world. When we consider how rapidly, even now, when Greenland is
in constant communication with the European mother-country, all
descendants of mixed blood become complete Eskimo in language and
mode of life, how difficult it often is, even for parents of pure
European descent, to get their children to speak any other language
than that of the natives, and how they, on their part, seldom borrow
a word from the Europeans, how common mixed marriages and natives of
mixed blood are even now--in view of all this it appears to me much
more probable that Erik the Red's colonists were quietly and
peacefully converted into Eskimo, than that they were killed by the
Eskimo. A single century's complete separation from Europe would be
sufficient to carry out thoroughly this alteration of the present
European population of Greenland, and by the end of that period the
traditions of Danish rule would be very obscure in that land.
Perhaps some trifling quarrel between a ruler of the colony and a
native would take the foremost place among the surviving traditions,
and be interpreted as a reminiscence from a war of extermination.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS OF BIRDS. Size of the originals. ]

Even the present Chukches form, without doubt, a mixture of several
races, formerly savage and warlike, who have been driven by foreign
invaders from south to north, where they have adopted a common
language, and on whom the food-conditions of the shore of the Polar
Sea, the cold, snow, and darkness of the Arctic night, the pure,
light atmosphere of the Polar summer, have impressed their
ineffaceable stamp, a stamp which meets us with little variation,
not only among the people now in question, but also--with the
necessary allowance for the changes, not always favourable, caused
by constant intercourse with Europeans--among the Lapps of
Scandinavia and the Samoyeds of Russia.

It would be of great psychological interest to ascertain whether the
change which has taken place in a peaceful direction is progress or
decadence. Notwithstanding all the interest which the honesty,
peaceableness, and innocent friendliness of the Polar tribes have
for us, it is my belief that the answer must be--_decadence_. For it
strikes us as if we witness here the conversion of a savage, coarse,
and cruel man into a being, nobler, indeed, but one in whom just
those qualities which distinguish man from the animals, and to which
at once the great deeds and the crimes of humanity have been due,
have been more and more effaced, and who, if special protection or
specially favourable circumstances be absent, will not be able to
maintain the struggle for existence with new races that may seek to
force their way into the country.


[Footnote 271: The north coast of America still forms the haunt of a
not inconsiderable Eskimo population which, for a couple of
centuries, has extended to the 80th degree of latitude. As the
climate in the north part of the Old World differs little from that
which prevails in corresponding regions of the New, as at both
places there is an abundant supply of fish, and as the seal and
walrus hunting--at least between the Yenisej and the Chatanga--ought
to be as productive as on the north coast of America, this
difference, which has arisen only recently, is very striking. It
appears to me to be capable of explanation in the following way.
Down to our days a large number of small savage tribes in America
have carried on war with each other, the weaker, to escape
extermination by the more powerful races, being compelled to flee to
the ice deserts of the north, deeming themselves fortunate if they
could there, in peace from their enemies, earn a living by adopting
the mode of life of the Polar races, suitable as it is to the
climate and resources of the land. The case was once the same in
Siberia, and there are many indications that fragments of conquered
tribes have been in former times driven up from the south, not only
to the north coast of the mainland, but also beyond it to the
islands lying off it. In Siberia, however, for the last 250 years,
the case has been completely changed by the Russian conquest of the
country. The pressure of the new government has, notwithstanding
many single acts of violence, been on the whole less destructive to
the original population than the influence which the Europeans have
exerted in America. The Russian power has at least held a wholly
beneficial influence, inasmuch as it has prevented the continual
feuds between the native races. The tribes driven to the
inhospitable North have been enabled to return to milder regions,
and where this has not taken place they have, in the absence of new
migrations from the South, succumbed in the fight with cold, hunger,
and small-pox, or other diseases introduced by their new masters. ]

[Footnote 272: Cornelis de Bruin, _Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie
en Indie_, &c., Amsterdam, 1711, p. 12. The author's name is also
written De Bruyn and Le Brun. ]

[Footnote 273: Herodotus already states in book iv. chapter 196, that
the Carthagenians bartered goods in the same way with a tribe living
on the coast of Africa beyond the Gates of Hercules. The same mode
of barter was still in use nearly two thousand years later, when the
west coast of Africa was visited by the Venetian Cadamosto, in 1454
(_Ramusio_, i., 1588, leaf 100). ]

[Footnote 274: As security for the subjection of the conquered races,
the Russians were accustomed to take a number of men and women from
their principal families as hostages. These persons were called
_amanates_, and were kept in a sort of slavery at the fixed winter
dwellings of the Russians. ]

[Footnote 275: The work is a translation made at Tobolsk by Swedish
officers, prisoners of war from the battle of Pultava, from a Tartan
manuscript by Abulgasi Bayadur Chan. The original manuscript (?) is
in the library at Upsala, to which it was presented in 1722 by
Lieutenant-Colonel Schönström. The translation has notes by
Bentinck, a Dutchman by birth, who was also taken prisoner in the
Swedish service at Pultava. ]

[Footnote 276: Lütké says (Erman's _Archiv_, iii. p. 464) that the
peaceful relations with the Chukches begin after the conclusion of a
peace which was brought about ten years after the abandonment of
Anadyrsk, where for thirty-six years there had been a garrison of
600 men, costing over a million roubles. This peace this formerly so
quarrelsome people has kept conscientiously down to our days with
the exception of some market brawls, which induced Treskin,
Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, to conclude with them, in 1817,
a commercial treaty which appears to have been faithfully adhered
to, to the satisfaction and advantage of both parties (_Dittmar_, p.
128). ]

[Footnote 277: Müller has likewise saved from oblivion some other
accounts regarding the Chukches, collected soon after at Anadyrsk.
When we now read these accounts, we find not only that the Chukches
knew the Eskimo on the American side, but also stories regarding the
Indians of Western America penetrated to them, and further, through
the authorities in Siberia, came to Europe, a circumstance which
deserves to be kept in mind in judging of the writings of Herodotus
and Marco Polo. ]

[Footnote 278: Sauer, _An Account_, &c., pp. 255 and 319. Sarytschev,
_Reise, übersetzt von Busse_, ii. p. 102. ]

[Footnote 279: _Über die Koriäken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten
Tschuktschen_ (Bulletin historico-philologique de l'Académie de St.
Pétersbourg, t. xiii., 1856, p. 126.) ]

[Footnote 280: That the Chukches burn their dead with various
ceremonies is stated by Sarytschev on the ground of communications
by the interpreter Daurkin, who lived among the reindeer-Chukches
from 1787 to 1791, in order to learn their language and customs, and
to announce the arrival of Billings' expedition (Sarytschev's
_Reise_, ii. p. 108). The statement is thus certainly quite
trustworthy. The coast population with whom Hooper came in contact,
on the other hand, laid out their dead on special stages, where the
corpses were allowed to be eaten up by ravens or to decay (_loc.
cit._ p. 88). ]

[Footnote 281: If the runners are not shod with ice in this way the
friction between them and the hard snow is very great during severe
cold, and the draught accordingly exceedingly heavy. ]

[Footnote 282: Nearly all the travellers from a great distance who
passed the _Vega_ had their dogs harnessed in this way. On the other
hand, Sarytschev says that at St. Lawrence Bay all the dogs were
harnessed abreast, and that this was the practice at Moore's winter
quarters at Chukotskojnos is shown by the drawing at p. 71 of
Hooper's work, already quoted. We ought to remember that at both
these places the population were Eskimos who had adopted the Chukch
language. The Greenland Eskimo have their dogs harnessed abreast,
the Kamchadales in a long row. Naturally dogs harnessed abreast are
unsuitable for wooded regions. The different methods of harnessing
dogs mentioned here, therefore, indicate that the Eskimo have lived
longer than the Chukches north of the limit of trees. ]

[Footnote 283: An exhaustive treatise on the food-substances which
the Chukches gather from the vegetable kingdom, written by Dr.
Kjellman, is to be found in _The Scientific Work of the Vega
Expedition_. Popov already states that the Chukches eat many
berries, roots, and herbs (_Müller_, iii. p. 59). ]

[Footnote 284: Already, in the beginning of the eighteenth century,
all the Siberian tribes, men and women, old and young, smoked
passionately (_Hist. Généalog. des Tartares_, p. 66). ]

[Footnote 285: Dr. John Simpson gives good information regarding the
American markets in his _Observations on the Western Esquimaux_. He
enumerates three market places in America besides that at Behring's
Straits. At the markets people are occupied also with dancing and
games, which are carried on in such a lively manner that the market
people scarcely sleep during the whole time. Matiuschin gives a very
lively sketch of the market at Anjui, to which, in 1821, the
Chukches still went fully armed with spears, bows, and arrows
(Wrangel's _Reise_, i. p. 270), and a visit to it in 1868 is
described by C. von Neumann, who took part as Astronomer in von
Maydell's expedition to Chukch Land (_Eine Messe im Hochnorden; Das
Ausland_ 1880, p. 861). ]

[Footnote 286: I have seen such pins, also oblong stones, sooty at
one end, which, after having been dipped in train-oil, have been
used as torches, laid by the side of corpses in old Eskimo graves in
north-western Greenland. ]

[Footnote 287: In the accounts which were collected regarding the
Chukches at Anadyrsk in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it
is also stated that they lived without any government On the
contrary, in M. von Krusenstern's _Voyage autour du monde,
1803-1806_ (Paris, 1821, ii. p. 151), a report of Governor
Koscheleff is given on some negotiations which he had with a "chief
of the whole Chukch nation". I take it for granted that the
chiefship was of little account, and Koscheleff's whole sketch of
his meeting with the supposed chief bears an altogether too lively
European romantic stamp to be in any degree true to nature. At the
same place it is also said that a brother of Governor Koscheleff, in
the winter of 1805-1806, made a journey among the Chukches, on
which, after his return, he sent a report, accompanied by a Chukch
vocabulary, to von Krusenstern. ]

[Footnote 288: The originals of the drawings reproduced in the
woodcuts are made on paper, part with the lead pencil, part with red
ochre. The different groups represent _on the first page_--1, a
dog-team; 2, 3, whales; 4, hunting the Polar bear and the walrus; 5,
bullhead and cod; 6, man fishing; 7, hare-hunting; 8, birds; 9,
wood-chopper; 10, man leading a reindeer; 11, walrus hunt--7 and 9
represent Europeans. _On the second page_--1, a reindeer train; 2, a
reindeer taken with a lasso by two men; 3, a man throwing a harpoon;
4, seal hunt from boat; 5, bear hunt; 6, the man in the moon; 7, man
leading a reindeer; 8, reindeer; 9, Chukch with staff and an archer;
10, reindeer with herd; 11, reindeer; 12, two tents, man riding on a
dog sledge, &c. ]



CHAPTER XIII.

    The development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia--
    Herodotus--Strabo--Pliny--Marco Polo--Herberstein's map--
    The conquest of Siberia by the Russians--Deschnev's voyages--
    Coast navigation between the Lena and the Kolyma--Accounts of
    islands in the Polar Sea and old voyages to them--
    The discovery of Kamchatka--The navigation of the Sea of Okotsk
    is opened by Swedish prisoners-of-war--The Great Northern
    Expedition--Behring--Schalaurov--Andrejev's Land--The New
    Siberian islands--Hedenström's expeditions--Anjou and Wrangel
    --Voyages from Behring's Straits westward--Fictitious Polar
    voyages.


Now that the north-eastern promontory of Asia has been at last
circumnavigated, and vessels have thus sailed along all the coasts
of the old world, I shall, before proceeding farther in my sketch of
the voyage of the _Vega_, give a short account of the development of
our knowledge of the north coast of Asia.

Already in primitive times the Greeks assumed that all the countries
of the earth were surrounded by the ocean. STRABO, in the first
century before Christ, after having shown that HOMER favoured this
view, brings together in the first chapter of the First Book of his
geography reasons in support of it in the following terms:--

    "In all directions in which man has penetrated to the
    uttermost boundary of the earth, he has met the sea, that
    is, the ocean. He has sailed round the east coast towards
    India, the west coast towards Iberia and Mauritia, and a
    great part of the south and north coast. The remaining
    portion which has not yet been sailed round in consequence
    of the voyages which have been undertaken from both sides
    not having been connected, is inconsiderable. For those who
    have attempted to circumnavigate the earth and have turned,
    declare that their undertaking did not fail in consequence
    of their having met with land, but in consequence of want
    of provisions and of complete timidity.

    At sea they could always have gone further. This view (that
    the earth is surrounded by water) also accords better with
    the phenomena of the tides, for as the ebb and flow are
    everywhere the same, or at least do not vary much, the
    cause of this motion is to be sought for in a single
    ocean."[289]

But if men were thus agreed that the north coast of Asia and Europe
was bounded by the sea, there was for sixteen hundred years after
the birth of Christ no actual knowledge of the nature of the Asiatic
portion of this line of coast. Obscure statements regarding it,
however, were current at an early period.

While HERODOTUS, in the forty-fifth chapter of his Fourth Book,
expressly says that no man, so far as was then known, had discovered
whether the eastern and northern countries of Europe are surrounded
by the sea, he gives in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters
of the same book the following account of the countries lying to the
north-east:--

    "As far as the territory of the Scythians all the land
    which we have described is an uninterrupted plain, with
    cultivable soil, but beyond that the ground is stony and
    rugged. And on the other side of this extensive stone-bound
    tract there live at the foot of a high mountain-chain men
    who are bald from their birth, both men and women, they are
    also flat-nosed and have large chins. They speak a peculiar
    language, wear the Scythian dress and live on the fruit of
    a tree. The tree on which they live is called _Ponticon_,
    is about as large as the wild fig-tree, and bears fruit
    which resembles a bean, but has a kernel. When this fruit
    is ripe, they strain it through a cloth, and the juice
    which flows from it is thick and black and called _aschy_.
    This juice they suck or drink mixed with milk, and of the
    pressed fruits they make cakes which they eat, for they
    have not many cattle because the pasture is poor. As far as
    to these bald people the land is now sufficiently well
    known, also the races on this side of them, because they
    are visited by Scythians. From them it is not difficult to
    collect information, which is also to be had from the
    Greeks at the port of the Borysthenes and other ports in
    Pontus. The Scythians who travel thither do business with
    the assistance of seven interpreters in seven languages. So
    far our knowledge extends. But of the land on the other
    side of the bald men none can give any trustworthy account
    because it is shut off by a separating wall of lofty
    trackless mountains, which no man can cross. But these bald
    men say--which, however, I do not believe--that men with
    goat's feet live on the mountains, and on the other side of
    them other men who sleep six months at a time. The latter
    statement, however, I cannot at all admit. On the other
    hand, the land east of the bald men, in which the Issedones
    live, is well known, but what is farther to the north, both
    on the other side of the bald men and of the Issedones, is
    only known by the statements of these tribes. Above the
    Issedones live the one-eyed men, and the gold-guarding
    griffins. This information the Scythians have got from the
    Issedones and we from the Scythians, and we call the
    one-eyed race by the Scythian name Arimaspi, for in the
    Scythian language _arima_ signifies one and _spou_ the eye.
    The whole of the country which I have been speaking of has
    so hard and severe a winter, that there prevails there for
    eight months an altogether insupportable cold, so that if
    you pour water on the ground you will not make mud, but if
    you light a fire you will make mud. Even the sea freezes,
    and the whole Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Scythians who
    live within the trench travel on the ice and drive over it
    in waggons. . . . Again, with reference to the feathers
    with which the Scythians say the air is filled, and which
    prevent the whole land lying beyond from being seen or
    travelled through, I entertain the following opinion. In
    the upper parts of this country it snows continually, but,
    as is natural, less in summer than in winter. And whoever
    has seen snow falling thick near him will know what I mean.
    For snow resembles feathers, and on account of the winter
    being so severe the northern parts of this continent cannot
    be inhabited. I believe then that the Scythians and their
    neighbours called snow feathers, on account of the
    resemblance between them. This is what is stated regarding
    the most remote regions."

These and other similar statements, nowithstanding the absurdities
mixed up with them, are founded in the first instance on the
accounts of eye-witnesses, which have passed from mouth to mouth,
from tribe to tribe, before they were noted down. Still several
centuries after the time of Herodotus, when the Roman power had
reached its highest point, little more was known of the more remote
parts of north Asia. While Herodotus, in the two hundred and third
chapter of his First Book, says that "the Caspian is a sea by itself
having no communication with any other sea," Strabo, induced by
evidence furnished by the commander of a Greek fleet in that sea,
states (Book II. chapters i. and iv.) that the Caspian is a gulf of
the Northern Ocean, from which it is possible to sail to India PLINY
THE ELDER (_Historia Naturalis_, Book VI. chapters xiii. and xvii.)
states that the north part of Asia is occupied by extensive deserts
bounded on the north by the Scythian Sea, that these deserts run out
to a headland, _Promontorium Scythicum_, which is uninhabitable on
account of snow. Then there is a land inhabited by man-eating
Scythians, then deserts, then Scythians again, then deserts with
wild animals to a mountain ridge rising out of the sea, which is
called _Tabin_. The first people that are known beyond this are the
Seri. PTOLEMY and his successors again supposed, though perhaps not
ignorant of the old statement that Africa had been circumnavigated
under Pharaoh Necho, that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea,
everywhere surrounded by land, which united southern Africa with the
eastern part of Asia, an idea which was first completely abandoned
by the chartographers of the fifteenth century after the
circumnavigation of Africa by VASCO DA GAMA.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD, SAID TO BE OF THE TENTH CENTURY.
Found in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Library at
Turin. (From Santarem's Atlas.) ]

[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING ASIA TO BE CONTINUOUS WITH
AFRICA. (From Nicolai Doni's edition of _Ptolemæi Cosmographia_, Ulm.
1482.) ]

The knowledge of the geography of north Asia remained at this point
until MARCO POLO,[290] in the narrative of his remarkable journeys
among the peoples of Middle Asia, gave some information regarding
the most northerly lands of this quarter of the world also. The
chapters which treat of this subject bear the distinctive titles:
"On the land of the Tartars living in the north," "On another region
to which merchants only travel in waggons drawn by dogs," and "On
the region where darkness prevails" (_De regione tenebrarum_). From
the statements in these chapters it follows that hunters and traders
already inhabited or wandered about in the present Siberia, and
brought thence valuable furs of the black fox, sable, beaver, &c.
The northernmost living men were said to be handsome, tall and
stout, but very pale for want of the sun. They obeyed no king or
chief, but were coarse and uncivilised and lived as beasts[291].
Among the products of the northern countries white bears are
mentioned, from which it appears that at that time the hunters had
already reached the coast of the Polar Sea. But Marco Polo nowhere
says expressly that Asia is bounded on the north by the sea.

All the maps of North Asia which have been published down to the
middle of the sixteenth century, are based to a greater or less
extent on interpretations of the accounts of Herodotus, Pliny, and
Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole Indian Ocean with
land, they give to Asia a much less extent in the north and east
than it actually possesses, make the land in this direction
completely bounded by sea, and delineate two headlands projecting
towards the north from the mainland. To these they give the names
_Promontorium Scythicum_ and _Tabin_, and they besides place in the
neighbourhood of the north coast a large island to which they give
the name that already occurs in Pliny, _Insula Tazata_, which
reminds us, perhaps by an accidental resemblance of sound, of the
name of the river and bay, Tas, between the Ob and the Yenisej.
Finally, the borders of the maps are often adorned with pictures of
wonderfully formed men, whose dwellings the hunters placed in those
regions, the names being at the same time given of a larger or
smaller number of peoples and cities mentioned by Marco Polo.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD AFTER FRA MAURO FROM THE MIDDLE OF
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (From Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro Camaldolese
descritto ed illustrato da D. Placido Zurla, Venezia, 1806.) ]

[Illustration: HERBERTSTERN'S MAP OF RUSSIA, 1550 (photo-lithographic
facsimile). ]

On the whole, the voyages of the Portuguese to India and the Eastern
archipelago, the discovery of America and the first circumnavigation
of the globe, exerted little influence on the current ideas
regarding the geography of North Asia. A new period in respect of
our knowledge of this part of the old world first began with the
publication of HERBERSTEIN'S _Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii_,
Vindobonæ 1549[292]. This work has annexed to it a map with the
title "Moscovia Sigismundi liberi baronis in Herberstein Neiperg et
Gutnhag. Anno MDXLIX. Hanc tabulam absolvit AUG. HIRSFOGEL Viennæ
Austriæ cum gra. et privi. imp.,"[293] which indeed embraces only a
small part of Siberia, but shows that a knowledge of North Russia
now began to be based on actual observations. A large gulf, marked
with the name Mare Glaciale (the present White Sea) here projects
into the north coast of Russia, from the south there falls into it a
large river, called the Dwina. On the banks of the Dwina there are
forts or towns with the names Solovoka (Solovets), Pinega, Colmogor,
&c. There are to be found on the map besides, the names Mesen,
Peczora, Oby,[294] Tumen, &c. Oby runs out of a large lake named
Kythay lacus. In the text, mention is made of Irtisch and
Papingorod, of walruses and white bears[295] by the coast of the
Polar Sea, of the Siberian cedar-tree, of the word Samoyed
signifying self-eaters, &c.[296] The walrus is described in great
detail. It is mentioned further that the Russian Grand Duke sent
out two men, SIMEON THEODOROVITSCH KURBSKI and Knes PIETRO UCHATOI,
to explore the lands east of the Petchora, &c.

Herberstein's work, where the narrative of Istoma's circumnavigation
of the northern extremity of Europe, which has been already quoted,
is to be found, was published only a few years before the first
north-east voyages of the English and the Dutch, of which I have
before given a detailed account. Through these the northernmost part
of European Russia and the westernmost part of the Asiatic Polar Sea
were mapped, but an actual knowledge of the north coast of Asia in
its entirety was obtained through the conquest of Siberia by the
Russians. It is impossible here to give an account of the campaigns,
by which the whole of this enormous territory was brought under the
sceptre of the Czar of Moscow, or of the private journeys for sport,
trade, and the collecting of tribute, by which this conquest was
facilitated. But as nearly every step which the Russian invaders
took forward, also extended the knowledge of regions previously
quite unknown, I shall mention the years in which during this
conquest the most important occurrences in a geographical point of
view took place, and give a later more detailed account of the
exploratory or military expeditions which led directly to important
results affecting the extension of our knowledge of the geography of
the region now in question.

The way was prepared for the conquest of Siberia through peaceful
commercial treaties[297] which a rich Russian peasant ANIKA, ancestor
of the STROGANOV family, entered into with the wild races settled in
Western Siberia, whom he even partially induced to pay a yearly
tribute to the Czar of Moscow. In connection with this he and his
sons, in the middle of the sixteenth century, obtained large grants
of land on the rivers Kama and Chusovaja and their tributaries, with
the right to build towns and forts there, whereby their riches,
previously very considerable, were much increased. The family's
extensive possessions, however, were threatened in 1577 by a great
danger, when a host of Cossack freebooters, six to seven thousand
strong, under the leadership of YERMAK TIMOFEJEV, took flight to the
country round Chusovaja in order to avoid the troops which the Czar
sent to subdue them and punish them for all the depredations they
had committed on the Don, the Caspian Sea and the Volga. In order to
get rid of the freebooters, MAXIM STROGANOV, Anika's grandson, not
only provided Yermak and his men with the necessary sustenance, but
supported in every way the bold adventurer's plan of entering on a
campaign for the conquest of Siberia. This was begun in 1579. In
1580 Yermak passed the Ural, and after several engagements marched
in particular against the Tartars living in Western Siberia, along
the rivers Tagil and Tura to Tjumen, and thence in 1581 farther
along the Tobol and Irtisch to Kutschum Khan's residence Sibir,
situated in the neighbourhood of the present Tobolsk. It was this
fortress, long since destroyed, which gave its name to the whole
north part of Asia.

From this point the Russians, mainly following the great rivers, and
passing from one river territory to another at the places where the
tributaries almost met, spread out rapidly in all directions. Yermak
himself indeed was drowned on the 16th August, 1584, in the river
Irtisch, but the adventurers who accompanied him overran in a few
decades the whole of the enormous territory lying north of the
deserts of Central Asia from Ural to the Pacific, everywhere
strengthening their dominion by building _Ostrogs_, or small
fortresses, at suitable places. It was the noble fur-yielding
animals of the extensive forests of Siberia which played the same
part with the Russian _promyschleni_, as gold with the Spanish
adventurers in South America.

At the close of the sixteenth century the Cossacks had already
possessed themselves of the greater part of the river territory of
the Irtisch-Ob, and sable-hunters had already gone as far
north-east[298] as the river Tas, where the sable-hunting was at one
time very productive and occasioned the founding of a town,
Mangasej, which however was soon abandoned. In 1610 the Russian
fur-hunters went from the river territory of the Tas to the Yenisej,
where the town Turuchansk was soon after founded on the Turuchan, a
tributary of the Yenisej. The attempt to row down in boats from this
point to the Polar Sea, with the view of penetrating farther along
the sea coast, failed in consequence of ice obstacles, but led to
the discovery of the river Pjäsina and to the levying of tribute
from the Samoyeds living there. To get farther eastward the
tributaries of the Yenisej were made use of instead of the sea
route. Following these the Russians on the upper course of the
Tunguska met with the mountain ridge which separates the river
territory of the Yenisej from that of the Lena. This ridge was
crossed, and on the other side of it a new stream was met with,
which in the year 1627 led the adventurers to the Lena, over whose
river territory the Cossacks and fur-hunters, faithful to then
customs, immediately spread themselves in order to hunt, purchase
furs, and above all to impose "jassak" upon the tribes living
thereabouts. But they were not satisfied with this. Already in 1636
the Cossack ELISEJ BUSA was sent out with an express commission to
explore the rivers beyond, falling into the Polar Sea, and to render
tributary the natives living on their banks. He was accompanied by
ten Cossacks, to whose company forty fur-hunters afterwards attached
themselves. In 1637 he came to the western mouth-arm of the Lena,
from which he went along the coast to the river Olenek, where he
passed the winter. Next year he returned by land to the Lena, and
built there two "kotsches,"[299] in which he descended the river to
the Polar Sea. After five days' successful rowing along the coast to
the eastward he discovered the mouth of the Yana. After three days'
march up the river he fell in with a Yakut tribe, from whom he got a
rich booty of sable and other furs. Here he passed the winter of
1638-39, here too he built himself a new craft, and again starting
for the Polar Sea, he came to another river falling into the eastern
mouth-arm of the Yana, where he found a Yukagir tribe, living in
earth huts, with whom he passed two years more, collecting tribute
from the tribes living in the neighbourhood.

At the same time IVANOV POSTNIK discovered by land the river
Indigirka. As usual, tribute was collected from the neighbouring
Yukagir tribes, yet not without fights, in which the natives at
first directed their weapons against the horses the Cossacks had
along with them, thinking that the horses were more dangerous than
the men. They had not seen horses before. A _simovie_ was
established, at which sixteen Cossacks were left behind. They built
boats, sailed down the river to the Polar Sea to collect tribute,
and discovered the river Alasej.

Some years after the river Kolyma appears to have been discovered,
and in 1644 the Cossack, MICHAILO STADUCHIN, founded on that river a
_simovie_, which afterwards increased to a small town, Nischni
Kolymsk. Here Staduchin got three pieces of information which
exerted considerable influence on later exploratory expeditions, for
he acquired knowledge of the Chukches, at that time a military race,
who possessed the part of North Asia which lay a little further to
the east. Further, the natives and the Russian hunters, who swarmed
in the region before Staduchin, informed him that in the Polar Sea
off the mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka there was a large
island, which in clear weather could be seen from land, and which
the Chukches reached in winter with reindeer sledges in one day from
Chukotska, a river debouching in the Polar Sea east of the Kolyma.
They brought home walrus tusks from the island, which was of
considerable size, and the hunters supposed "that it was a
continuation of Novaya Zemlya, which is visited by people from
Mesen." Wrangel is of opinion that this account refers to no other
than Krestovski Island, one of the Bear Islands. This, however,
appears to me to be improbable. It is much more likely that it
refers partly to the New Siberian Islands, partly to Wrangel Land,
and perhaps even to America. That the Russians themselves had not
then discovered Ljachoff's, or as it was then also called, Blischni
Island, which lies so near the mainland, and is so high that it is
impossible to avoid seeing it when one in clear weather sails past
Svjatoinos, which lies east of the Yana, is a proof that at that
time they had not sailed along the coast between the mouths of the
Yana and the Indigirka. Finally, a great river, the Pogytscha, was
spoken of, which could be reached in three or four days' sailing
eastward from the mouth of the Kolyma. This was the first account
which reached the conquerors of Siberia of the great river Anadyr
which falls into the Pacific.

These accounts were sufficient to incite the Cossacks and hunters to
new expeditions. The beginning was made by ISAI IGNATIEV from Mesen,
who, along with several hunters, travelled down the Kolyma in 1646
to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards. The sea was
full of ice, but next the land there was an open channel, in which
the explorers sailed two days. They then came to a bay, near whose
shore they anchored. Here the Russians had their first meeting with
the Chukches, to which reference has already been made. Hence
Ignatiev returned to the Kolyma, and the booty was considered so
rich and his account of his journey so promising, that preparations
were immediately made in order next year to send off a new maritime
expedition fitted out on a larger scale to the coast of the Polar
Sea.

This time FEODOT ALEXEJEV from Kolmogor was chief of the expedition,
but along with him was sent, at the request of the hunters, a
Cossack in the Russian service in order to guard the rights of the
crown. His name was SIMEON IVANOV SIN DESCHNEV; in geographical
writings he is commonly known under the name of DESCHNEV. It was
intended to search for the mouth of the great river lying towards
the east, regarding which some information had been obtained from
the natives, and which was believed to fall into the Polar Sea. The
first voyage in 1647, with four vessels, was unsuccessful, it is
said, because the sea was blocked with ice. But that this was not
the real reason is shown by the fact that a new and larger
expedition was fitted out the following year with full expectation
of success. The crews of the four boats had more probably been
considered too weak a force to venture among the Chukches, and the
ice had to bear the blame of the retreat. What man could not
reproach the conquerors of Siberia with, was pusillanimity and want
of perseverance in carrying out a plan which had once been sketched.
Resistance always increased their power of action; so also now.
Seven boats were fitted out the following year, 1648, all which were
to sail down to the Polar Sea, and then along the coast eastwards.
The object was to examine closely the unknown land and people there,
and to their own advantage and the extension of the Russian power,
to collect tribute from the tribes met with during the expedition.
Müller states that every boat was manned with about thirty men--a
number which appears to me somewhat exaggerated, if we consider the
nature of the Siberian craft and the difficulty of feeding so large
a number either with provisions earned along with them or obtained
by hunting.

Four of the boats are not mentioned further in the narrative; they
appear to have returned at an early period. The three others, on the
contrary, made a highly remarkable journey. The commanders of them
were the Cossacks, GERASIM ANKUDINOV and SIMEON DESCHNEV, and the
hunter FEODOT ALEXEJEV. Deschnev entertained such hopes of success
that before his departure he promised to collect a tribute of seven
times forty sable skins. The Siberian archives, according to Miller,
contain the following details.[300]

On 30/20th June, 1648, a start was made from the Kolyma. The sea was
open, at least the boats came without any adventure which Deschnev
thought worth the trouble of noting in his narrative to Great
Chukotskojnos. Of this cape Deschnev says that it is quite different
from the cape at the river Chukotskaja. For it lies between north
and north-east, and bends with a rounding towards the Anadyr. On the
Russian side a rivulet runs into the sea, at which the Chukches had
raised a heap of whales' bones. Right off the cape lie two islands,
on which people of Chukch race with perforated lips were seen. From
this cape it is possible with a favourable wind to sail to the
Anadyr in three days, and the way is not longer by land, because the
Anadyr falls into a gulf of the sea. At Chukotskojnos or, according
to Wrangel at a "holy promontory," Svjatoinos (Serdze Kamen?)
previously reached, Ankudinov's craft was shipwrecked. The crew were
saved, and distributed on Deschnev's and Alexejev's boats. On the
30/20th September the Russians had a fight with the Chukches living
on the coast, in which fight Alexejev was wounded. Soon after
Deschnev's and Alexejev's "kotsches" were parted never to meet
again.

Deschnev was driven about by storms and head-winds until past the
beginning of October. Finally his vessel stranded near the mouth of
the river Olutorsk, in 61° N.L. Hence he marched with his
twenty-five men to the Anadyr. He had expected to meet with some
natives in its lower course, but the region was uninhabited, which
caused the invaders much trouble, because they suffered from want of
provisions. Although Deschnev could not obtain from the natives any
augmentation of the certainly very small supply of food which he
carried with him, he succeeded nevertheless in passing the winter in
that region. First in the course of the following summer did he fall
in with natives, from whom a large tribute was collected, but not
without fierce conflicts. A _simovie_ was built at the place where
afterwards Anadyrski Ostrog was founded. While Deschnev remained
here, at a loss as to how, when the boats were broken up, he would
be able to return to the Kolyma, or find a way thither by land,
there came suddenly on the 5th May/25th April 1650, a new party of
hunters to his winter hut.

For the accounts of islands in the Polar Sea, and of the river
Pogytscha, which was said to fall into the sea three or four days'
journey beyond the Kolyma, had led to the sending out of another
expedition under the Cossack STADUCHIN. He started from Yakutsk in
boats on the 15th/5th June, 1647, wintered on the Yana, travelled
thence in sledges to Indigirka, and there again built boats in which
he rowed to the Kolyma. It is to be observed that Staduchin, just
because he preferred the land-route to the sea-route between the
Yana and the Indigirka, missed discovering the large island in the
Polar Sea, of which so much has been said. Next summer (1649)
Staduchin again sailed down the river Kolyma to the sea, and then
for seven days along its coast eastwards, without finding the mouth
of the river sought for by him. He therefore returned with his
object unaccomplished, carrying with him a heap of walrus-tusks,
which were sent to Yakutsk as an appendix to a proposal to send out
hunters to the Polar Sea to hunt for these animals. In the meantime
a true idea of the course of the Anadyr had been obtained through
statements collected from the natives, and a land-route had become
known between its territory and that of the Kolyma. Several Cossacks
and hunters now petitioned for the right to settle on the Anadyr,
and collect tribute from the tribes in that neighbourhood. This was
granted. Some natives were forced to act as guides. The party
started under the command of SIMEON MOTORA, and came finally to
Deschnev's _simovie_ on the Anadyr. Staduchin followed, and
traversed the way in seven weeks. He however soon quarrelled with
Deschnev and Motora, and parting from them on that account, betook
himself to the river Penschina. Deschnev and Motora built
themselves boats on the Anadyr in order to prosecute exploratory
voyages, but the latter was killed in 1651 in a fight with natives
called Anauls. They had been the first of all the natives of the
Pacific coast of North Asia to pay "jassak" to Deschnev, and he had
already at that time come into collision with them and extirpated
one of their tribes.

In 1652 Deschnev travelled down the Anadyr to the river mouth, where he
discovered a walrus-bank, whence he brought home walrus-tusks. There
afterwards arose a dispute between Deschnev and Selivestrov[301]
regarding the rights founded on the discovery of this walrus bank, which
came before the authorities at Yakutsk, and it was from the documents
relating to it that Müller obtained the information that enabled him to
give a narrative of Deschnev's expedition. Only in this way have the
particulars of this remarkable voyage been rescued from complete
oblivion.[302]

In 1653 Deschnev gave orders to collect wood to build craft in which
he intended to carry home by sea the tribute he had collected to the
Kolyma, but he was compelled to desist from want of the necessary
materials for the building and equipment of the boats, comforting
himself with the statement of the natives that the sea was not
always so open as during his first voyage. Compelled by necessity,
he remained a year longer at the Anadyr, and in 1654 undertook a new
hunting voyage to the walrus-bank, where he met with the
before-mentioned Selivestrov. He here came in contact with the
natives (Koryäks), and found among them a Yakut woman, who had
belonged to Ankudinov. On asking her where her master had gone to,
she answered that Feodot and Gerasim (Ankudinov) had died of scurvy,
and that their companions had been killed with the exception of some
few, who had saved themselves in boats. It appears as if the latter
had penetrated along the coast as far as to the river Kamchatka. For
when Kamchatka was conquered by Atlassov in 1697 the natives stated
that a long time before one FEODOTOV (probably a son of Feodot
Alexejev) had lived among them along with some companions, and had
married their women. They were venerated almost as gods. They were
believed to be invulnerable until they struck another, when the
Kamchadals saw their mistake and killed them.[303]

By the expeditions of Deschnev, Staduchin, and their companions, the
Russians had by degrees become acquainted with the course of the
Anadyr and with the tribes living on its banks. But it still
remained for them to acquire a more complete knowledge of the
islands which were said to be situated in the Polar Sea, and one
must be surprised at the extreme difficulties which were encountered
in attempting the solution of this apparently very simple
geographical problem. The reason indeed was that the Siberian seamen
never ventured to leave the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, a
precaution which besides is very easily explained when the bad
construction of their craft is considered. Along the shore of the
Polar Sea on the other hand, a very active communication appears to
have taken place between the Lena and the Kolyma, though of those
voyages we only know such as in one way or another gave rise to
actions before the courts or were characterised by specially
remarkable dangers or losses.

In 1650 ANDREJ GORELOJ was sent by sea from Yakutsk to impose
tribute on the tribes that lived at the sources of the Indigirka,
and on the Moma, a tributary of the Indigirka. He passed Svjatoinos
successfully, and reached the mouth of the Kroma, but was there
beset by ice, with which he drifted out to sea. After drifting about
ten days he was compelled to abandon the vessel, which was soon
after nipped, and go on foot over the ice to land. On the 22nd/12th
November he came to the _simovie_ Ujandino, where famine prevailed
during the winter, _because the vessels, that should have brought
provisions to the place, had either been lost or been compelled to
turn_; a statement which proves that at that time a regular
navigation took place between certain parts of the coast of the
Polar Sea.

The same year, the Cossack, TIMOFEJ BULDAKOV travelled by sea from
the Lena to the Kolyma to take over the command of the neighbouring
region. He reached the Kroma successfully, but was beset there and
drifted out to sea. He then determined to endeavour to get to land
over the ice. But this was no easy matter. The ice, which already
was three feet thick, went suddenly into a thousand pieces, while
the vessel drove before a furious gale farther and farther from the
shore. This was repeated several times. When the sea at last froze
over, the vessel was abandoned, and the party finally succeeded,
worn out as they were by hunger, scurvy, work, and cold, in reaching
land at the mouth of the Indigirka. The narrative of Buldakov's
voyage is, besides, exceedingly remarkable, because a meeting is
there spoken of with twelve "kotsches," filled with Cossacks,
traders, and hunters, bound partly from the Lena to the rivers lying
to the eastward, partly from the Kolyma and Indigirka to the Lena, a
circumstance which shows how active the communication then was in
the part of the Siberian Polar Sea in question. This is further
confirmed by a narrative of NIKIFOR MALGIN. While Knes IVAN
PETROVITSCH BARJATINSKY was _vojvode_ at Yakutsk (1667-75), Malgin
travelled along with a trader, ANDREJ WORIPAJEV, by sea from the
Lena to the Kolyma. During this voyage the pilot directed the
attention of all on board to an island, lying far out at sea, west
of the mouth of the Kolyma. In course of a conversation regarding
it, after Malgin had succeeded in reaching the Kolyma, another
trader, JAKOB WIÄTKA, stated that on one occasion when he was
sailing with nine "kotsches" between the Lena and the Kolyma, three
of them had been driven by wind to this island, and that the men who
had been sent ashore there, found traces of unknown animals, but no
inhabitants.

All these narratives, however, do not appear to have met with full
credence. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, accordingly,
new explorations and new expeditions were undertaken. A Cossack,
JAKOB PERMAKOV, stated that during a voyage between the Lena and the
Kolyma, he had seen off Svjatoinos an island, of which he knew not
whether it was inhabited or not, and likewise, that off the mouth of
the Kolyma there was an island which could be seen from land. In
order to make sure of the correctness of this statement, a Cossack,
MERCUREJ WAGIN, was sent out. He travelled along with Permakov, in
the month of May, in dog-sledges over the ice from Svjatoinos to the
island lying off it, that Permakov had seen. They landed there,
found it uninhabited and treeless, and fixed its circumference at
nine to twelve days' journey. Beyond this island Wagin saw another,
which, however, he could not reach for want of provisions. He
therefore determined to turn, in order to undertake the journey the
following year in a better state of preparation. During the return
journey the party suffered severely from hunger, and in order to
avoid a renewal of the dangerous and difficult journey of
exploration, the men at last murdered Permakov, Wagin, and his son.
The crime was discovered, and the knowledge we possess of this
expedition is founded on the confused information obtained during
the examination of the murderers. Müller even throws doubts on the
truth of the whole narrative.

The attempts which were afterwards made to reach those islands,
partly by sea in 1712, by WASILEJ STADUCHIN, partly by dog-sledges
in 1714 by ALEXEJ MARKOV and GRIGOREJ KUSAKOV, yielded no result.
Ten years afterwards, "the old saga" of the islands in the Polar
Sea, induced one SIN BAJORSKI FEODOT AMOSSOV to undertake an
expedition with a view to impose tribute on their inhabitants, but
he was prevented by ice from reaching his goal. On the way he met
with a hunter, IVAN WILLEGIN, who said, that along with another
hunter, GRIGOREJ SANKIN, he had travelled over the ice to these
islands from the mouth of the river Chukotskaja. He had seen neither
men nor trees, but some abandoned huts "Probably this land extends
all the way from the mouth of the Yana, past the Indigirka and
Kolyma to the region which is inhabited by the Schelags, a Chukch
tribe." He had learned this from a Schelag named Kopai, at whose
home he had been the preceding year. In order to reach this land by
sea it was necessary to start from the coast which the Schelags
inhabited, because the sea was less covered by ice there.

As Amossov could not reach his goal by sea he travelled thither the
same year, in November, 1724, over the ice, but his description of
the land differs widely from that of his predecessor, and Müller
appears to entertain great doubts of the truthfulness of the
narrative[304]. On the ground of a map constructed by the Cossack,
Colonel SCHESTAKOV, who, however, according to Müller, could neither
read nor write, this new land was introduced into DELISLE and
BUACHE'S map, with the addition that the Schelag Kopai lived there,
and had there been taken prisoner by the Russians. This is so far
incorrect, as Kopai did not live on any island, but on the mainland,
and never was prisoner with the Russians, although after having paid
tribute to them, he tired of doing so, and killed some of Amossov's
people, after which no more was heard of him. Müller complains
loudly of the incorrect statement regarding Kopai, but the learned
academician commits a much greater mistake, inasmuch as he considers
that he ought to leave the numerous accounts of hunters and Cossacks
about land and islands in the Siberian Polar Sea completely out of
account. All these lands are therefore left out of the map published
by the Petersburg Academy in the year 1758[305]. It is in this
respect much more incomplete than the map which accompanies
Strahlenberg's book.[306]

Before I begin to sketch the explorations of the great northern
expedition, some account remains to be given of the discovery of
Kamchatka. It appears from the preceding that Kamchatka was already
reached by some of Deschnev's followers, but their important
discovery was completely unknown in Moscow. Kamchatka is, however,
already mentioned in the narrative of Evert Ysbrants Ides' embassy
to China in 1693-95,[307] accounts of it had probably been obtained
from the Siberian natives, who are accustomed to wander far and
near. These accounts, however, are exceedingly incomplete, and
therefore, VOLODOMIR ATLASSOV, _piätidesätnik_ (_i.e._, commander of
fifty men) at Anadyrsk, is considered the proper discoverer of
Kamchatka.

While Atlassov was commander at Anadyrsk, he sent out in 1696, the
Cossack LUCAS SEMENOV SIN MOROSKO with sixteen men to bring the
tribe living to the south under tribute. The commission was
executed, and on his return Morosko stated that he not only was
among the Koryäks, but had also penetrated to the neighbourhood of
the river Kamchatka, and that he took a Kamchadal "ostrog," and
found in it some manuscripts in an unknown language, which,
according to information afterwards obtained, had belonged to some
Japanese who had stranded on the coast of Kamchatka.[308] It was the
first hint the conquerors of Siberia obtained of their being in the
neighbourhood of Japan.

The year after Atlassov, with a larger force, followed the way which
Morosko had opened up, and penetrated to the river Kamchatka, where
as a sign that he had taken possession of the land, he erected a
cross with an inscription, which when translated runs thus: _In the,
year_ 7205 (i.e. 1697) _on the 13th July this cross was erected by
the piätidesätnik Volodomir Atlassov and his followers_, 55 _men_.
Atlassov then built on the Kamchatka river a _simovie_, which was
afterwards fortified and named Verchni Kamtschatskoj Ostrog. Hence
the Russians extended their power over the land, yet not without
resistance, which was first completely broken by the cruel
suppression of the rebellion of 1730.

In 1700 Atlassov travelled to Moscow, carrying with him a Japanese,
who had been taken prisoner after being shipwrecked on the coast of
Kamchatka, and the collected tribute which consisted of the skins of
3,200 sables, 10 sea-otters, 7 beavers, 4 otters, 10 grey foxes and
191 red foxes. He was received graciously, and sent back as
commander of the Cossacks in Yakutsk with orders to complete the
conquest of Kamchatka. An interruption however happened for some
time in the path of Atlassov as a warrior and discoverer, in
consequence of his having during his return journey to Yakutsk
plundered a Russian vessel laden with Chinese goods, an accessory
circumstance which deserves to be mentioned for the light which it
throws on the character of this Pizarro of Kamchatka. He was not set
free until the year 1706, and then recovered his command in
Kamchatka, with strict orders to desist from all arbitrary
proceedings and acts of violence, and to do his best for the
discovery of new lands. The first part of this order he however
complied with only to a limited extent, which gave occasion to
repeated complaints[309] and revolts among the already unbridled
Cossacks. Finally, in 1711, Atlassov and several other officers were
murdered by their own countrymen. In order to atone for this crime,
and perhaps to get a little farther from the arm of justice, their
murderers, ANZIPHOROV and IVAN KOSIREVSKOJ,[310] undertook to subdue
the not yet conquered part of Kamchatka, and the two northernmost of
the Kurile Islands. Further information about the countries lying
farther south was obtained from some Japanese who were shipwrecked
in 1710 on Kamchatka.

At first in order to get to Kamchatka the difficult detour by
Anadyrsk was taken. But in the year 1711 the commander at Okotsk,
SIN BOJARSKI PETER GUTUROV, was ordered, by the energetic promoter
of exploratory expeditions in Eastern Siberia, the Yakutsk
_voivode_, DOROFEJ TRAUERNICHT, to proceed by sea from Okotsk to
Kamchatka. But this voyage could not come off because at that time
there were at Okotsk neither seagoing boats, seamen, nor even men
accustomed to the use of the compass. Some years after the governor
Prince GAGARIN sent to that town IVAN SOROKAUMOV with twelve
Cossacks to make arrangements for this voyage. For want of ships and
seamen however this could not now be undertaken, and after
Sorokaumov had created great confusion he was imprisoned by the
authorities of the place, and sent back to the Governor. Peter I.
now commanded _that men acquainted with navigation should be sought
for among the Swedish prisoners of war and sent to Okotsk, that they
should build a boat there and, provided with a compass, go by sea
along with some Cossacks to Kamchatka and return_.[311] Thus
navigation began on the Sea of Okotsk Among the Swedes who opened
it, is mentioned HENRY BUSCH,[312] according to Strahlenberg a
Swedish corporal, who had previously been a ship-carpenter.
According to Müller, who met with him at Yakutsk as late as 1736, he
was born at Hoorn in Holland, had served at several places as a
seaman, and finally among the Swedes as a trooper, until he was
taken prisoner at Viborg in 1706. He gave Müller the following
account of his first voyage across the Sea of Okotsk.

After arriving at Okotsk they had built a vessel, resembling the
_lodjas_ used at Archangel and Mesen for sailing on the White Sea
and to Novaya Zemlya. The vessel was strong; its length was eight
and a half fathoms, its breadth three fathoms, the freeboard, when
the vessel was loaded, three and a half feet. The first voyage took
place in June 1716. The voyagers began to sail along the coast
towards the north-east, but an unfavourable wind drove the vessel,
almost against the will of the seafarers, right across the sea to
Kamchatka. The first land sighted was a cape which juts out north of
the river Tigil. Being unacquainted with the coast the seafarers
hesitated to land. During the delay a change of wind took place,
whereby the vessel was driven back towards the coast of Okotsk. The
wind again becoming favourable, the vessel was put about and
anchored successfully in the Tigil. The men who were sent ashore
found the houses deserted. For the Kamchadales being terrified at
the large ship had made their escape to the woods. The seafarers
sailed on along the coast and landed at several places in order that
they might meet with the inhabitants, but for a long time without
success, until at last they fell in with a Kamchadal girl, who was
collecting edible roots. With her as a guide they soon found
dwellings, and even Cossacks, who had been sent out to collect
tribute. They wintered at the river Kompakova. During the winter the
sea cast up a whale, which had in its carcase a harpoon of European
manufacture and with Latin letters. The vessel left the winter haven
in the middle of May (new style) 1717, but meeting with ice-fields
was beset in them for five and a half weeks. This occasioned great
scarcity of provisions. In the end of July the seafarers were again
back at Okotsk. From this time there has been regular communication
by sea between this town and Kamchatka. The master of the vessel
during the first voyage across the Sea of Okotsk was the Cossack
SOKOLOV.[313]

[Illustration: MAP OF ASIA. From on Atlas published, by the Russian
Academy of Sciences in 1737. ]

From what I have stated it follows that, thanks to the fondness of
the hunters and Cossacks for adventurous, exploratory expeditions,
the current ideas regarding the distribution of the land and the
courses of the rivers in north-eastern Asia were in the main
correct. But, in consequence of want of knowledge of, or of doubts
regarding, Deschnev's discoveries, there prevailed an uncertainty
whether Asia at its north-east extremity was connected with America
by a small neck of land, in the same way as it is with Africa, or as
North and South America are connected with each other, a view which,
in consequence of the unscientific necessity of generalising
inherent in man, and the wish to have an explanation of how the
population extended from the old to the new world, was long
zealously defended[314]. No one, either European or native, had yet,
so far as we know, extended his hunting journeys to the northernmost
promontory of Asia, in consequence of which the position which it
was assumed to occupy only depended on loose suppositions. It was
possible for instance that Asia stretched with a cape as far as to
the neighbourhood of the Pole, or that a broad isthmus between the
Pjäsina and the Olenek connected the known portion of this quarter
of the world with an Asiatic Polar continent. Nor had geographers a
single actual determination of position or geographical measurement
from the whole of the immense stretch between the mouth of the Ob
and Japan, and there was complete uncertainty as to the relative
position of the easternmost possessions of the Russians on the one
side and of Japan on the other.[315] It was difficult to get the maps
of the Russians to correspond with those of the Portuguese and the
Dutch, at the point where the discoveries of the different nations
touched each other, which also was exceedingly natural, as at that
time too limited an extent east and west by 1700 kilometres was
commonly assigned to Siberia. In order to investigate this point, in
order to fill up the great blank which still existed in the
knowledge of the quarter of the world first inhabited by man, and
perhaps above all for the purpose of forming new commercial treaties
and of discovering new commercial routes, Peter the Great during the
latest years of his life arranged one of the greatest geographical
expeditions which the history of the world can show. It was not
until after his death, however, that it was carried out, and then it
went on for a series of years on so large a scale that whole tribes
are said to have been impoverished through the severe exactions of
transport that were on its account imposed on the inhabitants of the
Siberian deserts. Its many different divisions are now comprehended
under the name--_the Great Northern Expedition_. Through the
writings of Behring, Müller, Gmelin, Steller, Krascheninnikov and
others, this expedition has acquired an important place for all time
in the history not only of geography but also of ethnography,
zoology, and botany, and even now the inquirer, when the natural
conditions of North Asia are in question, must return to these
works. I shall therefore, before drawing this chapter to a close,
give a brief account of its principal features.

The Great Northern Expedition was ushered in by "the first
expedition to Kamchatka". The commander of this expedition was the
Dane VITUS BEHRING, who was accompanied by Lieutenant MORTON
SPANGBERG, also a Dane by birth, and ALEXEI CHIRIKOV They left St.
Petersburg in February 1725, and took the land route across Siberia,
carrying with them the necessary materials with which in Kamchatka
to build and equip the vessel with which they should make their
voyage of exploration. More than three years were required for this
voyage, or rather for this geographico-scientific campaign, in which
for the transport of the stores and the shipbuilding material that
had to be taken from Europe the rivers Irtisch, Ob, Ket, Yenisej,
Tunguska, Ilim, Aldan, Maja, Yudoma, and Urak were taken advantage
of. It was not until the 15th/4th April that a beginning could be
made at Nischni Kamchatskoj Ostrog of the building of the vessel,
which was launched on the 21st/10th July, and on the 31st/20th of
the same month Behring began his voyage.

He sailed in a north-easterly direction along the coast of
Kamchatka, which he surveyed. On the 19th/8th August in 64°
30' N.L. he fell in with Chukches, who had still a reputation among
the Russians for invincible courage and ferocity. First one of them
came to the vessel, swimming on two inflated seal-skins, "to inquire
what was intended by the vessel's coming thither," after which their
skin-boat lay to. Conversation was carried on with them by means of
a Koryäk interpreter. On the 21st/10th August St. Lawrence Islands
as discovered, and on the 26th/15th of the same month the explorers
sailed past the north-eastern promontory of Asia in 67° 18'
and observed that the coast trends to the west from that point, as
the Chukches had before informed them. Behring on this account
considered that he had fulfilled his commission to ascertain whether
Asia and America were separated, and he now determined to turn,
"partly because if the voyage were continued along the coast ice
might be met with, from which it might not be so easy to get clear,
partly on account of the fogs, which had already begun to prevail,
and partly because it would be impossible, if a longer stay were
made in these regions, to get back the same summer to Kamchatka.
There could be no question of passing the winter off the coast of
the Chukch Peninsula, because that would have been to expose the
expedition to certain destruction, either by being wrecked on the
jagged rocks of the open unknown coast, or by perishing from want of
fuel, or finally by dying under the hands of the fierce unconquered
Chukches". On the 1st Oct/20th Sept the vessel returned to Nischni
Kamchatskoj Ostrog.[316] It was during this voyage that the sound,
which has since obtained the name of Behring's Straits, is
considered to have been discovered. But it is now known that this
discovery properly belongs to the gallant hunter Deschnev, who
sailed through these straits eighty years before. I suppose
therefore that the geographical world will with pleasure embrace the
proposal to attach the name of Deschnev along with that of Behring
to this part of our globe; which may be done by substituting Cape
Deschnev, as the name of the easternmost promontory of Asia, for
that of East Cape, an appellation which is misleading and unsuitable
in in many respects. Several statements by Kamchadales regarding a
great country towards the east on the other side of the sea, induced
Behring the following year to sail away in order to ascertain
whether this was the case. In consequence of unfavourable weather he
did not succeed in reaching the coast of America, but returned with
his object unaccomplished, after which he sailed to Okotsk, where he
arrived on the 3rd Aug/23rd July 1729. Hence he betook himself
immediately to St. Petersburg, which he reached after a journey of
six months and nine days.

In maps published during Behring's absence, partly by Swedish
officers who had returned from imprisonment in Siberia,[317]
Kamchatka had been delineated with so long an extension towards the
south that this peninsula was connected with Yezo, the northernmost
of the large Japanese islands. The distance between Kamchatka and
Japan, rich in wares, would thus have been quite inconsiderable.
This nearness was believed to be further confirmed by another
Japanese ship, manned by seventeen men and laden with silk, rice,
and paper, having stranded in July 1729 on Kamchatka, south of
Avatscha Bay. In this neighbourhood there was, along with a number
of natives, a small party of Cossacks under the command of ANDREAS
SCHTINNIKOV. He at first accepted several presents from the
shipwrecked men, but afterwards withdrew from the place where the
wreck took place. When the Japanese on this account rowed on in
their boats along the coast, Schtinnikov gave orders to follow them
in a _baydar_ and kill them all but two. The cruel deed was carried
into execution, on which the malefactors took possession of the
goods, and broke in pieces the boats in order to obtain the iron
with which the boards were fastened together. The two Japanese who
were saved were carried to Nischni Kamchatskoj Ostrog. Here
Schtinnikov was imprisoned and hanged for his crime. The Japanese
were sent to St. Petersburg, where they learned the Russian language
and were converted to Christianity, while some Russians in their
turn learned Japanese. The Japanese died between 1736 and 1739. Both
were from Satsuma; the elder, SOSA, had been a merchant, and the
younger, GONSA, was a pilot's son. Their vessel had been bound for
Osaka, but having been carried out of its course by a storm, had
drifted about at sea for six months, stranding at last with so
unfortunate a result for the greater part of the crew.

This sad occurrence further reminds us that much still remained
unaccomplished with respect to the geography of north-eastern Asia.
Behring's Kamchatka expedition had besides yielded no information
regarding the position of the northern extremity of Asia, or of the
part of America lying opposite to Kamchatka. A number of grave
doubts appear besides to have been started as to the correctness of
the observations during Behring's first voyage. All this induced him
to make proposals for a continuation of his explorations, offering,
along with his former companions, Spangberg and Chirikov, to take
the command of the maritime expedition which was to start from
Kamchatka to solve the questions proposed, both eastwards to
ascertain the position of the east coast of Asia in relation to the
west coast of America, and southwards to connect the areas which the
West-Europeans and the Russians were exploring.

The Russian senate, the Board of Admiralty, and the Academy of
Sciences were commissioned to develop this plan and to carry it into
execution. With respect to the way in which the commission was
executed I may be allowed to refer to Müller's oft-quoted work, and
to a paper by VON BAER; _Peters des Grossen Verdienste um die
Erweiterung der geographischen Kenntnisse (Beiträge zur Kenntniss
des Russischen Reiches_, B. 16, St. Petersburg, 1872). Here I can
only mention that it was principally through the untiring interest
which KIRILOV, the secretary of the senate, took in the undertaking,
that it attained such a development that it may be said to have been
perhaps the greatest scientific expedition which has ever been sent
out by any country. It was determined at the same time not only to
ascertain the extent of Siberia to the north and east, but also to
examine its hitherto almost unknown ethnographical and natural
conditions. For this purpose the Great Northern Expedition was
divided into the following divisions:--

1. _An expedition to start from Archangel for the Ob_[318]--For this
expedition two _kotsches_ were employed, the _Ob_ and the
_Expedition_ 52-1/2 feet long, 14 feet broad, and 8 feet deep, each
manned with 20 men. The vessels, which were under the command of
Lieutenants PAULOV and MURAVJEV, left Archangel on the 15th/4th
July, 1734. The first summer they only reached Mutnoi Saliv in the
Kara Sea, whence they returned to the Petchora and wintered at
Pustosersk. The following year they broke up in June, but did not
penetrate farther than in 1734. The unfavourable issue was ascribed
to the vessels' unserviceableness for voyages in the Polar Sea, in
consequence of which the Board of Admiralty ordered two other boats,
50 to 60 feet long, to be built for the expedition, which were
placed under the command of SKURATOV and SUCHOTIN, Muravjev being
besides replaced by MALYGIN who sailed with the old vessels on the
7th June/27th May 1736, down the Petchora river, at whose mouth the
_Expedition_ was wrecked. Without permitting himself to be
frightened by this, Malygin ordered his men to go on board the other
vessel, in which with great dangers and difficulties they penetrated
through the drift-ice to Dolgoi Island. Here on the 18th/7th August
they fell in with the new vessels sent from Archangel. Suchotin was
now sent back to Archangel on board the _Ob_; Malygin and Skuratov
sailed in the new vessels to the Kara river and wintered there.
During the winter 1736-1737 the men suffered only slightly from
scurvy, which was cured by anti-scorbutic plants growing in the
region. The ice in the Kara river did not break up until the
12th/1st June, but so much ice still drifted about in the sea that a
start could not be made until the 14th/3rd July. On the 4th Aug/24th
July the vessels anchored in the sound which I have named Malygin
Sound. Here they were detained by head winds 25 days. Then they
sailed on round a cape, which the Samoyeds call Yalmal, up the Gulf
of Ob to the mouth of the river, which was reached on the 22nd/11th
September, 1737, and then up the river to Soswa, where the vessels
were laid up in winter quarters. The crews were taken to Beresov.
Malygin returned to Petersburg, after having given Lieut. Skuratov
and the second mate Golovin a commission to carry the vessels back
to the Dwina the following year. They did not get back until August
1739. The return voyage thus also occupied two years, and was
attended with much difficulty and danger.

Six years in all had thus gone to the voyage from Archangel to the
Ob and back, which now can be accomplished without difficulty in a
single summer. By means of Malygin's and Skuratov's voyages, and of
a land journey which the land-measurer Selifontov undertook during
July and August 1736 with reindeer along the west coast of Yalmal
and then by boat to Beli Ostrov, Yalmal and the south coast of this
large island were mapped, it would appear in the main correctly.[319]

2. _An expedition to sail from the Ob to the Yenisej_--For this
Behring ordered a double sloop, the _Tobol_, 70 feet long, 15 feet
broad, and 8 feet deep, to be built at Tobolsk. The vessel had two
masts, was armed with two small cannon, and was manned with 53 men,
among whom were a land-measurer and a priest. The commander was
Lieut. OWZYN. They sailed in company with some small craft carrying
provisions from Tobolsk on the 26th/15th May, 1734, and came to the
Gulf of Ob through the easternmost mouth-arm of the river on the
30th/19th June. There a storm damaged the tender-vessels. Of the
timber of those which had sustained most damage, a storehouse was
erected in 66° 36' N.L., in which the provisions landed from
the unserviceable craft were placed. When this was done they sailed
on, but slowly in consequence of unfavourable winds and shallow
water, so that it was not until the 17th/6th August that they
reached 70° 4' N.L. Hence they returned to Obdorsk, arriving
there on the 15th/4th September. Seven days afterwards the Ob was
covered with ice.

The following spring the voyage was resumed. On the 17th/6th June
they came to the depôt formed the preceding year. At first ice
formed an obstacle, but on the 31st/20th July it broke up, and the
navigable water became clear. The crew had now begun to suffer so
severely from scurvy, that of 53 only 17 were in good health; Owzyn
therefore turned, that he might bring his sick men to Tobolsk. He
reached this town on the 17th/6th October, and the river froze over
soon after. Owzyn now travelled to St. Petersburg in order to give
in, in person, reports of his unsuccessful voyages and to make
suggestions as to the measures that ought to be taken to ensure
better success to next year's undertaking. His proposals on this
point were mainly in the direction of building at Tobolsk a new
vessel, which should accompany the _Tobol_ during the dangerous
voyage, and confer upon it greater safety. This was approved by the
Board of Admiralty, but the vessel could not be got ready till the
summer of 1736, on which account that year's voyage was undertaken
in the same way as that of the preceding year, and with the same
success. The new vessel was not ready until 1737. It came with the
shipbuilder KOSCHELEV and the mate MININ on the 16th/5th June to
Obdorsk, where Owzyn took command of it, handing over the old one to
Koschelev, and beginning his fourth voyage down the Gulf of Ob. This
time he had better success. After sailing past Gyda Bay, he came,
without meeting with any serious obstacles from ice, on the
27th/16th August to Cape Mattesol, and on the 12th/1st September to
a storehouse erected for the expedition by the care of the
authorities on the bank of the Yenisej in 71° 33' N.L. The
Yenisej froze over on the 21st/10th October.

Four years had thus gone to the accomplishment of Owzyn's purpose,
but it can scarcely be doubted that if he had not turned so early in
the season, and if he had had steam, or a sailing vessel of the
present day at his disposal he would have been able to sail from the
Ob to the Yenisej in a few weeks. It is at all events Owzyn's
perseverance to which we are in great measure indebted for the
mapping of the Gulf of Ob, and the Bays of Tas and Gyda[320].

3. _Voyages from the Yenisej towards Cape Taimur._--In the winter of
1738 Owzyn and Koschelev were called to St. Petersburg to answer for
themselves with reference to a complaint lodged against them by the
men under their command[321]. In their room Minin got the command of
the expedition which was to endeavour to penetrate farther eastwards
along the coast of the Polar Sea. The two first summers, 1738 and
1739, Minin could not get further than to the northernmost
_sumovies_ on the Yenisej. But in 1740 he succeeded, as it appears
in pretty open water, in reaching on the west coast of the Taimur
Peninsula the latitude of 75° 15'. Here he turned on the 1st
Sept./21st Aug. on account of "impenetrable" ice, but mainly in
consequence of the late season of the year. The preceding winter
Minin had sent his mate STERLEGOV in sledges to examine the coast.
On the 25th/14th April he reached 75° 26' N.L., and there
erected a stone cairn on a rock jutting out into the sea. Many open
places appear to have been seen in the offing. Minin and his party
returned on account of snow-blindness, and during the return voyage
rested for a time at a _sumovie_ on the river Pjäsina, whose
existence there shows how far the Russian hunters had extended their
journeys[322].

4. _Voyage from the Lena Westward_--On the 30th July/11th June 1735,
two expeditions started from Yakutsk, each with its double sloop,
accompanied by a number of boats carrying provisions. One of these
double sloops was to go in an easterly direction under the command
of Lieut. LASSINIUS. I shall give an account of his voyage farther
on. The other was commanded by Lieut. PRONTSCHISCHEV, whose object
was to go from the Lena westwards, if possible, to the Yenisej.
The voyage down the river was successful and pleasant. The river was
from four to nine fathoms deep, and on its banks, overgrown with birch
and pine, there were numerous tents and dwelling-houses whose
inhabitants were engaged in fishing, which gave the neighbourhood
of the river a lively and pleasant appearance[323]. On the 13th/2nd
August the explorers came to the mouth of the river, which here
divides into five arms, of which the easternmost was chosen for
sailing down to the Polar Sea. Here the two seafarers were to part.
Prontschischev staid at the river-mouth till the 25th/14th August.
He then sailed in 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 fathoms water along the shore of
the islands which are formed by the mouth-arms of the Lena. On the
6th Sept./26th Aug. he anchored in the mouth of the Olenek.
A little way up the river some dwelling-houses were met with,
which hunters had built for use during summer. These were put in
order for winter, which passed happily. On the 2nd July/21st June
the ice broke up at the winter quarters, but in the sea it lay still
until the 14th/3rd August, and it was only then that Prontschischev
could go to sea. The course was shaped for the north-east.
The Chatanga was reached on the 24th/13th August. On the beach,
in 74° 48' N.L., a hut was met with in which were found newly
baked bread and some dogs, and which therefore appeared to belong to
some Russian hunters absent at the time. While sailing on along the
coast the explorers, after having passed two bays projecting into the
land, came to an inlet which they erroneously took for the mouth of
the Taimur river. Among the reasons for this supposition is mentioned
the immense number of gulls which swarmed round the vessel in that
region. The bay was covered with fast ice, "which probably never
breaks up," and broad ice-fields stretched out to sea from the coast,
on which Polar bears were seen.

On the 31st/20th August, in 77° 29' N.L., the vessel was
suddenly surrounded with so large masses of ice that it could make
no further progress, and was every instant in danger of being
nipped. Prontschischev therefore determined to turn, but this at
first was rendered impossible by a complete calm, a crust of ice
being formed at the same time in open places between the pieces of
drift-ice. If the latitude stated is correct, the turning point lay
quite close to the northernmost promontory of Asia. With a better
vessel, and above all with the help of steam, Prontschischev would
certainly have rounded it. The unbroken ice which he mentioned
several times in his narrative, ought probably to be interpreted as
belts of pretty closely packed drift-ice. Many times during my
Arctic voyages have I sailed through belts of ice which, when
observed from a boat some hundred yards from their borders, have
been reported as immense unbroken ice-fields. On the 5th Sept./25th
Aug. a high north wind began to blow which drove the vessel, with
the surrounding ice-fields, towards the south. The voyagers had
doubts as to then being saved, but the gusts of wind broke up the
ice so that the vessel got free and could sail to the mouth of the
Chatanga, which, however, was already frozen over. The explorers
were therefore compelled to continue their voyage towards the
Olenek, whose mouth was reached on the 8th Sept./28th Aug. In the
neighbourhood of the haven which they intended to make, they were
driven about by contrary winds and drift-ice about six days more,
exposed to cold and wet, and worn out by exertions and privations of
every description. Prontschischev, who before had been sick, died of
his illness on the 10th Sept./30th Aug. to the great sorrow of his
men, by whom he was held in great regard. The mate, CHELYUSKIN, now
took the command. On the 14th/3rd Sept. he succeeded in carrying his
vessel into the river Olenek. On its bank Prontschischev was buried
with all the solemnities which circumstances permitted. To
Prontschischev's melancholy fate there attaches an interest which is
quite unique in the history of the Arctic exploratory voyages. He
was newly married when he started. His young wife accompanied him on
his journey, took part in his dangers and sufferings, survived him
only two days, and now rests by his side in the grave on the
desolate shore of the Polar Sea.

On the 9th Oct./28th Sept. the Olenek was frozen over and the winter
became very severe for Chelyuskin and his companions. The following
summer they returned to Yakutsk convinced of the impossibility of
sailing round the north point of Asia, and as Behring was no longer
to be found in that town, Chelyuskin started for St. Petersburg in
order to give an oral account of Prontschischev's voyages. The Board
of Admiralty, however, did not favour Chelyuskin's views, but
considered that another attempt ought to be made by land, but if
this, too, was unsuccessful, that the coast should be surveyed by
land journeys. Lieut. CHARITON LAPTEV was appointed to carry out
this last attempt to reach the Yenisej by sea from the Lena.

Laptev, accompanied by a number of small craft carrying provisions,
left Yakutsk on the 20th/9th July, 1739, and on the 31st/20th of the
same month reached the mouth-arm of the Lena called Krestovskoj, on
which he built, on a point jutting out into the sea, a high signal
tower, one of the few monuments that are to be found on the north
coast of Asia, and which is on that account mentioned by succeeding
travellers in those regions. He sailed hence along the coast past
the mouth of the Olenek and past a large bay to which, for what
reason I know not, he gave the purely Swedish name of Nordvik. This
bay was still covered with unbroken ice. After having been beset for
several days in Chatanga Bay, the voyagers on the 31st/20th August
reached Cape Thaddeus, where the vessel was anchored the following
day in 76° 47' N.L. A signal tower was built on the extremity
of the cape, and the land-measurer CHEKIN was sent to examine the
neighbouring territory, and Chelyuskin to search for the mouth of
the river Taimur. Chekin could carry out no geodetic work on account
of mist. Chelyuskin again reported that the whole bay and the sea in
the offing were, as far as the eye could reach, covered with
unbroken ice This induced Laptev to turn. After many difficulties
among the ice, he came, on the 7th Sept./27th Aug. to the confluence
of the river Bludnaya with the Chatanga. Here the winter was passed
among a tribe of Tunguses Irving on the spot, who owned no reindeer,
and were therefore settled. They used dogs as draught animals, and
appear to have carried on a mode of life resembling that of the
coast Chukches.

In spring Chekin was sent to map the coast between the Taimur and
the Pjäsina. With thirty dog-sledges and accompanied by a nomad
Tunguse with eighteen reindeer,[324] he travelled over land to the
Taimur river, followed its course to the sea, and then the coast
towards the west of a distance of 100 versts. Scarcity of provisions
and food for his dogs compelled him to turn. Laptev himself,
convinced as he was of the impossibility of rounding the north point
of Asia, now wished to carry back his vessel and the most of his
stores to the Lena. After having with great danger and difficulty
sailed down the river to the Polar Sea, reaching it on the 10th
Aug./30th July, the vessel on the 24th/13th was beset and nipped
between pieces of ice, according to a statement on a Russian map
published in 1876 by the Hydrographical Department in St.
Petersburg, on the east coast of the Taimur Peninsula in 75°
30' N.L. Six days after there was a strong frost, so that thin ice
was formed between the blocks of drift-ice. Some foolhardy fellows
went over the weakly frozen together pieces of ice to land. Three
days after Laptev himself and the rest of the men could leave the
vessel. Several streams, still unfrozen, lying between them and
their old winter station, however, prevented them from going
further. They endeavoured to get protection from the cold by digging
pits in the frozen earth and lying down in them by turns one after
the other. The men were sent daily to the vessel to fetch as much as
possible of the provisions left behind, but on the 10th Sept./29th
Aug. the ice again broke up, and carried the abandoned vessel out to
sea.

By the 2nd Oct./21st Sept. the streams at last had frozen so much
that the return journey could be begun to the former year's winter
station distant more than 500 kilometres. The journey through the
desolate _tundra_, perhaps never before trodden by the foot of man,
was attended with extreme difficulties, and it was twenty-five days
before Laptev and his men could again rest in a warmed hut and get
hot food. Twelve men perished of cold and exhaustion. Laptev now
determined to remain here during the winter and to go the following
spring over the _tundra_ to the Yenisej, where he hoped to find
depôts with provisions and ammunition. Nor did he now remain
inactive. For he did not wish to return until the surveys were
complete. For want of vessels these were to be made by land. Such of
the men as were not required were therefore sent in spring over the
_tundra_ to the Yenisej and the rest divided into three parties
under Laptev himself, Chekin, and Chelyuskin, who were to survey
each his portion of the coast between the Chatanga and the Pjäsina
and then meet at the Yenisej. These journeys were successfully
accomplished, the explorers travelled several times without, it
would appear, excessive difficulty, over the desolate _tundra_
between the Chatanga and the Taimur rivers, discovered Lake Taimur,
and surveyed considerable stretches of the coast. But when they were
all again assembled at Dudino, it was found that the north point of
Asia had not yet been travelled round and surveyed. This was done in
1742 by Chelyuskin in the course of a new sledge journey, of which
the particulars are only incompletely known, evidently because
Chelyuskin's statement, that he had reached the northernmost point
of Asia, was doubted down to the most recent times. After the voyage
of the _Vega_, however, there can be no more doubt on this
point.[325]

5. _Voyages from the Lena Eastward_--During these Lieutenant
Lassinius and after his death Lieutenant DMITRI LAPTEV had the
command. A double sloop was built at Yakutsk for the voyage of
Lassinius. As I have already mentioned, he left this town,
accompanied by several cargo-boats, at the same time as
Prontschischev, and both sailed together down the Lena to its mouth.
Lassinius was able to sail to the eastward as early as the 20th/9th
August. Four days after he came upon so much drift-ice that he was
compelled to lie to at the mouth of the river, 120 versts to the
east of the easternmost mouth-arm of the Lena. Here abundance of
driftwood was met with, and the stock of provisions appears also to
have been large, but notwithstanding this, scurvy broke out during
the winter. Lassinius himself and most of his men died. On being
informed of this, Behring sent a relieving party, consisting of
Lieutenant CHERBININ and fourteen men to Lassinius' winter quarters.
On their arrival on the 15th/4th June they found only the priest,
the mate, and seven sailors alive of the fifty-three men who had
started with Lassinius the foregoing year from Yakutsk. These too
were so ill that some of them died during the return journey to
Yakutsk. Dmitri Laptev and a sufficient number of men, were sent at
the same time to take possession of the ship and renew the attempt
to sail eastwards. He went to sea on the 10th Aug./30th July. At
first he had to contend with serious obstacles from ice, and when at
last he reached open water he thought himself compelled to turn on
account of the advanced season of the year. On the 2nd Sept./22nd
Aug. he came again to the Bychov mouth-arm of the Lena, up which he
found it difficult to make his way on account of the many unknown
shoals. On the 19th/8th September the river was frozen over. He
wintered a little distance from the mouth, and now again scurvy made
its appearance, but was cured by constant exercise in the open air
and by a decoction of cedar cones. In a report sent from this place,
Dmitri Laptev declared that it was quite impossible to round the two
projecting promontories between the Lena and the Indigirka, Capes
Borchaja and Svjatoinos, because, according to the unanimous
statement of several Yakuts living in the region, the ice there
never melts or even loosens from the beach. With Behring's
permission he travelled to St. Petersburg to lay the necessary
information before the Board of Admiralty. The Board determined that
another attempt should be made by sea, and, if that was
unsuccessful, that the coast should be surveyed by means of land
journeys.

It is now easy to see what was the cause of the unfortunate issue of
these two attempts to sail to the eastward. The explorers had
vessels which were unsuitable for cruising, they turned too early in
the season, and in consequence of their unwillingness to go far from
land they sailed into the great bays east of the Lena, from which no
large river carries away the masses of ice that have been formed
there during the winter, or that have been drifted thither from the
sea. Dmitri Laptev and his companions besides appear to have had a
certain dislike to the commission intrusted to them, and, differing
from Deschnev, they thus wanted the first condition of success--the
fixed conviction of the possibility of attaining their object.

By order of the Board of Admiralty Dmitri Laptev at all events began
his second voyage, and now falsified his own prediction, by rounding
the two capes which he believed to be always surrounded by unbroken
ice. After he had passed them his vessel was frozen in on the
20th/9th September. Laptev had no idea at what point of the coast he
was, or how far he was from land. He remained in this unpleasant
state for eleven days, at the close of which one of the mates who
had been sent out from the vessel in a boat on the 11th Sept./31st
Aug. returned on foot over the ice and reported that they were not
far from the mouth of the Indigirka. Several Yakuts had settled on
the neighbouring coast, where was also a Russian _simovie_. Laptev
and his men wintered there, and examined the surrounding country.
The surveyor KINDÄKOV was sent out to map the coast to the Kolyma.
Among other things he observed that the sea here was very shallow
near the shore, and that driftwood was wanting at the mouth of the
Indigirka, but was found in large masses in the interior, 30 versts
from the coast.

The following year, 1740, Laptev repaired as well as he could his
vessel, which had been injured during the voyage of the preceding
year, and then went again to sea on the 11th Aug./31st July. On the
14th/3rd August he passed one of the Bear Islands, fixing its
latitude at 71° 0'. On the 25th/14th August, when Great Cape
Baranov was reached, the progress of the vessel was arrested by
masses of ice that extended as far as the eye could reach. Laptev
now turned and sought for winter quarters on the Kolyma. On the
19th/8th July, 1741, this river became open, and Laptev went to sea
to continue his voyage eastwards, but did not now succeed in
rounding Great Cape Baranov. He was now fully convinced of the
impossibility of reaching the Anadyr by sea, on which account he
determined to penetrate to that river by land in order to survey it.
This he did in the years 1741 and 1742. Thus ended the voyages of
Dmitri Laptev, giving evidence if not of distinguished seamanship,
of great perseverance, undaunted resolution, and fidelity to the
trust committed to him.[326]

6. _Voyage for the purpose of exploring and surveying the coast of
America_--For this purpose Behring fitted out at Okotsk two vessels,
of which he himself took the command of one, _St. Paul_, while the
other, _St. Peter_, was placed under CHIRIKOV. They left Okotsk in
1740, and being prevented by shoal water from entering Bolschaja
Reka, they both wintered in Avatscha Bay, whose excellent haven was
called, from the names of the ships, Port Peter-Paul. On the
15th/4th June they left this haven, the naturalist GEORG WILHELM
STELLER having first gone on board Behring's and the astronomer
LOUIS DE L'ISLE DE LA CROYÈRE Chirikov's vessel. The course was
shaped at first for the S.S.E., but afterwards, when no land could
be discovered in this direction, for the N.E. and E. During a storm
on the 1st July/20th June the vessels were separated. On the
29th/18th July Behring reached the coast of America in 58° to
59° N.L. A short distance from the shore Steller discovered
here a splendid volcano, which was named St. Elias. The coast was
inhabited, but the inhabitants fled when the vessel approached. From
this point Behring wished to sail in a north-westerly direction to
that promontory of Asia which formed the turning-point of his first
voyage. It was however only with difficulty that in the almost
constant fog the peninsula of Alaska could be rounded and the vessel
could sail forward among the Aleutian island groups. Scurvy now
broke out among the crew, and the commander himself suffered
severely from it, on which account the command was mainly in the
hands of Lieut. WAXEL. At an island the explorers came into contact
with the natives, who at first were quite friendly, until one of
them was offered brandy. He tasted the liquor, and was thereby so
terrified that no gifts could calm his uneasiness. On this account
those of the crew who were on land were ordered to come on board,
but the savages wished to detain their guests. At last the Russians
were set free, but a Koryäk whom they had taken with them as an
interpreter was kept behind. In order to get him set at liberty,
Waxel ordered two musket salvos to be fired over the heads of the
natives, with the result that they all fell flat down from fright,
and the Koryäk had an opportunity of making his escape. Now the
fire-water is a liquor in great request among these savages, and
they are not frightened at the firing of salvos of musketry.

During the following months Behring's vessel drifted about without
any distinct plan, in the sea between Alaska and Kamchatka, in
nearly constant fog, and in danger of stranding on some of the many
unknown rocks and islands which were passed. On the 5th November the
vessel was anchored at an island afterwards called Behring Island.
Soon however a great wave arose which threw the vessel on land and
crushed it against the rocky coast of the island. Of the wintering
there, which, through Steller's taking part in it, became of so
great importance for natural history, I shall give an account
further on in connection with the narrative of our visit to Behring
Island. Here I shall only remind the reader that Behring died of
scurvy on the 19th/8th December, and that in the course of the
voyage great part of his crew fell a sacrifice to the same disease.
In spring the survivors built a new vessel out of the fragments of
the old, and on the 27th/16th of August they sailed away from the
island where they had undergone so many sufferings, and came eleven
days after to a haven on Kamchatka.

After parting from Behring, Chirikov on the 26th/15th July sighted
the coast of America in 56° N.L. The mate ABRAHAM DEMENTIEV
was then sent ashore in the longboat, which was armed with a cannon
and manned by ten well-armed men. When he did not return, another
boat was sent after him. But this boat too did not come back.
Probably the boats' crews were taken prisoners and killed by the
Indians. After making another attempt to find his lost men, Chirikov
determined to return to Kamchatka. He first sailed some distance
northwards along the coast of America without being able to land, as
both the vessel's boats were lost. Great scarcity of drinking-water
was thus occasioned, which was felt the more severely as the return
voyage was very protracted on account of head-winds and fog. During
the voyage twenty-one men perished, among them de l'Isle de la
Croyère, who died, as is said often to be the case with scurvy
patients, on board ship, while he was being carried from his bed up
on deck to be put on land.[327]

The voyages of Behring and Chirikov, attended as they were by the
sacrifice of so many human lives, gave us a knowledge of the
position of North-western America in relation to that of
North-eastern Asia, and led to the discovery of the long volcanic
chain of islands between the Alaska peninsula and Kamchatka.

7. _Voyages to Japan_--For these Captain SPANGBERG ordered a
_hucker_, the _Erkeengeln Michael_, and a double sloop, the
_Nadeschda_, to be built at Okotsk, the old vessel _Gabriel_ being
at the same time repaired for the same purpose. Spangberg himself
took command of the _Michael_, that of the double sloop was given to
Lieutenant WALTON, and of the _Gabriel_ to Midshipman CHELTINGA.
Drift-ice prevented a start until midsummer, and on that account
nothing more could be done the first year (1738) than to examine the
Kurile Islands to the 46th degree of latitude. From this point the
vessels returned to Kamchatka, where they wintered at Bolschaja
Reka. On the 2nd June/22nd May, 1739, Spangberg with his little
fleet again left this haven. All the vessels kept together at first,
until in a violent storm attended with fog Spangberg and Cheltinga
were parted from Walton. Both made a successful voyage to Japan and
landed at several places, being always well received by the natives,
who appeared to be very willing to have dealings with the
foreigners. During the return voyage Spangberg landed in 43°
50' N.L. on a large island north of Nippon. Here he saw the Aino
race, enigmatical as to its origin, distinguished by an exceedingly
abundant growth of hair and beard which sometimes extends over the
greater part of the body. Spangberg returned to Okotsk on the 9th
November/20th October. Walton sailed along the coast in a southerly
direction to 33° 48' N.L. Here was a town with 1,500 houses,
where the Russian seafarers were received in a very friendly way
even in private houses. Walton subsequently landed at two other
places on the coast, returning afterwards to Okotsk, where he
anchored on the 1st September/21st August.[328]

The very splendid results of Spangberg's and Walton's voyages by no
means corresponded with the maps of Asia constructed by the men who
were at that time leaders of the Petersburg Academy. Spangberg
therefore during his return journey through Siberia got orders to
travel again to the same regions in order to settle the doubts that
had arisen. A new vessel had to be built, and with this he started
in 1741 from Okotsk to his former winter haven in Kamchatka. Hence
he sailed in 1742 in a southerly direction, but he had scarcely
passed the first of the Kurile Islands when the vessel became so
leaky that he was compelled to turn. The second expedition of
Spangberg to Japan was thus completely without result, a
circumstance evidently brought about by the unjustified and
offensive doubts which led to it, and the arbitrary way in which it
was arranged at St. Petersburg.

8 _Journeys in the interior of Siberia_ by Gmelin, Müller, Steller,
Krascheninnikov, de l'Isle de la Croyère, &c.--The voyages of these
_savants_ have indeed formed an epoch in our knowledge of the
ethnography and natural history of North Asia, but the north coast
itself they did not touch. An account of them therefore lies beyond
the limits of the history which I have undertaken to relate here.


The Great Northern Expedition by these journeys both by sea and land
had gained a knowledge of the natural conditions of North Asia based
on actual researches, had yielded pretty complete information
regarding the boundary of that quarter of the globe towards the
north, and of the relative position of the east coast of Asia and
the west coast of America, had discovered the Aleutian Islands, and
had connected the Russian discoveries in the east with those of the
West-Europeans in Japan and China[329]. The results were thus very
grand and epoch-making. But these undertakings had also required
very considerable sacrifices, and long before they were finished
they were looked upon in no favourable light by the Siberian
authorities, on account of the heavy burden which the transport of
provisions and other equipment through desolate regions imposed upon
the country. Nearly twenty years now elapsed before there was a new
exploratory expedition in the Siberian Polar Sea worthy of being
registered in the history of geography. This time it was a private
person, a Yakutsk merchant, SCHALAUROV, who proposed to repeat
Deschnev's famous voyage and to gain this end sacrificed the whole
of his means and his life itself. Accompanied by an exiled
midshipman, IVAN BACHOFF, and with a crew of deserters and deported
men, he sailed in 1760 from the Lena out into the Polar Sea, but
came the first year only to the Yana, where he wintered. On the 9th
August/29th July, 1761, he continued his voyage towards the east,
always keeping near the coast. On the 17th/6th September he rounded
the dreaded Svjatoinos, sighting on the other side of the sound a
high-lying land, Ljachoff's Island. At the Bear Islands, whither he
was carried by a favourable wind over an open sea, he first met with
drift-ice, although, it appears, not in any considerable quantity.
But the season was already far advanced, and he therefore considered
it most advisable to seek winter quarters at the mouth of the
neigbouring Kolyma river. Here he built a spacious winter dwelling,
which was surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the
vessel, probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's
cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace on the
north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, and
regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the neighbourhood
there was good reindeer hunting and abundant fishing, on which
account the winter passed so happily, that only one man died of
scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state of things for that period.

The following year Schalaurov started on the 1st August/21st July,
but calms and constant head-winds prevented him from passing Cape
Schelagskoj, until he was compelled by the late season of the year
to seek for winter quarters. For this he considered the neighbouring
coast unsuitable on account of the scarcity of forests and
driftwood, he therefore sailed back to the westward until after a
great many mishaps he came again at last on the 23rd/12th September
to the house which he had built the year before on the Kolyma.

He proposed immediately to make a renewed attempt the following
spring to reach his goal. But now his stores were exhausted, and the
wearied crew refused to accompany him. In order to obtain funds for
a new voyage he travelled to Moscow, and by means of the assistance
he succeeded in procuring there, he commenced in 1766 a voyage from
which neither he nor any of his followers returned. COXE mentions
several things which tell in favour of his having actually rounded
Cape Deschnev and reached the Anadyr. But Wrangel believes that he
perished in the neighbourhood of Cape Schelagskoj. For in 1823 the
inhabitants of that cape showed Wrangel's companion Matiuschkin a
little ruinous house, built east of the river Werkon on the coast of
the Polar Sea. For many years back the Chukches travelling past had
found there human bones gnawed by beasts of prey, and various
household articles, which indicated that shipwrecked men had
wintered there, and Wrangel accordingly supposes that it was there
that Schalaurov perished a sacrifice to the determination with which
he prosecuted his self-imposed task of sailing round the
north-eastern promontory of Asia.[330]


In order to ascertain whether any truth lay at the bottom of the
view, generally adopted in Siberia, that the continent of America
extended along the north coast of Asia to the neighbourhood of the
islands situated there, CHICHERIN, Governor of Siberia, in the
winter of 1763 sent a sergeant, ANDREJEV with dog-sledges on an ice
journey towards the north. He succeeded in reaching some islands of
considerable extent, which Wrangel, who always shows himself very
sceptical with respect to the existence of new lands and islands in
the Polar Sea, considers to have been the Bear Islands. Now it
appears to be pretty certain that Andrejev visited a south-westerly
continuation of the land named on recent maps "Wrangel Land," which
in that case, like the corresponding part of America, forms a
collection of many large and small islands. Andrejev found
everywhere numerous proofs that the islands which he visited had
been formerly inhabited. Among other things he saw a large hut built
of wood without the help of iron tools. The logs were as it were
gnawed with teeth (hewed with stone axes), and bound together with
thongs[331]. Its position and construction indicated that the house
had been built for defence, it had thus been found impossible in the
desolate legions of the Polar Sea to avoid the discord and the
strife which prevail in more southerly lands. To the east and
north-east Andrejev thought he saw a distant land, he is also
clearly the true European discoverer of Wrangel Land, provided we do
not consider that even he had a predecessor in the Cossack, FEODOR
TATARINOV, who according to the concluding words of Andrejev's
journal appears to have previously visited the same islands. It is
highly desirable that this journal, if still in existence, be
published _in a completely unaltered form_. How important this is
appears from the following paragraph in the instructions given to
Billings--"One Sergeant Andrejev saw from the last of the Bear
Islands a large island to which they (Andrejev and his companions)
travelled in dog-sledges. But they turned when they had gone twenty
versts from the coast, because they saw fresh traces of a large
number of men, who had travelled in sledges drawn by reindeer."[332]

In order to visit the large land in the north-east seen by Andrejev,
there was sent out in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771 another
expedition, consisting of the three surveyors, LEONTIEV, LUSSOV, and
PUSCHKAREV, with dog-sledges over the ice to the north-east, but
they succeeded neither in reaching the land in question, nor even
ascertaining with certainty whether it actually existed or not. Among
the natives, however, the belief in it was maintained very
persistently, and they even knew how to give names to the tribes
inhabiting it.

The New Siberian Islands, which previously had often been seen by
travellers along the coast, were visited the first time in 1770 by
LJACHOFF, who besides Ljachoff's island lying nearest the coast,
also discovered the islands Maloj and Kotelnoj. On this account he
obtained an exclusive right to collect mammoth tusks there, a branch
of industry which since that time appears to have been earned on in
these remote regions with no inconsiderable profit. The importance
of the discovery led the government some years after to send thither
a land surveyor, CHVOINOV,[333] by whom the islands were surveyed,
and some further information obtained regarding the remarkable
natural conditions in that region. According to Chvoinov the ground
there consists at many places of a mixture of ice and sand with
mammoth tusks, bones of a fossil species of ox, of the rhinoceros,
&c. At many places one can literally roll off the carpet-like bed of
moss from the ground, when it is found that the close, green
vegetable covering has clear ice underlying it, a circumstance which
I have also observed at several places in the Polar regions. The new
islands were rich not only in ivory, but also in foxes with valuable
skins, and other spoils of the chase of various kinds. They
therefore formed for a time the goal of various hunters'
expeditions. Among these hunters may be named SANNIKOV, who in 1805
discovered the islands Stolbovoj and Faddejev, SIROVATSKOJ, who in
1806 discovered Novaya Sibir, and BJELKOV, who in 1808 discovered
the small islands named after him. In the meantime disputes arose
about the hunting monopoly, especially after Bjelkov and others
petitioned for permission to establish on Kotelnoj Island _a hunting
and trading station_. (?)[334] This induced ROMANZOV, then Chancellor
of Russia, to order once more these distant territories to be
explored by HEDENSTRÖM,[335] a Siberian exile, who had formerly been
secretary to some eminent man in St. Petersburg. He started in
dog-sledges on the 19th/7th March, 1809, from Ustjansk going over
the ice to Ljachoff's Island, and thence to Faddejev Island, where
the expedition was divided into two parts. Hedenström continued his
course to Novaya Sibir, the south coast of which he surveyed. Here
he discovered among other things the remarkable "tree mountain,"
which I have before mentioned. His companions KOSCHEVIN and SANNIKOV
explored Faddejev, Maloj and Ljachoff's Islands. On Faddejev,
Sannikov found a Yukagir sledge, stone skin-scrapers, and an axe
made of mammoth ivory, whence he drew the conclusion that the island
was inhabited before the Russians introduced iron among the savage
tribes of Siberia.

The explorations thus commenced were continued in 1810. The
explorers started on the 14th/2nd March from the mouth of the
Indigirka, and after eleven days' journey came to Novaya Sibir. It
had been Hedenström's original intention to employ reindeer and
horses in exploring the islands, but he afterwards abandoned this
plan, fearing that he would not find pasture for his draught
animals. Both Hedenström and Sannikov believed that they saw from
the north coast of the island bluish mountains on the horizon in the
north-east. In order to reach this new land the former undertook a
journey over the ice. It was so uneven, however, that in four days
he could only penetrate about seventy versts. Here on the 9th
April/28th March, he met with quite open water, which appeared to
extend to the Bear Islands, _i.e._ for a distance of about 500
versts. He therefore turned southward, and reached the mainland
after forty-three days' very difficult travelling over the ice.
During the journey Hedenström was saved from famine by his success
in killing eleven Polar bears. A new attempt, which he made the same
spring to reach with dog-sledges the unknown land in the north-east,
was also without result in consequence of his meeting with broad,
impassable "leads" and openings in the ice, but even on this
occasion he believed that he found many indications of the existence
of an extensive land in the direction named. It was only with great
difficulty that on the 20th/8th May he succeeded in reaching the
mainland at Cape Baranov over very weak ice.

The same year Sannikov explored Kotelnoj Island, where he fell in
with Bjelkov and several hunters, who had settled for the summer on
the west coast of the island to collect mammoth tusks and hunt foxes
there. He found also a Greek cross erected on the beach and the
remains of a vessel, which, to judge from its construction and the
hunting implements scattered about in the neighbourhood, appeared to
have belonged to an Archangel hunter, who had been driven by wind or
ice from Spitzbergen or Novaya Zemlya.

Next summer "the Hedenström expeditions" were concluded with the
survey of the north coast of Novaya Sibir by CHENIZYN, and by a
repetition of the attempt to penetrate from Cape Kamennoj over the
ice in a north-easterly direction, this time carried out by the
Cossack TATARINOV, and finally by a renewed exploration of Faddejev
Island by Sannikov. Tatarinov found the ice, probably in the end of
March, so thin, that he did not dare to proceed farther, and beyond
the thin ice the sea was seen to be quite open. Sannikov first
explored Faddejev Island. He thought he saw from the hills of the
island a high land in the north-east, but when he attempted to reach
it over the ice, he came upon open water twenty-five versts from
land. He therefore returned the same spring to Ustjansk in order
there to equip a caravan consisting of twenty-three reindeer, which
started on the 14th/2nd May to go over the ice to Kotelnoj Island,
which could be reached only with great difficulty in consequence of
"leads" in the ice and the large quantity of salt water which had
accumulated upon it. The reindeer were exceedingly enfeebled, but
recovered rapidly on reaching land, so that Sannikov was able under
specially favourable circumstances to make a large number of
interesting excursions, among others one across the island. He
stated that on the heights in the interior of it there were found
skulls and bones of horses, oxen, "buffaloes" (Ovibos?) and sheep in
so large numbers, that it was evident that whole herds of gramimvora
had lived there in former times. Mammoth bones were also found
everywhere on the island, whence Sannikov drew the conclusions, that
all these animals had lived at the same time, and that since then
the climate had considerably deteriorated. These suppositions he
considered to be further confirmed by the fact that large, partially
petrified tree-stems were found scattered about on the island in
still greater numbers than on Novaya Sibir[336]. Besides he found
here everywhere remains of old "Yukagir dwellings"; the island had
thus once been inhabited. After Sannikov had fetched Chenitzyn from
Faddejev Island, where he had passed the summer in great want of
provisions, and ordered him, who was probably a greater adept at the
pen, to draw up a report of his own interesting researches, he
commenced his return journey on the 8th Nov./27th Oct. and arrived
at Ustjansk on the 24th/12th November.

[Illustration: PETER FEODOROVITSCH ANJOU. Born in 1798 in Russia,
died in 1869 in St. Petersburg. ]

[Illustration: FERDINAND VON WRANGEL. Born in 1790 at Pskov, died
in 1870 at Dorpat. ]

It may be said that through Hedenström's and Sannikov's exceedingly
remarkable Polar journeys, the titles have been written of many
important chapters in the history of the former and recent condition
of our globe. But the inquirer has hitherto waited in vain for these
chapters being completed through new researches carried out with
improved appliances. For since then the New Siberian Islands have
not been visited by any scientific expedition. Only in 1823 ANJOU,
lieutenant in the Russian Navy, with the surgeon FIGURIN, and the
mate ILGIN, made a new attempt to penetrate over the ice to the
supposed lands in the north and north-east, but without success.
Similar attempts were made at the same time from the Siberian
mainland by another Russian naval officer, FERDINAND VON WRANGEL,
accompanied by Dr. KÜBER, midshipman MATIUSCHKIN, and mate KOSMIN.
They too were unsuccessful in penetrating over the ice far from the
coast. Wrangel returned fully convinced that all the accounts which
were current in Siberia of the land he wished to visit, and which
now bears the name of Wrangel Land, were based on legends, mistake,
and intentional untruths. But Anjou and Wrangel did an important
service to Polar research by showing that the sea, even in the
neighbourhood of the Pole of cold, is not covered with any strong
and continuous sheet of ice, even at that season of the year when
cold reaches its maximum. By the attempts made nearly at the same
time by Wrangel and Parry to penetrate farther northwards, the one
from the north coasts of Siberia, and the other from those of
Spitzbergen, Polar travellers for the first time got a correct idea
how uneven and impassable ice is on a frozen sea, how little the way
over such a sea resembles the even polished surface of a frozen
lake, over which we dwellers in the north are accustomed to speed
along almost with the velocity of the wind. Wrangel's narrative at
the same time forms an important source of knowledge both of
preceding journeys and of the recent natural conditions on the north
coast of Asia, as is only too evident from the frequent occasions on
which I have quoted his work in my sketch of the voyage of the
_Vega_.

It remains for me now to enumerate some voyages from Behring's
Straits westward into the Siberian Polar Sea.

1778 _and_ 1779--During the third of his famous circumnavigations of
the globe JAMES COOK penetrated through Behring's Straits into the
Polar Sea, and then along the north-east coast of Asia westwards to
Irkaipij, called by him Cape North. Thus the honour of having
carried the first seagoing vessel to this sea also belongs to the
great navigator. He besides confirmed Behring's determination of the
position of the East Cape of Asia, and himself determined the
position of the opposite coast of America.[337] The same voyage was
approximately repeated the year after Cook's death by his successor
CHARLES CLARKE, but without any new discoveries being made in the
region in question.

1785-94.--The success which attended Cook in his exploratory voyages
and the information, unlooked for even by the Russian government,
which Coxe's work gave concerning the voyages of the Russian hunters
in the North Pacific, led to the equipment of a grand new
expedition, having for its object the further exploration of the sea
which bounds the great Russian Empire on the north and east. The
plan was drawn up by Pallas and Coxe, and the carrying out of it was
entrusted to an English naval officer in the Russian service, J.
BILLINGS, who had taken part in Cook's last voyage. Among the many
others who were members of the expedition, may be mentioned Dr.
MERK, Dr. ROBECK, the secretary MARTIN SAUER, and the Captains HALL,
SARYTCHEV, and BEHRING the younger, in all more than a hundred
persons. The expedition was fitted out on a very large scale, but in
consequence of Billings' unfitness for having the command of such an
expedition the result by no means corresponded to what might
reasonably have been expected. The expedition made an inconsiderable
excursion into the Polar Sea from the 30th/19th June to the 9th
Aug/29th July 1787, and in 1791 Billings sailed up to St. Lawrence
Bay, from which he went over land with eleven men to Yakutsk. The
rest of this lengthened expedition does not concern the regions now
in question.[338]

Among voyages during the century it remains to give account of those
which have been made by OTTO VON KOTZEBUE, who during his famous
circumnavigation of the globe in 1815-18, among other things also
passed through Behring's Straits and discovered the strata,
remarkable in a geological point of view, at Eschscholz Bay; LÜTKÉ,
who during his circumnavigation of the globe in 1826-29, visited the
islands and sound in the neighbourhood of Chukotskoj-nos; MOORE, who
wintered at Chukotskoj-nos in 1848-49, and gave us much interesting
information as to the mode of life of the Namollos and Chukches;
KELLET, who in 1849 discovered Kellet Land and Herald Island on the
coast of Wrangel Land; JOHN RODGERS, who in 1855 carried out for the
American government much important hydrographical work in the seas
on both sides of Behring's Straits; DALLMANN, who during a trading
voyage in the Behring Sea landed at various points on Wrangel Land;
LONG, who in 1867, as captain of the whaling barque _Nile_,
discovered the sound between Wrangel Land and the mainland (Long
Sound) and penetrated from Behring's Straits westwards farther than
any of his predecessors, DALL, who, at the same time that we are
indebted to him for many important contributions to the knowledge of
the natural conditions of the Behring Sea, also anew examined the
ice-strata at Eschscholz Bay, and many others--but as the historical
part of the sketch of the voyage of the _Vega_ has already occupied
more space than was calculated upon, I consider myself compelled
with respect to the voyages of these explorers to refer to the
numerous and for the most part accessible writings which have
already been published regarding them.[339]


Was the _Vega_ actually the first, and is she at the moment when
this is being written, the only vessel that has sailed from the
Atlantic by the north to the Pacific? As follows from the above
narrative, this question may perhaps be answered with considerable
certainty in the affirmative, as it may also with truth be
maintained that no vessel has gone the opposite way from the Pacific
to the Atlantic.[340] But the fictitious literature of geography at
all events comprehends accounts of various voyages between those
seas by the north passage, and I consider myself obliged briefly to
enumerate them.

The first is said to have been made as early as 1555 by a Portuguese,
MARTIN CHACKE, who affirmed that he had been parted from his companions
by a west wind, and had been driven forward between various islands to
the entrance of a sound which ran north of America in 59° N.L.; finally
that he had come S.W. of Iceland, and thence sailed to Lisbon, arriving
there before his companions, who took the "common way," _i.e._ south of
Africa. In 1579 an English pilot certified that he had read in Lisbon in
1567 a printed account of this voyage, which however he could not
procure afterwards because all the copies had been destroyed by order of
the king, who considered that such a discovery would have an injurious
effect on the Indian trade of Portugal (_Purchas_, iii. p. 849). We now
know that there is land where Chacke's channel was said to be situated,
and it is also certain that the sound between the continent of America
and the Franklin archipelago lying much farther to the north was already
in the sixteenth century too much filled with ice for its being possible
that an account of meeting with ice could be omitted from a true sketch
of a voyage along the north coast of America.

In 1588 a still more remarkable voyage was said to have been made by
the Portuguese, LORENZO FERRER MALDONADO. He is believed to have
been a cosomographer who among other tilings concerned himself with
the still unsolved problem, of making a compass free from variation,
and with the question, very difficult in his time, of finding a
method of determining the longitude at sea (see the work of AMORETTI
quoted below, p. 38). Of his imaginary voyage he has written a long
narrative, of which a _Spanish_ copy with some drawings and maps was
found in a library at Milan. The narrative was published in Italian
and French translations by the superintendent of the library,
Chevalier CARLO AMORETTI,[341] who besides added to the work a number
of his own learned notes, which however do not give evidence of
experience in Arctic waters. The same narrative has since been
published in English by J. BARROW (_A Cronological History of
Voyages into the Arctic Regions_, &c., London, 1818 App. p. 24.) The
greater part of Maldonado's report consists of a detailed plan as to
the way in which the new sea route would be used and fortified by
the Spanish-Portuguese government.[342] The voyage itself is referred
to merely in passing. Maldonado says that, in the beginning of March
he sailed from Newfoundland along the north coast of America in a
westward direction. Cold, storm, and darkness, were at first very
inconvenient for navigation, but at all events he reached without
difficulty "Anian Sound," which separates Asia from America. This is
described in detail. Here various ships were met with prepared to
sail through the sound, laden with Chinese goods. The crews appeared
to be Russian or Hanseatic. Conversation was carried on with them in
Latin. They stated that they came from a very large town, situated a
little more than a hundred leagues from the sound. In the middle of
June Maldonado returned by the way he came to the Atlantic, and on
this occasion too the voyage was performed without the least
difficulty. The heat at sea during the return journey was as great
as when it was greatest in Spain, and meeting with ice is not
mentioned. The banks of the river which falls into the haven at
Anian Sound (according to Amoretti, identical with Behring's
Straits) were overgrown with very large trees, bearing fruit all the
year round among the animals met with in the regions seals are
mentioned, but also two kinds of swine, buffaloes, &c. All these
absurdities show that the whole narrative of the voyage was
fictitious, having been probably written with the view of thereby
giving more weight to the proposal to send out a north-west
expedition from Portugal, and in the full belief that the supposed
sound actually existed, and that the voyage along the north coast of
America would be as easy of accomplishment as one across the North
Sea.[343] The way in which the icing down of a vessel is described
indicates that the narrator himself or his informant had been
exposed to a winter storm in some northern sea, probably at
Newfoundland, and the spirited sketch of the sound appears to have
been borrowed from some East Indian traveller, who had been driven
by storm to northern Japan, and who in a channel between the islands
in that region believed that he had discovered the fabulous Anian
Sound.

Of a third voyage in 1660 a naval officer named DE LA MADELÈNE gave in
1701 the following short account, probably picked up in Holland or
Portugal, to Count DE PONTCHARTRIN: "The Portuguese, DAVID MELGUER,
started from Japan on the 14th March, 1660, with the vessel _le Père
éternel_, and following the coast of Tartary, _i.e._ the east coast of
Asia, he first sailed north to 84° N.L. Thence he shaped his course
between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and passing west of Scotland and
Ireland came again to Oporto in Portugal." M. de la Madelène's narrative
is to be found reproduced in M. BUACHE'S excellent geographical paper
"Sui les différentes idées qú'on a eues de la traversée de la Mère
Glaciale arctique et sur les communications ou jonctions qú'on a
supposées entre diverses rivières." (_Historie de l'Académie, Année
1754_, Paris, 1759, _Mémoires_, p. 12) The paper is accompanied by a
Polar map constructed by Buache himself, which, though the voyage which
led to its construction was clearly fictitious, and though it also
contains many other errors--for instance, the statement that the Dutch
penetrated in 1670 to the north part of Taimur Land--is yet very
valuable and interesting as a specimen of what a learned and critical
geographer knew in 1754 about the Polar regions. That Melguer's voyage
is fictitious is shown partly by the ease with which he is said to have
gone from the one sea to the other, partly by the fact that _the only
detail_ which is to be found in his narrative, viz. the statement that
the coast of Tartary extends to 84° N.L., is incorrect.

All these and various other similar accounts of north-east,
north-west, or Polar passages achieved by vessels in former times
have this in common, that navigation from the one ocean to the other
across the Polar Sea is said to have gone on as easily as drawing a
line on the map, that meeting with ice and northern animals of the
chase is never spoken of, and finally that every particular which is
noted is in conflict with the known geographical, climatal, and
natural conditions of the Arctic seas. All these narratives
therefore can be proved to be fictitious, and to have been invented
by persons who never made any voyages in the true Polar Seas.

The _Vega_ is thus the first vessel that has penetrated by the north
from one of the great world-oceans to the other.


[Footnote 289: I quote this because the movement of the tides is
still, in our own time, made use of to determine whether certain
parts of the Polar seas are connected with each other or not. ]

[Footnote 290: Marco Polo, in 1271, at the age of seventeen or
eighteen, accompanied his father Nicolò, and his uncle Maffeo Polo,
to High Asia. He remained there until 1295 and during that time came
into great favor with Kubla Khan, who employed him, among other
things, in a great number of important public commissions, whereby
he became well acquainted with the widely extended lands which lay
under the sceptre of that ruler. After his return home he caused a
great sensation by the riches he brought with him, which procured
him the name _il Millione_, a name however which, according to
others, was an expression of the doubts that were long entertained
regarding the truthfulness of his, as we now know, mainly true
accounts of the number of the people and the abundance of wealth in
Kublai Khan's lands. "Il Millione," in the meantime, became a
popular carnival character, whose cue was to relate as many and as
wonderful "yarns" as possible, and in his narratives to deal
preferably with millions. It is possible that the predecessor of
Columbus might have descended to posterity merely as the original
of this character if he had not, soon after his return home, taken
part in a war against Genoa, in the course of which he was taken
prisoner, and, during his imprisonment, related his recollections of
his travels to a fellow-prisoner, who committed them to writing, in
what language is still uncertain. The work attracted great attention
and was soon spread, first in written copies, then by the press in a
large number of different languages. It has not been translated into
Swedish, but in the Royal Library in Stockholm there is a very
important and hitherto little known manuscript of it from the middle
of the fourteenth century, of which an edition is in course of
publication in photo-lithographic facsimile. ]

[Footnote 291: Homines illius regionis sunt pulchri, magni, et
corpulenti, sed sunt multum pallidi. . . . et sunt homines inculti,
et immorigerati et bestialiter viventes. ]

[Footnote 292: See note at page 54, vol i., for an account of von
Herberstein and his works. ]

[Footnote 293: As the copy of the original map to which I have had
access, being coloured, is unsuitable for photo-lithographing, I
give here instead a photo-lithographic reproduction of the map in
the Italian edition printed in 1550. The map itself is unchanged in
any essential particular, but the drawing and engraving are better.
There is, besides, a still older map of Russia in the first edition
of Sebastian Munster's _Cosmographia Universalis_. I have not had
access to this edition, but have had to the third edition of the
same work printed at Basel in 1550. A very incomplete map of Russia
engraved on wood, on which, however, the Obi and the "Sybir" are to
be found, is inserted in this work at page 910. The Dwina here falls
not into the White Sea but into the Gulf of Finland, through a lake
to which the name Ladoga is now given; places like Astracan, Asof,
Viborg, Calmahori (Kolmogor), Solowki (Solovets), &c., are indicated
pretty correctly, and in the White Sea there is to be seen a very
faithful representation of a walrus swimming. ]

[Footnote 294: The river Ob is mentioned the first time in 1492, in
the negotiations which the Austrian ambassador, Michael Snups,
carried on in Moscow in order to obtain permission to travel in the
interior of Russia (Adelung, _Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland_,
p. 157). ]

[Footnote 295: As before stated, Marco Polo mentions Polar bears but
not walruses. ]

[Footnote 296: Herodotus places Andropagi in nearly the same regions
which are now inhabited by the Samoyeds. Pliny also speaks of
man-eating Scythians. ]

[Footnote 297: Arctic literature contains a nearly contemporaneous
sketch of the first Russian-Siberian commercial undertakings,
_Beschryvinghe vander Samoyeden Landt in Tartarien, nieulijcks
onder't ghebiedt der Moscoviten gebracht. Wt de Russche tale
overgheset_, Anno 1609. Amsterdam, Hessel Gerritsz, 1612; inserted
in Latin, in 1613, in the same publisher's _Descriptio ac Delineatio
Geographica Detectionis Freti_ (Photo-lithographic reproduction, by
Frederick Müller, Amsterdam, 1878). The same work, or more
correctly, collection of small geographical pamphlets, contains also
Isak Massa's map of the coast of the Polar Sea between the Kola
peninsula and the Pjäsina, which I have reproduced. ]

[Footnote 298: It is a peculiar circumstance that the vanguard of the
Russian stream of emigration which spread over Siberia, advanced
along the northernmost part of the country by the Tas, Turuchansk,
Yakutsk, Kolyma, and Anadyrsk. This depended in the first place
upon the races living there having less power of resistance against
the invaders, who were often very few in number, than the tribes
in the south, but also on the fact that the most precious and
most transportable treasures of Siberia--sable, beaver, and
fox-skins--were obtained in greatest quantity from these northern
regions. ]

[Footnote 299: Flat-bottomed, half-decked boats, twelve fathoms in
length. The planks were fastened by wooden pins, the anchors were
pieces of wood with large stones bound to them, the rigging of
thongs, and the sails often of tanned reindeer hides (J.E. Fischer,
_Sibirische Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1768, i. p. 517). ]

[Footnote 300: G.P. Müller, _Sammlung Russischer Geschichte_, St.
Petersburg, 1758 Müller asserts in this work that it was he who, in
1736, first drew from the repositories of the Yakutsk archives the
account of Deschnev's voyage, which before that time was known
neither at the court of the Czar nor in the remotest parts of
Siberia. This, however, is not quite correct, for long before
Müller, the Swedish prisoner-of-war, Strahlenberg, knew that the
Russians travelled by sea from the Kolyma to Kamchatka, which
appears from his map of Asia, constructed during his stay in
Siberia, and published in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa
und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730. On this map there is the following
inscription in the sea north of the Kolyma--"Hie Rutheni ab initio
per Moles glaciales, quæ flante Borea ad Littora, flanteque Anstro
versus Mare iterum pulsantur, magno Labore et Vitæ Discrimine
transvecti sunt ad Regionem Kamtszatkam." ]

[Footnote 301: Selivestrov had accompanied Staduchin during his Polar
Sea voyage, and had, at his instance, been sent out to collect
walrus tusks on account of the State. He appears to have come to
the Anadyr by land. ]

[Footnote 302: Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of
this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and
traders. ]

[Footnote 303: According to Müller Krascheninnikov (_Histoire et
description du Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states,
evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river
Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only
penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of
Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in
the way described by Müller. ]

[Footnote 304: But we ought to remember that the oldest accounts of
islands in the Polar Sea relate to no fewer than four different
lands, viz, 1. The New Siberian Islands lying off the mouth of the
Lena and Svjatoinos; 2. The Bear Islands; 3. Wrangel Land; 4. The
north-western part of America. Contradictions in accounts of the
islands in the Polar Sea probably depend on the uninhabited and
treeless New Siberian islands being confused with America, which, in
comparison with North Siberia, is thickly peopled and well wooded,
with the small Bear Islands, with Wrangel Land, &c. ]

[Footnote 305: _Nouvelle carte des découvertes faites par des
vaisseaux russiens aux cotes inconnues de l'Amérique, Septentrionale
avec les pais adiacentes, dressée sur des mémoires authentiques des
ceux qui ont assisté a ces découvertes et sur d'autres connoissances
dont on rend raison dans un mémoire séparé_ St. Pétersbourg,
l'Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1758. ]

[Footnote 306: In this sketch of the discovery and conquest of
Siberia I have followed J.E. Fischer, _Sibirische Geschichte_, St.
Petersburg, 1768, and G.P. Müller, _Sammlung Russischer
Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1758. ]

[Footnote 307: In the twentieth chapter of _Dreyjährige Reise nach
China, &c._, Frankfort, 1707. The first edition came out at Hamburg
in 1698. ]

[Footnote 308: Müller, iii. p. 19. An account of Atlassov's conquest
of Kamchatka (_Bericht gedaen door zeker Moskovisch krygs-bediende
Wolodimer Otlasofd, hoofl-man over vyftig, &c._) is besides to be
found in Witsen (1705, _Nieuwe uitguaf_, 1785, p. 670) An account,
written from oral communication by Atlassov himself, is to be found
inserted in Strahlenberg's _Travels_, p. 431. Strahlenberg considers
Kamchatka and Yezo to be the same land. A history of the conquest of
Kamchatka, evidently written according to traditions current in the
country, is to be found in _Krascheninnikov_ (French edition of
1770, ii. p. 291). In this account 1698 and 1699 are given as the
years of Morosko's and Atlassov's expeditions. ]

[Footnote 309: Complaints were made, among other things, that in
order to obtain metal for making a still, he ordered all the copper
belonging to the crown which he carried with him, to be melted down.
When the Cossacks first came to Kamchatka and were almost without a
contest, acknowledged as masters of the country, they found life
there singularly agreeable, with one drawback--there were no means
of getting drunk. Finally, necessity compelled the wild adventurers
to betake themselves to what we should now call chemico-technical
experiments, which are described in considerable detail by
Krascheninnikov (_loc. cit._ ii. p. 369). After many failures they
finally succeeded in distilling spirits from a sugar-bearing plant
growing in the country, and from that time this drink, or _raka_, as
they themselves call it, has been found in great abundance in that
country. ]

[Footnote 310: He afterwards became a monk under the name of
Ignatiev, came to St. Petersburg in 1730, and himself wrote a
narrative of his adventures, discoveries, and services, which was
printed first in the St. Petersburg journals of the 26th March,
1730, and likewise abroad (_Müller_, iii. p. 82) ]

[Footnote 311: Von Baer, _Beiträge zur Kentniss des Russischen
Reiches_, xvi. p. 33. ]

[Footnote 312: Ambjörn Molin, lieutenant in the Scanian cavalry
regiment, who was taken prisoner at the Dnieper in 1709, also took
part in these journeys. Compare _Berättelse om de i Stora Tartariet
boende tartarer, som träffats längst nordost i Asien, på ärkebiskop
E. Benzelii begäran upsatt af Ambjörn Molin (Account of the Tartars
dwelling in Great Tartary who were met with at the north east
extremity of Asia, written at the request of Archbishop E. Benzelius
by Ambjörn Molin_), published in Stockholm in 1880 by Aug.
Strindberg, after a manuscript in the Linköping library. ]

[Footnote 313: Müller, iii. p. 102. According to an oral
communication by Busch, Strahlenberg's account (p. 17) of this
voyage appears to contain several mistakes. The year is stated as
1713, the return voyage is said to have occupied six days. ]

[Footnote 314: As late as 1819, James Burney, first lieutenant on one
of Captain Cook's vessels during his voyage north of Behring's
Straits, afterwards captain and member of the Royal Society,
considered it not proved that Asia and America are separated by a
sound. For he doubted the correctness of the accounts of Deschnev's
voyage. Compare James Burney, _A Chronological History of North
eastern Voyages of Discovery_ London, 1819, p. 298; and a paper by
Burney in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society, 1817. Burney was
violently attacked for the views there expressed by Captain John
Dundas Cochrane. _Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia
and Siberian Tartary_, 2nd ed. London, 1824, Appendix. ]

[Footnote 315: The first astronomical determinations of position in
Siberia were, perhaps, made by Swedish prisoners of war; the first
in China by Jesuits (Cf. _Strahlenberg_, p. 14). ]

[Footnote 316: A short, but instructive account of Behring's first
voyage, based on an official communication from the Russian
Government to the King of Poland, is inserted in t. iv. p. 561 of
_Description géographique de l'Empire de la Chine, par le P.J.B.
Du Halde_, La Haye, 1736. The same official report was probably the
source of Müller's brief sketch of the voyage (_Müller_, iii. p.
112). A map of it is inserted in the 1735 Paris edition of Du
Halde's work, and in _Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, par M. D'Anville_,
La Haye, 1737. ]

[Footnote 317: _Histoire généalogique des Tartares_ (note, p. 107),
and Strahlenberg's oft-quoted work (map, text, pp. 31 and 384). ]

[Footnote 318: This expedition was under the command of the
Admiralty; the others under that of Behring. In my account I have
followed partly Müller and partly Wrangel, of whom the latter, in
his book of travels, gives a historical review of previous voyages
along the coasts of the Asiatic Polar Sea. The accounts of the
voyages between the White Sea and the Yenisej properly belong to a
foregoing chapter in this work, but I quote them first here in order
that I may treat of the different divisions of the Great Northern
Expedition in the same connection. ]

[Footnote 319: Wrangel, i. p. 36. ]

[Footnote 320: Wrangel, i. p. 38. ]

[Footnote 321: According to P. von Haven (_Nye og forbedrede
Efterretningar om det Russiske Rige_, Kjöbenhavn, 1747, ii. p. 20),
"it was the custom in Petersburg to send away those whose presence
was inconvenient to help Behring to make new discoveries". It
also went very ill with many of the gallant Russian Polar travellers,
and many of them were repaid with ingratitude. Behring was received
on his return from his first voyage, so rich in results, with
unjustified mistrust. Steller was exposed to continual trouble,
was long prevented from returning from Siberia, and finally
perished during his journey home, broken down in body and soul.
Prontschischev and Lassinius succumbed to hardships and sufferings
during their voyages in the Polar Sea. Owzyn was degraded, among
other things, because he used to be too intimate at Obdorsk with
exiles formerly of distinction. A few years before the voyage of the
_Vega_, Chelyuskin's trustworthiness was still doubted. All the
accounts of discoveries of islands and land in the Polar Sea by
persons connected with Siberia, have till the most recent times,
been considered more or less fictitious, yet they are clearly in the
main true. ]

[Footnote 322: Wrangel, i. p. 46. ]

[Footnote 323: According to Wrangel (i., note at p. 38 and 48),
probably after a quotation from Prontschischev's journal. The Lena
must be a splendid river, for it has since made the same powerful
impression, as on the seamen of the Great Northern Expedition, on
all others who have traversed its forest-crowned river channel. ]

[Footnote 324: These all perished "for want of fodder." This,
however, is improbable. For, in 1878, we saw numerous traces of
these animals as far to the northward as Cape Chelyuskin, and very
fat reindeer were shot both in 1861 and 1873, on the Seven Islands,
the northernmost of all the islands of the Old World, where
vegetation is much poorer than in the regions now in question. ]

[Footnote 325: Wrangel, i. pp. 48 and 72. Of the journey round the
northernmost point of Asia, Wrangel says--"Von der Tajmur-Mündung
bis an das Kap des heiligen Faddej konnte die Küste nicht beschifft
werden, und die Aufnahme, die der Steuermann Tschemokssin
(Chelyuskin) auf dem Eise in Narten vornahm, ist so oberflächlich
und unbestimmt, dass die eigentliche Lage des nordöstlichen oder
Tajmur-Kaps, welches die nördlichste Spitse Asiens ausmacht, noch
gar nicht ausgemittelt ist." ]

[Footnote 326: Wrangel, i, p. 62. I have sketched the voyages
between the White Sea and the Kolyma, principally after Engelhardt's
German translation of Wrangel's Travels. It is, unfortunately, in
many respects defective and confused, especially with respect to the
sketch of Chariton Laptev and his followers, sledge journeys,
undertaken in order to survey the coast between the Chatanga and the
Pjäsina. Müller mentions these journeys only in passing. Wrangel
gives as sources for his sketch (i. note at p. 38) _Memoirs of the
Russian Admiralty_, also the original journals of the journeys.
Chelyuskin he calls Chemokssin. ]

[Footnote 327: In this account of Behring's and Chirikov's voyages, I
have followed Müller (iii. pp. 187-268). More complete original
accounts of Behring's voyage are quoted further on in the sketch of
our visit to Behring Island. ]

[Footnote 328: Müller, iii. p. 164. ]

[Footnote 329: It deserves to be noted as a literary curiosity that
the famous French _savant_ and geographer, Vivien do Saint Martin,
in his work, _Histoire de la Géographie et des Découvertes
géographiques_, Paris, 1873, does not say a single word regarding
all those expeditions which form an epoch in our knowledge of the
Old World. ]

[Footnote 330: An account of Schalaurov is given by COXE (_Russian
Discoveries_, &c., 1780, p. 323) and Wrangel (i. p. 73). That the hut
seen by Matiuschkin actually belonged to Schalaurov appears to me
highly improbable, for the traditions of the Siberian savages seldom
extend sixty years back. ]

[Footnote 331: Wrangel, i. p. 79. ]

[Footnote 332: Sauer, _An Account, &c._, Appendix, p. 48. ]

[Footnote 333: Sauer, _loc. cit._ p. 103, according to an oral
communication by Ljachoff's follower Protodiakonov. ]

[Footnote 334: Compare Wrangel, i. p. 98. ]

[Footnote 335: Matthias Hedenström, Aulic Councillor, whose name
indicates that he was of Swedish birth, died at the village
Hajdukovo, seven versts from Tomsk, on the 2nd October (20th
September), 1845, at the age of sixty-five. Biographical notes
regarding Hedenström are to be found in the Calendar for the Irkutsh
government for the year 1865, pp. 57-60; I have not, however,
succeeded in procuring this work, or in finding any other notices of
Hedenström's birthplace and life. ]

[Footnote 336: A very remarkable geological fact is the number of
tree-stems in all stages of decay and petrifaction, which are
embedded in the rocks and earthy strata of Siberia, having their
origin all along from the Jurassic age till now. It appears as if
Siberia, during the whole of this immense period of time, has not
been subjected to any great changes in a purely geographical
respect, whereas in Europe there have been innumerable alternations
of sea and land, and alps have been formed and disappeared. The
Siberians call the tree-stems found on the _tundra_ far from the sea
and rivers _Adam's wood_, to distinguish them from more recent sub
fossil trees, which they call _Noah's wood_. ]

[Footnote 337: The first European who visited the part of America
lying right opposite to Asia was Schestakov's companion, the
surveyor Gvosdev. He crossed Behring's Straits to the American side
as early as 1730 (_Müller_, iii. p. 131), and therefore ought
properly to be considered as the discoverer of this sound. The
north-westernmost part of America, Behring's Straits and the islands
situated in it, are besides shown in Strahlenberg's map, which was
made at least a decade before Gvosdev's voyage. There north-western
America is delineated as a large island, inhabited by a tribe, the
_Pucho-chotski_, who lived in a constant state of warfare with the
_Giuchieghi_, who inhabited the islands in the sound. Wrangel Land
is also shown in this remarkable map. In 1767, eleven years before
Cook's voyage in the Polar Sea, the American side of Behring's
Straits was also visited by Lieut. SYND with a Russian expedition,
that started from Okotsk in 1764. In the short account of the voyage
which is to be found in William Coxe's, _Account of the Russian
Discoveries, &c._, London, 1780, p. 300, it is said expressly that
Synd considered the coast on which he landed to belong to America.
On Synd's map, published by Coxe, the north part of the Behring Sea
is enriched with a number of fictitious islands (St. Agaphonis, St.
Myronis, St. Titi, St. Samuels, and St. Andreæ). As Synd, according
to Sarytchev in the work quoted below, p. 11, made the voyage in a
boat, it is probable that by these names islands were indicated
which lay quite close to the coast and were not so far from land as
shown in the map, besides, the mountain-summits on St. Lawrence
Island, which are separated by extensive low lands, may perhaps have
been taken for separate islands. ]

[Footnote 338: Billings' voyage is described in Martin Sauer's
_Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the
Northern Parts of Asia, &c., by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London,
1802, and Gavrila Sarychev's _Achtjährige Reise im nördlichen
Siberien, auf dem Eismeere und dem nordöstlichen Ocean. Aus dem
Russischen übersetzt von J.H. Busse_, Leipzig, 1805-1806. As
interesting to our Swedish readers it may be mentioned that the
Russian hunter Prybilov informed Sauer that a Swedish brigantine,
_Merkur_, coppered, carrying sixteen cannon, commanded by J.H.
Coxe, in 1788, cruised in the Behring Sea in order to destroy the
Russian settlements there. They however, according to Prybilov's
statement to Sauer, "did no damage, because they saw that we had
nothing worth taking away. They instead gave us gifts, because they
were ashamed to offer violence to such poor fellows as we" (Sauer,
p. 213). ]

[Footnote 339: Otto von Kotzebue, _Entdeckungs-Reise in die Sud-See
und nach der Behrings Strasse_, Weimar, 1821 (Part III.,
Contributions in Natural History, by Adelbert von Chamisso)--Louis
Choris, _Voyage pittoresque autour du monde_, Paris, 1822.

Frédérik Lütké, _Voyage autour du monde_, Paris, 1835-36.--F.H. von
Kittlitz, _Denkuürdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika,
nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka_, Gotha, 1858.

Kellet, _Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald,"_ 1845-51, London, 1853
(Discovery of Herald Island and the east coast of Wrangel Land).

W.H. Hooper, _Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, London, 1853
(Moore's wintering at Chukotskoj-nos).

John Rodgers, Behring's Sea and Arctic Ocean, from Surveys of the
North Pacific Surveying Expedition, 1855 (only charts).--W. Heine,
_Die Expedition in die Seen von China, Japan und Ochotsk, unter
Commando von Commodore Colin Ringgold und Commodore John Rodgers_,
Leipzig, 1858 (the expedition arrived at the result that Wrangel
Land did not exist).

(Lindemann) _Wrangels Land im Jahre_ 1866, _durch Kapiten Dallmann
besucht (Deutsche Geograph. Blätter_, B. iv. p. 54, 1881).

Petermann, _Entdeckung eines neuen Polar-Landes durch den amerikan,
Capt Long_, 1867 (Mittheil. 1868, p. 1).--_Das neu-entdeckte
Polar-Land_, &c. (Mittheil 1869, p. 26). ]

[Footnote 340: It ought to be remembered that the voyage of the
distinguished Arctic explorer, McClure, carried out with so much
gallantry and admirable perseverance, from the Pacific to the
Atlantic along the north coast of America, took place to no
inconsiderable extent _by sled journeys over the ice_, and that no
English vessel has ever sailed by this route from the one sea to the
other. The North-west Passage has thus never been accomplished by a
vessel. ]

[Footnote 341: Amoretti, _Viaggio del mare Atlantico al Pasifico per
la via del Nord-Ovest, &c. Fatto del capitano Lorenzo Ferrer
Maldonado, l'anno MDLXXXVIII_. Milano, 1811. ]

[Footnote 342: At the date of Maldonado's voyage Spain and Portugal
were united. ]

[Footnote 343: The narratives of the Russian voyagers in the Polar
Seas bear a quite different stamp. Details are seldom wanting in
these, and they correspond with known facts, and the discoveries
made are of reasonably modest dimensions. I therefore consider, as I
have said already, that the doubts of the trustworthiness of
Deschnev, Chelyuskin, Andrejev, Hedenström, Sannikov, &c., are
completely unfounded, and it is highly desirable that all journals
of Russian explorers in the Polar Sea yet in existence be published
as soon as possible, and not in a mutilated shape, but in a complete
and unaltered form. ]



CHAPTER XIV.

    Passage through Behring's Straits--Arrival at Nunamo--
    Scarce species of seal--Rich vegetation--Passage to America--
    State of the ice--Port Clarence--The Eskimo--Return to Asia--
    Konyam Bay--Natural conditions there--The ice breaks up in
    the interior of Konyam Bay--St. Lawrence Island--Preceding
    visits to the Island--Departure to Behring Island.


After we had passed the easternmost promontory of Asia, the course
was shaped first to St. Lawrence Bay, a not inconsiderable fjord,
which indents the Chukch peninsula, a little south of the smallest
part of Behring's Straits. It was my intention to anchor in this
fjord as long as possible, in order to give the naturalists of the
_Vega_ expedition an opportunity of making acquaintance with the
natural conditions of a part of Chukch Land which is more favoured
by nature than the bare stretch of coast completely open to the
winds of the Polar Sea, which we hitherto had visited. I would
willingly have stayed first for some hours at Diomede Island, the
market-place famed among the Polar tribes, situated in the narrowest
part of the Straits, nearly half-way between Asia and America, and
probably before the time of Columbus a station for traffic between
the Old and the New Worlds. But such a delay would have been
attended with too great difficulty and loss of time in consequence
of the dense fog which prevailed here on the boundary between the
warm sea free from drift-ice and the cold sea filled with drift-ice.

[Illustration: SEAL FROM THE BEHRING SEA. _Histriophoca fasciata_,
Zimm. ]

Even the high mountains on the Asiatic shore were still wrapped in a
thick mist, from which only single mountain-summits now and then
appeared. Next the vessel large fields of drift-ice were visible, on
which here and there flocks of a beautifully marked species of seal
(_Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm) had settled. Between the pieces of
ice sea-birds swarmed, mostly belonging to other species than those
which are met with in the European Polar seas. The ice was
fortunately so broken up that the _Vega_ could steam forward at full
speed to the neighbourhood of St. Lawrence Bay, where the coast was
surrounded by some more compact belts of ice, which however were
broken through with ease. First, in the mouth of the fjord itself
impenetrable ice was met with, completely blocking the splendid
haven of St. Lawrence Bay. The _Vega_ was, therefore, compelled to
anchor in the open road off the village Nunamo. But even here
extensive ice-fields, though thin and rotten, drifted about; and
long, but narrow, belts of ice passed the vessel in so large masses
that it was not advisable to remain longer at the place. Our stay
there was therefore confined to a few hours.

During the course of the winter Lieutenant Nordquist endeavoured to
collect from the Chukches travelling past as complete information as
possible regarding the Chukch villages or encampments which are found
along the coast between Chaun Bay and Behring's Straits. His informants
always finished their list with the village Ertryn, situated west of
Cape Deschnev, explaining that farther east and south there lived
another tribe, with whom they indeed did not stand in open enmity, but
who, however, were not to be fully depended upon, and to whose villages
they therefore did not dare to accompany any of us.[344] This statement
also corresponds, as perhaps follows from what I have pointed out in the
preceding chapter, with the accounts commonly found in books on the
ethnography of this region. While we steamed forward cautiously in a
dense fog in the neighbourhood of Cape Deschnev, twenty to thirty
natives came rowing in a large skin boat to the vessel. Eager to make
acquaintance with a tribe new to us, we received them with pleasure. But
when they climbed over the side we found that they were pure Chukches,
some of them old acquaintances, who during winter had been guests on
board the _Vega_. "Ankali" said they, with evident contempt, are first
met with farther beyond St. Lawrence Bay. When we anchored next day at
the mouth of this bay we were immediately, as usual, visited by a large
number of natives, and ourselves visited their tents on land. They still
talked Chukch with a limited mixture of foreign words, lived in tents
of a construction differing somewhat from the Chukches', and appeared to
have a somewhat different cast of countenance. They themselves would not
allow that there was any national difference between them and the old
warrior and conqueror tribe on the north coast, but stated that the race
about which we inquired were settled immediately to the south. Some days
after we anchored in Konyam Bay (64° 49' N.L., 172° 53' W.L. from
Greenwich). We found there only pure reindeer-owning Chukches; there was
no coast population living by hunting and fishing. On the other hand,
the inhabitants near our anchorage off St. Lawrence Island consisted of
Eskimo and Namollo. It thus appears as if a great part of the Eskimo who
inhabit the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits, had during recent times
lost their own nationality and become fused with the Chukches. For it is
certain that no violent expulsion has recently taken place here. It
ought besides to be remarked that the name _Onkilon_ which Wrangel
heard given to the old coast population driven out by the Chukches
is evidently nearly allied to the word _Ankali_, with which the
reindeer-Chukch at present distinguishes the coast-Chukch, also that, in
the oldest Russian accounts of Schestakov's and Paulutski's campaigns in
these regions, there never is any mention of two different tribes living
here. It is indeed mentioned in these accounts that among the slain
Chukches there were found some men with perforated lips, but probably
these were Eskimo from the other side of Behring's Straits, previously
taken prisoners by the Chukches, or perhaps merely Eskimo who had been
paying a friendly visit to the Chukches and who had taken part as
volunteers in their war of freedom. It therefore appears to me to be on
the whole more probable that the Eskimo have migrated from America to
Asia, than that, as some authors have supposed, this tribe has entered
America from the west by Behring's Straits or Wrangel Land.

The tent-village Nunamo, or, as Hooper writes, "Noonahmone," does
not lie low, like the Chukch villages we had formerly seen, on the
sea-shore, but pretty high up on a cape between the sea and a river
which debouches immediately to the south-west of the village, and
now during the snow-melting season was much flooded. At a short
distance from the coast the land was occupied by a very high chain
of mountains, which was split up into a number of summits and whose
sides were formed of immense stone mounds distributed in terraces.
Here a large number of marmots and lagomys had their haunt. The
lagomys, a species of rodent that does not occur in Sweden, of the
size of a large rat, is remarkable for the care with which in summer
it collects great stores for the winter. The village consisted of
ten tents built without order on the first high strand bank. The
tents differed somewhat in construction from the common Chukch
tents, and as drift-wood appears to be met with on the beach only in
limited quantity, whale-bones had been used on a very large scale in
the frame of the tent. Thus, for instance, the tent-covering of
seal-skin was stretched downwards over the ribs or lower jawbones of
the whale which were fixed in the ground like poles. These were
united above with slips of whale-bones, from which other slips of
the same sort of bones or of whalebone rose to the summit of the
tent, and finally, to prevent the blast from raising the
tent-covering from the ground, its border was loaded with masses of
large heavy bones. Eleven shoulder-blades of the whale were thus
used round a single tent. In the absence of drift-wood, whale and
seal bones drenched in train-oil are also used as fuel in cooking in
the open air during summer; a large curved whale rib was placed over
the fire-place to serve as a pot-holder; the vertebræ of the whale
were used as mortars; the entrances to the blubber-cellars were
closed with shoulder-blades of the whale; hollowed whale-bones were
used as lamps; shoes of whale-bone or pieces of the under-jaw and
the straighter ribs were used for shoeing the sledges, for spades
and ice-mattocks, the different parts of the implement being bound
together with whale-bone fibres, &c. [345]

Masses of black seal-flesh, and long, white, fluttering strings of
inflated intestines, were hung up between the tents, and in their
interior there were everywhere to be seen bloody pieces of flesh,
prepared in a disgusting way or lying scattered about, whereby both
the dwellings and their inhabitants, who were occupied with hunting,
had a more than usually disagreeble appearance. A pleasant
interruption was formed by the heaps of green willow branches which
were placed at the entrance of nearly every tent, commonly
surrounded by women and children, who ate the leaves with delight.
At some places whole sacks of Rhodiola and various other plants had
been collected for food during winter. As distinctive of the
Chukches here it may be mentioned in the last place that they were
abundantly provided with European household articles, among them
_Remington guns_, and that none of them asked for spirits.

Most of the seals which were seen in the tents were the common
_Phoca hispida_, but along with them we found several skins of
_Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm., and I even succeeded, though with
great difficulty, in inducing the Chukches to part with the skin and
skull of this uncommon species, distinguished by its peculiar
marking. The natives appeared to set a special value on its skin,
and parted with it unwillingly. We had ourselves, as I have already
stated, seen during our passage from Behring's Straits a number of
these seals on the ice-floes drifting south, but the limited time at
our disposal did not permit us to hunt them.

[Illustration: DRABA ALPINA L., FROM ST. LAWRENCE BAY. Natural size. ]

When we left Pitlekaj, vegetation there was still far from having
reached its full development, but at Nunamo the strand-bank was gay
with an exceedingly rich magnificence of colour. On an area of a few
acres Dr. Kjellman collected here more than a hundred species of
flowering plants, among which were a considerable number that he had
not before seen on the Chukch Peninsula. Space does not permit me to
give another list of plants, but in order that the reader may have
an idea of the great difference in the mode of growth which the same
species may exhibit under the influence of different climatal
conditions, I give here a drawing of the Alpine whitlow grass
(_Draba alpina_, L.) from St. Lawrence Bay. It would not, perhaps,
be easy to recognise in this drawing the species delineated on page
341 of vol. i,; the globular form which the plant assumed on the
shore of Cape Chelyuskin exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, has
here, in a region protected from them, completely disappeared.

At the rocky headlands there were still, however, considerable
snowdrifts, and from the heights we could see that considerable
masses of ice were still drifting along the Asiatic side of
Behring's Straits. During an excursion to the top of one of the
neighbouring mountains, Dr. Stuxberg found the corpse of a native
laid out on a stone-setting of the form common among the Chukches.
Alongside the dead man lay a broken percussion gun, spear, arrows,
tinder-box, pipe, snow-shade, ice-sieve, and various other things
which the departed was considered to be in want of in the part of
the Elysian fields set apart for Chukches. The corpse had lain on
the place at least since the preceding summer, but the pipe was one
of the clay pipes that I had caused to be distributed among the
natives. It had thus been placed there long after the proper burial.

Anxious as I was to send off soon from a telegraph station some
re-assuring lines to the home-land, because I feared that a general
uneasiness had already begun to be felt for the fate of the _Vega_,
I would willingly have remained at this place, so important and
interesting in a scientific point of view, at least for some days,
had not the ice-belts and ice-fields drifting about in the offing
been so considerable that if a wind blowing on land had risen
unexpectedly, they might readily have been dangerous to our vessel,
which even now was anchored in a completely open road, for the
splendid haven situated farther in in St. Lawrence Bay was still
covered with ice, and consequently inaccessible. On the afternoon of
21st July, accordingly, when all were assembled on board pleased and
delighted with the results of the morning visit to land, I ordered
the anchor to be weighed that the _Vega_ might steam across to the
American side of Behring's Straits. As in all the Polar seas of the
northern hemisphere, so also here, the eastern side of the Straits
was ice-bestrewn, the western, on the other hand, clear of ice. The
passage was at all events a rapid one, so that by the afternoon of
the 21st July we were able to anchor in Port Clarence, an excellent
haven south of the westernmost promontory of Asia, Cape Prince of
Wales. _It was the first time the Vega anchored in a proper haven,
since on the 18th August 1878 she left Actinia, Haven on Taimur
Island._ During the intermediate time she had been constantly
anchored or moored in open roads without the least land shelter from
sea, wind, and drift-ice. The vessel was, however, thanks to Captain
Palander's judgment and thoughtfulness, and the ability of the
officers and crew, still not only quite free from damage, but even
as seaworthy as when she left the dock at Karlskrona, and we had
still on board provisions for nearly a year, and about 4,000 cubic
feet of coal.

Towards the sea Port Clarence is protected by a long low sandy reef,
between the north end of which and the land there is a convenient
and deep entrance. There a considerable river falls into the
interior of the harbour, the mouth of which widens to a lake, which
is separated from the outer harbour by a sandy neck of land. This
lake also forms a good and spacious harbour, but its entrance is too
shallow for vessels of any considerable draught. The river itself,
on the contrary, is deep, and about eighteen kilometres from its
mouth flows through another lake, from the eastern shore of which
rugged and shattered mountains rise to a height which I estimate at
800 to 1000 metres; but it is quite possible that their height is
twice as great, for in making such estimates one is liable to fall
into error. South of the river and the harbour the land rises
abruptly from the river bank, which is from ten to twenty metres
high. On the north side, on the other hand, the bank is for the most
part low, but farther into the interior the ground rises rapidly to
rounded hills from 300 to 400 metres high. Only in the valleys and
at other places where very large masses of snow had collected during
the winter, were snow-drifts still to be seen. On the other hand, we
saw no glaciers, though we might have expected to find them on the
sides of the high mountains which bound the inner lake on the east.
It was also clear that during the recent ages no widely extended
ice-sheet was to be found here, for in the many excursions we made
in different directions, among others up the river to the lake just
mentioned, we saw nowhere any moraines, erratic blocks, striated
rock-surfaces, or other traces of a past ice-age. Many signs, on the
other hand, indicate that during a not very remote geological period
glaciers covered considerable areas of the opposite Asiatic shore,
and contributed to excavate the fjords there--Kolyutschin Bay, St.
Lawrence Bay, Metschigme Bay, Konyam Bay, &c.

When we approached the American side we could see that the shore
cliffs were formed of stratified rocks. I therefore hoped to be
able, at last, to make a rich collection of fossils, something that
I had no opportunity of doing during the preceding part of the
voyage. But I found, on reaching them, that the stratified rocks
only consisted of crystalline schists without any traces of animal
or vegetable remains. Nor did we find on the shore any whale-bones
or any of the remarkable mammoth-bearing ice-strata which were
discovered in the bay situated immediately north of Behring's
Straits, which was named after Dr. Eschscholz, medical officer
during Kotzebue's famous voyage.[346]

Immediately after the anchor fell we were visited by several very
large skin boats and a large number of _kayaks_. The latter were
larger than the Greenlanders', being commonly intended for two
persons, who sat back to back in the middle of the craft. We even
saw boats from which, when the two rowers had stepped out, a third
person crept who had lain almost hermetically sealed in the interior
of the _kayak_, stretched on the bottom without the possibility of
moving his limbs, or saving himself if any accident should happen.
It appeared to be specially common for children to accompany their
elders in _kayak_ voyages in this inconvenient way.

After the natives came on board a lively traffic commenced, whereby I
acquired some arrow-points and stone fishing-hooks. Anxious to procure
as abundant material as possible for instituting a comparison between
the household articles of the Eskimo and the Chukches, I examined
carefully the skin-bags which the natives had with them. In doing so I
picked out one thing after the other, while they did not object to me
making an inventory. One of them, however, showed great unwillingness to
allow me to get to the bottom of the sack, but this just made me curious
to ascertain what precious thing was concealed there. I was urgent, and
went through the bag half with violence, until at last, in the bottom, I
got a solution of the riddle--a loaded revolver. Several of the natives
had also breechloaders. The oldest age with stone implements, and the
most recent period with breechloaders, thus here reach hands one to the
other.

[Illustration: HUNTING IMPLEMENTS AT PORT CLARENCE.
 1. Bird dart with wooden handle for throwing, one-ninth of the
    natural size.
 2. Whale harpoon with flint point, one-twelfth.
 3. Harpoon-point of bone and nephrite, one-half.
 4. Bone leister, one-third.
 5. Awl, one-half.
 6. Harpoon, one-twelfth.
 7. Flint dart-point, one-half.
 8. Arrows or harpoon-ends with points of iron, stone or glass,
    one-eighth.
 9. Quiver, one-eighth. ]

[Illustration: ESKIMO FAMILY AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by
L. Palander.) ]

Many natives were evidently migrating to more northerly
hunting-grounds and fishing places, perhaps also to the markets and
play-booths, which Dr. John Simpson describes in his well-known
paper on the West Eskimo.[347] Others had already pitched their
summer tents on the banks of the inner harbour, or of the river
before mentioned. On the other hand, there was found in the region
only a small number of winter dwellings abandoned during the warm
season of the year. The population consisted, as has been said, of
Eskimo. They did not understand a word of Chukch. Among them,
however, we found a Chukch woman, who stated that true Chukches were
found also on the American side, north of Behring's Straits. Two of
the men spoke a little English, one had even been at San Francisco,
another at Honolulu. Many of their household articles reminded us of
contact with American whalers, and justice demands the recognition
of the fact that in opposition to what we commonly see stated,
contact with men of civilised race appears to have been to the
advantage and improvement of the savage in an economical and moral
point of view. Most of them now lived in summer-tents of thin cotton
cloth, many wore European clothes, others were clad in trousers of
seal or reindeer-skin and a light, soft, often beautifully
ornamented _pesk_ of marmot skin, over which in rainy weather was
worn an overcoat made of pieces of gut sewn together. The
arrangement of the hair resembled that of the Chukches. The women
were tattooed with some lines on the chin. Many of the men wore
small moustaches, some even a scanty beard, while others had
attempted the American goatee. Most of them, but not all, had two
holes from six to seven millimetres in length, cut in the lips below
the corners of the mouth. In these holes were worn large pieces of
bone, glass, or stone (figure 9, page 237). But these ornaments were
often removed, and then the edges of the large holes closed so much
that the face was not much disfigured. Many had in addition a
similar hole forward in the lip. It struck me, however, that this
strange custom was about to disappear completely, or at least to be
Europeanised by the exchange of holes in the ears for holes in the
mouth. An almost full-grown young woman had a large blue glass bead
hanging from the nose, in whose partition a hole had been made for
its suspension, but she was very much embarrassed and hid her head
in a fold of mama's _pesk_, when this piece of grandeur attracted
general attention. All the women had long strings of beads in the
ears. They wore bracelets of iron or copper, resembling those of the
Chukches. The colour of the skin was not very dark, with perceptible
redness on the cheeks, the hair black and tallow-like, the eyes
small, brown, slightly oblique, the face flat, the nose small and
depressed at the root. Most of the natives were of average height,
appeared to be healthy and in good condition, and were marked
neither by striking thinness nor corpulence. The feet and the hands
were small.

[Illustration: ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by L.
Palander.) ]

[Illustration: ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. (After photographs by L.
Palander.) ]

A certain elegance and order prevailed in their small tents, the
floor of which was covered with mats of plaited plants. In many
places vessels formed of cocoa-nut shells were to be seen, brought
thither, like some of the mats, by whalers from the South Sea
Islands. For the most part their household and hunting implements,
axes, knives, saws, breechloaders, revolvers, &c., were of American
origin, but they still used or preserved in the lumber repositories
of the tent, bows and arrows, bird-darts, bone boat-hooks, and
various stone implements. The fishing implements especially were
made with extraordinary skill of coloured sorts of bone or stone,
glass beads, red pieces of the feet of certain swimming birds, &c.
The different materials were bound together by twine made of
whalebone in such a manner that they resembled large beetles, being
intended for use in the same way as salmon-flies at home.

[Illustration: ESKIMO FISHING IMPLEMENTS, ETC.
 1-6. Salmon hooks of stone of different colours, and bone in the
 form of beetles, one-half of the natural size.
 7. Fishing rod one-sixth.
 8. End of rod.
 9. Bone sinker with tufts and fish-hook, one-half.
 10. Fish-hook with bone points, one-half.
 11. Fish-hook with iron-wire points, one-half.
 12. Snow spectacles one-third. ]

Fire was got partly with steel, flint, and tinder, partly by means
of the fire-drill. Many also used American lucifers. The bow of the
fire-drill was often of ivory, richly ornamented with hunting
figures of different kinds. Their tools were more elegant, better
carved and more richly coloured with graphite[348] and red ochre than
those of the Chukches; the people were better off and owned a larger
number of skin-boats, both _kayaks_ and _umiaks_. This undoubtedly
depends on the sea being here covered with ice for a shorter time
and the ice being thinner than on the Asiatic side, and the hunting
accordingly being better. All the old accounts however agree in
representing that in former times the Chukches were recognised as a
great power by the other savage tribes in these regions, but all
recent observations indicate that that time is now past. A certain
respect for them, however, appears still to prevail among their
neighbours.

The natives, after the first mistrust had disappeared, were friendly
and accommodating, honourable in their dealings though given to
begging and to much haggling in making a bargain. There appeared to
be no chief among them, complete equality prevailed, and the
position of the woman did not appear to be inferior to that of the
man. The children were what we would call in Europe well brought up,
though they got no bringing up at all. All were heathens. The liking
for spirits appeared to be less strong than among the Chukches. We
learn besides that all selling of spirits to savages is not only
forbidden on the American side, but forbidden in such a way that the
law is obeyed.

During our stay among the Chukches my supply of articles for barter
was very limited, for up to the hour of departure uncertainty
prevailed as to the time at which we would get free, and I was
therefore compelled to be sparing of the stores. I often found it
difficult on that account to induce a Chukch to part with things
which I wished to acquire. Here on the contrary I was a rich man,
thanks to the large surplus that was over from our abundant winter
equipment, which of course in warm regions would have been of no use
to us. I turned my riches to account by making visits like a pedlar
in the tent villages with sacks full of felt hats, thick clothes,
stockings, ammunition, &c., for which goods I obtained a beautiful
and choice collection of ethnographical articles. Among these may be
mentioned beautiful bone etchings and carvings, and several
arrow-points and other tools of a species of nephrite,[349] which is
so puzzlingly like the well-known nephrite from High Asia, that I am
disposed to believe that it actually comes originally from that
locality. In such a case the occurrence of nephrite at Behring's
Straits is important, because it cannot be explained in any other
way than either by supposing that the tribes living here have
carried the mineral with them from their original home in High Asia,
or that during the Stone Age of High Asia a like extended commercial
intercommunication took place between the wild races as now exists,
or at least some decades ago existed, along the north parts of Asia
and America.

[Illustration: ESKIMO BONE-CARVINGS, ETC.
 1-5. Buttons to carrying straps, representing heads of the Polar bear,
      seals &c., carved in walrus ivory, one-half of the natural size.
 6. Carrying strap with a similar button, carved, in the form
    of a seal, one-third.
 7. Stone chisel, one-half.
 8. Comb one-third.
 9. Buttons of bone, glass, or stone, to be placed in holes in the lips,
    natural size.
 10. Ivory diadem, two-thirds. ]

On the north side of the harbour we found an old European or
American train-oil boiling establishment. In the neighbourhood of it
were two Eskimo graves. The corpses had been laid on the ground
fully clothed, without the protection of any coffin, but surrounded
by a close fence consisting of a number of tent poles driven
crosswise into the ground. Alongside one of the corpses lay a
_kayak_ with oars, a loaded double-barrelled gun with locks at
half-cock and caps on, various other weapons, clothes, tinderbox,
snow-shoes, drinking-vessels, two masks carved in wood and smeared
with blood (figures 1 and 2, page 241), and strangely-shaped animal
figures. Such were seen also in the tents. Bags of sealskin,
intended to be inflated and fastened to harpoons as floats, were
sometimes ornamented with small faces carved in wood (figure 3, page
241). In one of the two amulets of the same kind, which I brought
home with me, one eye is represented by a piece of blue enamel stuck
in, and the other by a piece of iron pyrites fixed in the same way.
Behind two tents were found, erected on posts a metre and a half in
height, roughly-formed wooden images of birds with expanded wings
painted red. I endeavoured without success to purchase these
tent-idols[350] for a large new felt hat--an article of exchange for
which in other cases I could obtain almost anything whatever. A
dazzlingly white _kayak_ of a very elegant shape, on the other hand,
I purchased without difficulty for an old felt hat and 500 Remington
cartridges.

[Illustration: ESKIMO GRAVE. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

As a peculiar proof of the ingenuity of the Americans when offering
their goods for sale, it may be mentioned in conclusion that an
Eskimo, who came to the vessel during our stay in the harbour,
showed us a printed paper, by which a commercial house at San
Francisco offered to "sporting gentlemen" at Behring's Straits
(Eskimo?) their stock of excellent hunting shot.

As the west coast of Europe is washed by the Gulf Stream, there also
runs along the Pacific coast of America a warm current, which gives
the land a much milder climate than that which prevails on the
neighbouring Asiatic side, where, as on the east coast of Greenland,
there runs a cold northerly current. The limit of trees therefore in
north-western America goes a good way _north of_ Behring's Straits,
while on the Chukch Peninsula wood appears to be wholly wanting.
Even at Port Clarence the coast is devoid of trees, but some
kilometres into the country alder bushes two feet high are met with,
and behind the coast hills actual forests probably occur. Vegetation
is besides already luxuriant at the coast, and far away here, on the
coast of the New World, many species are to be found nearly allied
to Scandinavian plants, among them the _Linnæa_. Dr. Kjellman
therefore reaped here a rich botanical harvest, valuable for the
purpose of comparison with the flora of the neighbouring portion of
Asia and other High Arctic regions.

[Illustration: ANIMAL FIGURE FROM AN ESKIMO GRAVE.
 _a._ From above.
 _b._ From the side (One-third of the natural size.) ]

[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS FROM PORT CLARENCE.
 1-2. Wooden masks, found at a grave, one-sixth of the natural size.
 3. Amulet a face with one eye of enamel, the other of pyrites from
    a harpoon-float of sealskin, one-third.
 4. Oars, one-nineteenth.
 5. Boathook, one-twelfth.
 6. The hook or carved ivory, one-fourth.
 7. Carved knife handle (?) ofivory, one-half. ]

Dr. Almquist in like manner collected very extensive materials for
investigating the lichen-flora of the region, probably before very
incompletely known. The harvest of the zoologists, on the other
hand, was scanty. Notwithstanding the luxuriant vegetation
land-evertebrates appeared to occur in a much smaller number of
species than in northern Norway. Of beetles, for instance, only from
ten to twenty species could be found, mainly Harpalids and
Staphylinids, and of land and fresh-water mollusca only seven or
eight species, besides which nearly all occurred very sparingly.
Among remarkable fishes may be mentioned the same black marsh-fish
which we caught at Yinretlen. The avi-fauna was scanty for a high
northern land, and of wild mammalia we saw only musk-rats. Even the
dredgings in the harbour yielded, on account of the unfavourable
nature of the bottom, only an inconsiderable number of animals and
algæ.

On the 26th July, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we weighed
anchor and steamed back in splendid weather and with for the most
part a favourable wind to the shore of the Old World. In order to
determine the salinity and temperature at different depths,
soundings were made and samples of water taken every four hours
during the passage across the straits. Trawling was besides carried
on three times in the twenty-four hours, commonly with an
extraordinarily abundant yield, among other things of large shells,
as, for instance, the beautiful _Fusus deformis_, Reeve, with its
twist to the left, and some large species of crabs. One of the
latter (_Chionoecetes opilio_, Kröyer) the dredge sometimes brought
up in hundreds. We cooked and ate them and found them excellent,
though not very rich in flesh. The taste was somewhat sooty.

Lieutenant Bove constructed the diagram reproduced at page 244,
which is based on the soundings and other observations made during
the passage, from which we see how shallow is the sound which in the
northernmost part of the Pacific separates the Old World from the
New. An elevation of the land less than that which has taken place
since the glacial period at the well-known Chapel Hills at Uddevalla
would evidently be sufficient to unite the two worlds with each
other by a broad bridge, and a corresponding depression would have
been enough to separate them if, as is probable, they were at one
time continuous. The diagram shows besides that the deepest channel
is quite close to the coast of the Chukch Peninsula, and that that
channel contains a mass of cold water, which is separated by a ridge
from the warmer water on the American side.

[Illustration: SHELL FROM BEHRING'S STRAITS. _Fusus deformis_, Reeve. ]

If we examine a map of Siberia we shall find, as I have already
pointed out, that its coasts at most places are straight, and are
thus neither indented with deep fjords surrounded with high
mountains like the west coast of Norway, nor protected by an
archipelago of islands like the greater part of the coasts of
Scandinavia and Finland. Certain parts of the Chukch Peninsula,
especially its south-eastern portion, form the only exception to
this rule. Several small fjords here cut into the coasts, which
consist of stratified granitic rocks, and in the offing two large
and several small rocky islands form an archipelago, separated from
the mainland by the deep Senjavin Sound. The wish to give our
naturalists an opportunity of once more prosecuting their
examination of the natural history of the Chukch Peninsula, and the
desire to study one of the few parts of the Siberian coast which in
all probability were formerly covered with inland ice, led me to
choose this place for the second anchorage of the _Vega_ on the
Asiatic side south of Behring's Straits. The _Vega_ accordingly
anchored here on the forenoon of the 28th July, but not, as was at
first intended, in Glasenapp Harbour, because it was still occupied
unbroken ice, but in the mouth of the most northerly of the fjords,
Konyam Bay.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM, Showing the Temperature and Depth of the water
at Behring's Straits between Port Clarence and Senjavin Sound. By G.
BOVE. ]

This portion of the Chukch Peninsula had been visited before us by
the corvette _Senjavin_, commanded by Captain, afterwards Admiral,
Fr. Lütké, and by an English Franklin Expedition on board the
_Plover_, commanded by Captain Moore. Lütké stayed here with his
companions, the naturalists MERTENS, POSTELS, and KITTLITZ, some
days in August 1828, during which the harbour was surveyed and
various observations in ethnography and the natural sciences made.
Moore wintered at this place in 1848-49. I have already stated that
we have his companion, Lieut. W.H. Hooper, to thank for very
valuable information relating to the tribes which live in the
neighbourhood. The region appears to have been then inhabited by a
rather dense population. Now there lived at the bay where we had
anchored only three reindeer-Chukch families, and the neighbouring
islands must at the time have been uninhabited, or perhaps the
arrival of the _Vega_ may not have been observed, for no natives
came on board, which otherwise would probably have been the case.

The shore at the south-east part of Konyam Bay, in which the _Vega_
now lay at anchor for a couple of days, consists of a rather
desolate bog, in which a large number of cranes were breeding.
Farther into the country several mountain summits rise to a height
of nearly 600 metres. The collections of the zoologists and
botanists on this shore were very scanty, but on the north side of
the bay, to which excursions were made with the steam-launch, grassy
slopes were met with, with pretty high bushy thickets and a great
variety of flowers, which enriched Dr. Kjellman's collection of the
higher plants from the north coast of Asia with about seventy
species. Here were found too the first land mollusca (Succinea,
Limax, Helix, Pupa, &c.) on the Chukch Peninsula.[351]

We also visited the dwellings of the reindeer-Chukch families. They
resembled the Chukch tents we had seen before, and the mode of life
of the inhabitants differed little from that of the coast-Chukches,
with whom we passed the winter. They were even clothed in the same
way, excepting that the men wore a number of small bells in the
belt. The number of the reindeer which the three families owned was,
according to an enumeration which I made when the herd had with
evident pleasure settled down at noon in warm sunshine on a
snow-field in the neighbourhood of the tents, only about 400, thus
considerably fewer than is required to feed three Lapp families. The
Chukches have instead a better supply of fish, and, above all,
better hunting than the Lapps; they also do not drink any coffee,
and themselves collect a part of their food from the vegetable
kingdom. The natives received us in a very friendly way, and
offered to sell or rather barter three reindeer, a transaction which
on account of our hasty departure was not carried into effect.

The mountains in the neighbourhood of Konyam Bay were high and split up
into pointed summits with deep valleys still partly filled with snow. No
glaciers appear to exist there at present. Probably however the fjords
here and the sounds, like St. Lawrence Bay, Kolyutschin Bay, and
probably all the other deeper bays on the coast of the Chukch Peninsula,
have been excavated by former glaciers. It may perhaps be uncertain
whether a true inland-ice covered the whole country; it is certain that
the ice-cap did not extend over the plains of Siberia, where it can be
proved that no Ice Age in a Scandinavian sense ever existed, and where
the state of the land from the Jurassic period onwards was indeed
subjected to some changes, but to none of the thoroughgoing mundane
revolutions which in former times geologists loved to depict in so
bright colours. At least the direction of the rivers appears to have
been unchanged since then. Perhaps even the difference between the
Siberia where Chikanovski's _Ginko_ woods grew and the mammoth roamed
about, and that where now at a limited depth under the surface
constantly frozen ground is to be met with, depends merely on the
isothermal lines having sunk slightly towards the equator.

[Illustration: KONYAM BAY. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

The neighbourhood of Konyam Bay consists of crystalline rocks,
granite poor in mica, and mica-schist lowermost, and then grey
non-fossiliferous carbonate of lime, and last of all magnesian
schists, porphyry, and quartzites. On the summits of the hills the
granite has a rough trachytic appearance, but does not pass into
true trachyte. Here however we are already in the neighbourhood of
the volcanic hearths of Kamchatka, which for instance is shown by
the hot spring, which Hooper discovered not far from the coast
during a sledge journey towards Behring's Straits. In the middle of
the severe cold of February its waters had a temperature of +69° C.
Hot steam and drifting snow combined had thrown over the
spring a lofty vault of dazzling whiteness formed of masses of snow
converted into ice and covered with ice-crystals. The Chukches
themselves appear to have found the contrast striking between the
hot spring from the interior of the earth and the cold, snow, and
ice on its surface. They offered blue glass beads to the spring, and
showed Hooper, as something remarkable, that it was possible to boil
fish in it, though the mineral water gave the boiled fish a bitter
unpleasant taste.[352]

The interior of Konyam Bay was during our stay there still covered
by an unbroken sheet of ice. This broke up on the afternoon of the
30th July, and had almost, rotten as it was, suddenly brought the
voyage of the _Vega_ to a termination by pressing her ashore.
Fortunately the danger was observed in time. Steam was got up, the
anchor weighed, and the vessel removed to the open part of the
fjord. As on this account several cubic feet of coal had to be used
for getting up steam, as our hitherto abundant stock of coal must
now be saved, and as, in the last place I was still urged forward by
the fear that a too lengthened delay in sending home despatches
might not only cause much anxiety but also lead to a heavy
expenditure of money, I preferred to sail on immediately rather than
to enter a safer harbour in the neighbourhood from which the
scientific work might continue to be prosecuted.

The course was now shaped for the north-west point of St. Lawrence
Island. A little off Senjavin Sound we saw drift-ice for the last
time. On the whole the quantity of ice which drifts down through
Behring's Straits into the Pacific is not very great, and most of
that which is met with in summer on the Asiatic side of the Behring
Sea, is evidently formed in fjords and bays along the coast South of
Behring's Straits accordingly I saw not a single iceberg nor any
large block of glacier-ice, but only even and very rotten fields of
bay-ice.

The _Vega_ was anchored on the 31st July in an open bay on the
north-western side of St. Lawrence Island. This island, called by
the natives Enguae, is the largest one between the Aleutian Islands
and Behring's Straits. It lies nearer Asia than America, but is
considered to belong to the latter, for which reason it was handed
over along with the Alaska Territory by Russia to the United States.
The island is inhabited by a few Eskimo families, who have
commercial relations with then Chukch neighbours on the Russian
side, and therefore have adopted some words from their language.
Then dress also resembles that of the Chukches, with the exception
that, wanting reindeer-skin, they use _pesks_ made of the skins of
birds and marmots. Like the Chukches and Eskimo they use overcoats
of pieces of seal-gut sewed together. On St. Lawrence Island their
dress is much ornamented, chiefly with tufts of feathers of the
sea-fowl that breed in innumerable flocks on the island. It even
appears that gut clothes are made here for sale to other tribes;
otherwise it would be difficult to explain how Kotzebue's sailors
could in half an hour purchase at a single encampment 200 coats of
this kind. At the time of our visit all the natives went bareheaded,
the men with their black tallow-like hair clipped to the root, with
the exception of the common small border above the forehead. The
women wore their hair plaited and adorned with beads, and were much
tattooed, partly after very intricate patterns, as is shown by the
accompanying woodcuts. Like the children they mostly went barefooted
and barelegged. They were well grown, and many did not look ill, but
all were merciless beggars, who actually followed our naturalists on
their excursions on land.

[Illustration: TATTOOING PATTERNS, FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.
 1., 2. Face tattooing.
 3. Arm tattooing. (After drawings by A. Stuxberg.) ]

[Illustration: TATTOOED WOMAN FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.
(After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.) ]

The summer-tents were irregular, but pretty clean and light huts of
gut, stretched on a frame of drift-wood and whale-bones. The winter
dwellings were now abandoned. They appeared to consist of holes in
the earth, which were covered above, with the exception of a square
opening, with drift-wood and turf.

During winter a sealskin tent was probably stretched over this
opening, but it was removed for the time, probably to permit the
summer heat to penetrate into the hole and melt the ice, which had
collected during winter on its walls. At several tents we found
large under-jaws of whales fixed in the ground. They were perforated
above, and I suppose that the winter-tent, in the absence of other
framework, was stretched over them. Masses of whale-bones lay thrown
up along the shore, evidently belonging to the same species as those
we collected at the shore-dunes at Pitlekaj. In the neighbourhood of
the tents graves were also found. The corpses had been placed,
unburned, in some cleft among the rocks which are split up by the
frost, and often converted into immense stone mounds. They had
afterwards been covered with stones, and skulls of the bear and the
seal and whale-bones had been offered or scattered around the grave.

North-east of the anchorage the shore was formed of low hills rising
with a steep slope from the sea. Here and there ruinlike cliffs
projected from the hills, resembling those we saw on the coast of
Chukch Land. But the rock here consisted of the same sort of granite
which formed the lowermost stratum at Konyam Bay. It was principally
at the foot of these slopes that the natives erected their
dwellings. South-west of the anchorage commenced a very extensive
plain, which towards the interior of the island was marshy, but
along the coast formed a firm, even, grassy meadow exceedingly rich
in flowers. It was gay with the large sunflower-like _Arnica
Pseudo-Arnica_, and another species of Senecio (_Senecio frigidus_);
the _Oxytropis nigrescens_, close-tufted and rich in flowers, not
stunted here as in Chukch Land; several species of Pedicularis in
their fullest bloom (_P. sudetica, P. Langsdorfii, P. Oederi_ and
_P. capitata_); the stately snow auricula (_Primula nivalis_), and
the pretty _Primula borealis_. As characteristic of the vegetation
at this place may also be mentioned several ranunculi, an anemone
(_Anemone narcissiflora_), a species of monkshood with flowers few
indeed, but so much the larger on that account, large tufts of
_Silene acaulis_ and _Alsine macrocarpa_, studded with flowers,
several Saxifrages, two Claytoniæ, the _Cl. acutifolia_, important
as a food-plant in the housekeeping of the Chukches, and the tender
_Cl. sarmentosa_ with its delicate, slightly rose-coloured flowers,
and, where the ground was stony, long but yet flowerless, slightly
green tendrils of the favourite plant of our homeland, the _Linnæa
borealis_ Dr. Kjellman thus reaped a rich harvest of higher plants,
and a fine collection of land and marine animals, lichens and algæ
was also made here. The ground consisted of sand in which lay large
granite blocks, which we in Sweden would call erratic. They appeared
however not to have been transported hither, but to be lying _in
situ_, having along with the sand probably arisen through the
disintegration of the rocks.

In the sea we found not a few algæ and a true littoral
evertebrate-fauna, poor in species indeed, something which is
completely absent in the Polar seas proper. As I walked along
the coast I saw five pretty large self-coloured greyish-brown seals
sunning themselves on stones a short distance from land. They
belonged to a species which I had never seen in the Polar seas.
As there was no boat at hand, I forbade the hunters that accompanied
me, though the seals were within range, to test their skill
as shots upon them. Perhaps they were females of _Histriophoca
fasciata_, whose beautifully marked skin (of the male) I had seen
and described at St. Lawrence Bay. The natives had a few dogs
but no reindeer, which however might find food on the island in
thousands. No _kayaks_ were in use, but large _baydars_ of the
same construction as those of the Chukches.

St. Lawrence Island was discovered during Behring's first
voyage, but the first who came into contact with the natives was
Otto von Kotzebue[353] (on the 27th June 1816, and the 20th July
1817). The inhabitants had not before seen any Europeans, and
they received the foreigners with a friendliness which exposed
Kotzebue to severe suffering. Of this he gives the following
account:--

    "So long as the naturalists wandered about on the hills I
    stayed with my acquaintances, who, when they found that I
    was the commander, invited me into their tents. Here a
    dirty skin was spread on the floor, on which I had to sit,
    and then they came in one after the other, embraced me,
    rubbed their noses hard against mine, and finished their
    caresses by spitting in their hands and then stroking me
    several times over the face. Although these proofs of
    friendship gave me very little pleasure, I bore all
    patiently; the only thing I did to lighten their caresses
    somewhat was to distribute tobacco leaves. These the
    natives received with great pleasure, but they wished
    immediately to renew their proofs of friendship. Now I
    betook myself with speed to knives, scissors, and beads,
    and by distributing some succeeded in averting a new
    attack. But a still greater calamity awaited me when in
    order to refresh me bodily they brought forward a wooden
    tray with whale blubber. Nauseous as this food is to a
    European stomach I boldly attacked the dish. This, along
    with new presents which I distributed, impressed the seal
    on the friendly relation between us. After the meal our
    hosts made arrangements for dancing and singing, which was
    accompanied on a little tambourine."[352]

As von Kotzebue two days after sailed past the north point of the
island he met three _baydars_. In one of them a man stood up, held
up a little dog and pierced it through with his knife, as Kotzebue
believed, as a sacrifice to the foreigners.[355]

Since 1817 several exploring expeditions have landed on St. Lawrence
Island, but always only for a few hours. It is very dangerous to
stay long here with a vessel. For there is no known haven on the
coast of this large island, which is surrounded by an open sea. In
consequence of the heavy swell which almost constantly prevails
here, when the surrounding sea is clear of ice, it is difficult to
land on the island with a boat, and the vessel anchored in the open
road is constantly exposed to be thrown by a storm rising
unexpectedly upon the shore cliffs. This held good in fullest
measure of the _Vega's_ anchorage, and Captain Palander was on this
account anxious to leave the place as soon as possible. On the 2nd
August at three o'clock in the afternoon we accordingly resumed our
voyage. The course was shaped at first for Karaginsk Island on the
east coast of Kamchatka, where it was my intention to stay some days
in order to get an opportunity of making a comparison between the
natural conditions of middle Kamchatka and the Chukch Peninsula. But
as unfavourable winds delayed our passage longer than I had
calculated on, I abandoned, though unwillingly, the plan of landing
there. The Commander's Islands became instead the nearest goal of
the expedition. Here the _Vega_ anchored on the 14th August in a
very indifferent harbour completely open to the west, north-west,
and south, lying on the west side of Behring Island, between the
main island and a small island lying off it.


[Footnote 344: The enmity appeared, however, to be of a very passive
nature and by no means depending on any tribal dislike, but only
arising from the inhabitants of the villages lying farthest eastward
being known to be of a quarrelsome disposition and having the same
reputation for love of fighting as the peasant youths in some
villages in Sweden. For Lieut. Hooper, who during the winter 1848-9
made a journey in dog-sledges from Chukotskoj-nos along the coast
towards Behring's Straits says that the inhabitants at Cape Deschnev
itself enjoyed the same bad reputation among their Namollo
neighbours to the south as among the Chukches living to the
westward. "They spoke another language." Possibly they were pure
Eskimo. ]

[Footnote 345: There is still in existence a sketch of a tribe,
living far to the south on the coast of the Indian Sea, who at the
time of Alexander the Great used the bones of the whale in a similar
way. "They build their houses so that the richest among them take
bones of the whale, which the sea casts up, and use them as beams,
of the larger bones they make their doors." Arrian, _Historia
Indica_, XXIX. and XXX. ]

[Footnote 346: These strata were discovered during Kotzebue's
cucumnavigation of the globe (_Entdeckungs Reise_, Weimar, 1821, i.
p. 146, and ii. p. 170). The strand-bank was covered by an
exceedingly luxuriant vegetable carpet, and rose to a height of
eighty feet above the sea. Here the "rock," if this word can be used
for a stratum of ice, was found to consist of pure ice, covered with
a layer, only six inches thick, of blue clay and turf-earth. The ice
must have been several hundred thousand years old, for on its being
melted a large number of bones and tusks of the mammoth appeared,
from which we may draw the conclusion that the ice-stratum was
formed during the period in which the mammoth lived in these
regions. This remarkable observation has been to a certain extent
disputed by later travellers, but its correctness has recently been
fully confirmed by Dall. On the other hand, the extent to which the
strong odour, which was observed at the place and resembled that of
burned horns, arose from the decaying mammoth remains, is perhaps
uncertain. Kotzebue fixed the latitude of the place at 66° 15'
36". During Beechey's voyage in 1827 the place was thoroughly
examined by Mr. Collie, the medical officer of the expedition. He
brought home thence a large number of the bones of the mammoth, ox,
musk-ox, reindeer, and horse, which were described by the famous
geologist Buckland (F.W. Beechey, _Narrative of a Voyage to the
Pacific and Behring's Straits, 1825-28_. London, 1831, ii.
Appendix). ]

[Footnote 347: _Further Papers relative to the recent Arctic
Expedition, etc._ Presented to both Houses of Parliament. London,
1855, p. 917. ]

[Footnote 348: Graphite must be found in great abundance on the
Asiatic side of Behring's Straits. I procured during winter a number
of pieces, which had evidently been rolled in running water.
Chamisso mentions in Kotzebue's Voyages (iii. p. 169) that he had
seen this mineral along with red ochre among the inhabitants at St.
Lawrence Bay; and Lieut Hooper states in his work (p. 139), that
graphite and red ochre are found at the village Oongwysac between
Chukotskoj-nos and Behring's Straits. The latter colour was sold at
a high price to the inhabitants of distant encampments. These
minerals have undoubtedly been used in the same way from time
immemorial, and they are probably, like flint and nephrite, among
the few kinds of stone which were used by the men of the Stone Age.
So far as is known, graphite come first into use in Europe during
the middle ages. A black-lead pencil is mentioned and delineated for
the first time by Conrad Gessner in 1565. The rich but now exhausted
graphite seam at Borrowdale, in England, is mentioned for the first
time by Dr. Merret in 1667, as containing a useful mineral peculiar
to England. Very rich graphite seams have been found during recent
decades, both at the mouth of the Yenisej (Sidoroff's graphite
quarry) and at a spur of the Sayan mountains in the southern part of
Siberia (Alibert's graphite quarry), and these discoveries have
played a certain _rôle_ in the recent history of the exploration of
the country. ]

[Footnote 349: Nephrite is a light green, sometimes grass-green, very
hard and compact species of amphibolite, which occurs in High Asia,
Mexico, and New Zealand. At all these places it has been employed
for stone implements, vases, pipes, &c. The Chinese put an immensely
high value upon it, and the wish to procure nephite is said often to
have determined their politics, to have caused wars, and impressed
its stamp on treaties of peace concluded between millions. I also
consider it probable that the precious Vasa Murrhina, which was
brought to Rome after the campaign against Mithridates, and has
given rise to so much discussion, was nephrite. Nephrite was also
perhaps the first of all stones to be used ornamentally. For we find
axes and chisels of this material among the people of the Stone Age
both in Europe (where no locality is known where unworked nephrite
is found) and in Asia, America, and New Zealand. In Asia implements
of nephrite are found both on the Chukch Peninsula and in old graves
from the Stone Age in the southern part of the country. They have
been discovered at Telma, sixty versts from Irkutsk, by Mr. J.N.
Wilkoffski, conservator of the East Siberian Geographical Society.
In scientific mineralogy nephrite is first mentioned under the name
of _Kascholong_ (_i.e._ a species of stone from the river Kasch). It
has been brought home under this name by Renat, a prisoner-of-war
from Charles XII.'s army, from High Asia, and was given by him to
Swedish mineralogists, who described it very correctly, though
kascholong has since been erroneously considered a species of
quarts. ]

[Footnote 350: The Eskimo however, like the Chukches, do not appear
to have any proper religion or idea of a life after this. ]

[Footnote 351: We have already found some land mollusca at Port
Clarence, but none at St. Lawrence Bay. The northernmost _find_ of
such animals now known was made by Von Middendorff, who found a
species of Physa on the Taimur Peninsula. ]

[Footnote 352: That a fire-emitting mountain was to be found in
Siberia east of the Yenisej is already mentioned in a treatise by
Isaak Massa, inserted in Hessel Gerritz, _Detectio Freti_,
Amsterdam, 1612. The rumour about the volcanos of Kamchatka thus
appears to have reached Europe at that early date. ]

[Footnote 353: Kotzebue says that he was the first seafarer who
visited the island. This however is incorrect. Billings landed there
on the 1st August (21st July), 1791. From the vessel some natives
was seen and a _baydar_ which was rowed along the coast. The
natives however were frightened by some gunshots fired as a signal
(Sarytchev's _Reise_, ii. p. 91, Sauer, p. 239). Billings says that
the place where he landed (the south-east point of the island) was
nearly covered with bones of sea-animals. It would be important to
have these thoroughly examined, as it is not impossible that
Steller's sea-cow (Rhytina) may in former times have occasionally
come to this coast. At all events important contributions to a
knowledge of the species of whales in Behring's Straits may be
gained here. ]

[Footnote 354: Otto von Kotzebue _Entdeckungs-Reise an die Sud-See
und nach der Behring-Strasse, 1815-18_ Weimar, 1821, i. p. 135, ii.
p. 104, iii. pp. 171 and 178. ]

[Footnote 355: On the days after our arrival at Pitlekaj several dogs
were killed. I then believed that this was done because the natives
were unwilling to feed them during winter, but it is not impossible
that they sacrificed them to avert the misfortunes which it was
feared the arrival of the foreigners would bring with it. ]



CHAPTER XV.

    The position of Behring Island--Its inhabitants--The discovery
    of the island by Behring--Behring's death--Steller--The former
    and present Fauna on the island: foxes, sea-otters, sea-cows,
    sea-lions, and sea-bears--Collection of bones of the Rhytina
    --Visit to a "rookery"--Toporkoff Island--Alexander Dubovski
    --Voyage to Yokohama--Lightning-stroke.


Behring Island is situated between 54° 40' and 55° 25' N.L. and 165° 40'
and 166° 40' E.L. from Greenwich. It is the westernmost and nearest
Kamchatka of the islands in the long chain formed by volcanic action,
which bounds the Behring Sea on the south between 51° and 56° N.L.
Together with the neighbouring Copper Island and some small islands and
rocks lying round about, it forms a peculiar group of islands separated
from the Aleutian Islands proper, named, after the rank of the great
seafarer who perished here, Commander's or Commandirski Islands. They
belong not to America but to Asia, and are Russian territory.
Notwithstanding this the American Alaska Company has acquired the right
of hunting there,[356] and maintains on the main islands two not
inconsiderable commercial stations, which supply the inhabitants,
several hundreds in number, with provisions and manufactured goods, the
company buying from them instead furs, principally the skin of an eared
seal (the sea-cat or sea-bear), of which from 20,000 to 50,000[357] are
killed yearly in the region. Some Russian authorities are also settled
on the island to guard the rights of the Russian state and maintain
order. Half a dozen serviceable wooden houses have been built here as
dwellings for the officials of the Russian Government and the American
Company, for storehouses, shops, &c. The natives live partly in very
roomy and in the inside not uncomfortable turf houses, partly in small
wooden houses which the company endeavours gradually to substitute for
the former, by yearly ordering some wooden buildings and presenting them
to the most deserving of the population. Every family has its own house.
There is also a Greek-Catholic church and a spacious schoolhouse. The
latter is intended for Aleutian children. The school was unfortunately
closed at the time of our visit, but, to judge by the writing books
which lay about in the schoolroom, the education here is not to be
despised. The specimens of writing at least were distinguished by their
cleanness, and by an even and beautiful style. At "the colony" the
houses were collected at one place into a village, situated near the
sea-shore at a suitable distance from the fishing ground in a valley
overgrown in summer by a rich vegetation, but treeless and surrounded by
treeless rounded heights. From the sea this village has the look of a
northern fishing station. There are besides some scattered houses here
and there on other parts of the island, for instance on its
north-eastern side, where the potato is said to be cultivated on a small
scale, and at the fishing place on the north side where there are two
large sheds for skins and a number of very small earth-holes used only
during the slaughter season.

[Illustration: THE COLONY ON BEHRING ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

[Illustration: THE "COLONY" ON COPPER ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

Behring Island, with regard both to geography and natural history,
is one of the most remarkable islands in the north part of the
Pacific. It was here that Behring after his last unfortunate voyage
in the sea which now bears his name, finished his long course as an
explorer. He was however survived by many of his followers, among
them by the physician and naturalist Steller, to whom we owe a
masterpiece seldom surpassed--a sketch of the natural conditions and
animal life on the island, never before visited by man, where he
involuntarily passed the time from the middle of November 1741, to
the end of August 1742.[358]

It was the desire to procure for our museums the skins or skeletons
of the many remarkable mammalia occurring here, also to compare the
present state of the island which for nearly a century and a half
has been exposed to the unsparing thirst of man for sport and
plunder, with Steller's spirited and picturesque description, which
led me to include a visit to the island in the plan of the
expedition. The accounts I got at Behring Island from the American
newspapers of the anxiety which our wintering had caused in Europe
led me indeed to make our stay there shorter than I at first
intended. Our harvest of collections and observations was at all
events extraordinarily abundant. But before I proceed to give an
account of our own stay on the island, I must devote a few words to
its discovery and the first wintering there, which has a quite
special interest from the island having never before been trodden by
the foot of man. The abundant animal life, then found there, gives
us therefore one of the exceedingly few representations we possess
of the animal world as it was before man, the lord of the creation,
appeared.

After Behring's vessel had drifted about a considerable time at
random in the Behring Sea, in consequence of the severe
scurvy-epidemic, which had spread to nearly all the men on board,
without any dead reckoning being kept, and finally without sail or
helmsman, literally at the mercy of wind and waves, those on board
on the 15th/4th November, 1741, sighted land, off whose coast the
vessel was anchored the following day at 5 o'clock P.M. An hour
after the cable gave way, and an enormous sea threw the vessel
towards the shore-cliffs. All appeared to be already lost. But the
vessel, instead of being driven ashore by new waves, came
unexpectedly into a basin 4-1/2 fathoms deep surrounded by rocks and
with quite still water, being connected with the sea only by a
single narrow opening. If the unmanageable vessel had not drifted
just to that place it would certainly have gone to pieces, and all
on board would have perished.

[Illustration: NATIVES OF BEHRING ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

It was only with great difficulty that the sick crew could put out a
boat in which Lieut. Waxel and Steller landed. They found the land
uninhabited, devoid of wood, and uninviting. But a rivulet with
fresh clear water purled yet unfrozen down the mountain sides, and
in the sand hills along the coast were found some deep pits, which
when enlarged and covered with sails could be used as dwellings. The
men who could still stand on their legs all joined in this work. On
the 19th/8th November the sick could be removed to land, but, as
often happens, many died when they were brought out of the cabin
into the fresh air, others while they were being carried from the
vessel or immediately after they came to land. All in whom the
scurvy had taken the upper hand to that extent that they were
already lying in bed on board the vessel, died. The survivors had
scarcely time or strength to bury the dead, and found it difficult
to protect the corpses from the hungry foxes that swarmed on the
island and had not yet learned to be afraid of man. On the 20th/9th
Behring was carried on land; he was already much reduced and
dejected, and could not be induced to take exercise. He died on the
19th/8th December.

VITUS BEHRING was a Dane by birth, and when a young man had already
made voyages to the East and West Indies. In 1707 he was received
into the Russian navy as officer, and as such took part in all the
warlike enterprises of that fleet against Sweden. He was in a way
buried alive on the island that now bears his name, for at last he
did not permit his men to remove the sand that lolled down upon him
from the walls of the sand pit in which he rested. For he thought
that the sand warmed his chilled body. Before the corpse could be
properly buried it had therefore to be dug out of its bed, a
circumstance which appears to have produced a disagreeable
impression on the survivors. The two Lieutenants, Waxel and Chitrov,
had kept themselves in pretty good health at sea, but now fell
seriously ill, though they recovered. Only the physician of the
expedition, Georg Wilhelm Steller, was all the time in good health,
and that a single man of the whole crew escaped with his life was
clearly clue to the skill of this gifted man, to his invincible
energy and his cheerful and sanguine disposition. These qualities
were also abundantly tested during the wintering. On the night
before the 10th December/29th November, the vessel, on which no
watch was kept, because all the men were required on land to care
for the sick, was cast ashore by a violent E.S.E. storm. So great a
quantity of provisions was thus lost, that the remaining stock was
not sufficient by itself to yield enough food for all the men during
a whole winter. Men were therefore sent out in all directions to
inquire into the state of the land. They returned with the
information that the vessel had stranded, not, as was hoped at
first, on the mainland but on an uninhabited, woodless island. It
was thus clear to the shipwrecked men that in order to be saved they
could rely only on their judgment and strength. At the beginning
they found that if any provisions were to be reserved for the voyage
home, it was necessary that they should support themselves during
winter to a considerable extent by hunting. They did not like to use
the flesh of the fox for food, and at first kept to that of the
sea-otter. This animal at present is very scarce on Behring Island,
but at that time the shore was covered with whole herds of it. They
had no fear of man, came from curiosity straight to the fires, and
did not run away when any one approached. A dear-bought experience,
however, soon taught them caution; at all events, from 800 to 900
head were taken, a splendid catch when we consider that the skin of
this animal at the Chinese frontier fetched from 80 to 100 roubles
each. Besides, in the beginning of winter two whales stranded on the
island. The shipwrecked men considered these then provision depôts,
and appear to have preferred whale blubber to the flesh of the
sea-otter, which had an unpleasant taste and was tough as
leather.[359]

In spring the sea-otters disappeared, but now there came to the
island in their stead other animals in large herds, viz sea-bears,
seals, and sea-lions. The flesh of the young sea-lion was considered
a great delicacy.[360] When the sea-otters became scarcer and more
shy and difficult to catch, the shipwrecked men found means also to
kill sea-cows, whose flesh Steller considered equal to beef. Several
barrels of their flesh were even salted to serve as provisions
during the return journey. As the land became clear of snow in the
middle of April, Waxel called together the forty-five men who
survived to a consultation regarding the steps that ought to be
taken in order to reach the mainland. Among many different
proposals, that was adopted of building a new vessel with the
materials supplied by the stranded one. The three ship-carpenters
who had been on board were dead. But fortunately there was among the
survivors a Cossack, SAVA STARODUBZOV, who had taken part as a
workman in shipbuilding at Okotsk, and now undertook to manage the
building of the new vessel. With necessity for a teacher he also
succeeded in executing his commission, so that a new _St. Peter_ was
launched on the 21st/10th August, 1742. The vessel was forty feet
long, thirteen feet beam, and six and a half feet deep, and sailed
as well as if built by an experienced master of his craft, but on
the other hand leaked seriously in a high sea. The return voyage at
all events passed successfully. On the 5th September/25th August
Kamchatka was sighted, and two days after the _St. Peter_ anchored
at Petropaulovsk, where the shipwrecked men found a storehouse with
an _abundant_ stock of provisions according to their ideas, which
probably were not pitched very high. Next year they sailed on with
their Behring-Island-built vessel to Okotsk. On then arrival there,
of the seventy-six persons who originally took part in the
expedition, thirty-two were dead. At Kamchatka they had all been
considered dead, and the effects they left behind them had been
scattered and divided. Steller voluntarily remained some time longer
in Kamchatka in order to carry on his researches in natural history.
Unfortunately he drew upon himself the ill-will of the authorities,
in consequence of the free way in which he criticised their abuses.
This led to a trial at the court at Irkutsk. He was, indeed, found
innocent, and obtained permission to travel home, but at Zolikamsk
he was overtaken by an express with orders to bring him back to
Irkutsk. On the way thither he met another express with renewed
permission to travel to Europe. But the powers of the strong and
formerly healthy man were exhausted by his hunting backwards and
forwards across the immeasurable deserts of Siberia. He died soon
after, on the 23rd/12th November, 1746, at Tjumen, only thirty-seven
years of age, of a fever by which he was attacked during the
journey.[361]

The immense quantity of valuable furs brought home by the survivors
of Behring's so unfortunate third voyage affected the fur-dealers,
Cossacks, and hunters of Siberia much in the same way as the rumour
about Eldorado or about the riches of the Casic Dobaybe did the
Spanish discoverers of middle and southern America. Numerous
expeditions were fitted out to the new land rich in furs, where
extensive territories previously unknown were made tributary to the
Czar of Russia. Most of these expeditions landed on Behring Island
during the voyage out and home, and in a short time wrought a
complete change in the fauna of the island. Thanks to Steller's
spirited sketch of the animal life he observed there, we have also
an opportunity of forming an idea of the alteration in the fauna
which man brings about in a land in which he settles.

Arctic foxes were found in incredible numbers on the island during
the wintering of the Behring expedition. They not only ate up
everything that was at all eatable that was left in the open air,
but forced their way as well by day as by night into the houses and
carried off all that they could, even such things as were of no use
whatever to them, as knives, sticks, sacks, shoes and stockings.
Even if anything had been never so well buried and loaded with
stones, they not only found the place but even pushed away the
stones with their shoulders like men. Though they could not eat what
they found, they carried it off and concealed it under stones. In
such a case some foxes stood on guard, and if a man approached all
assisted in speedily concealing the stolen article in the sand so
that no trace of it was left. When any of the men slept out of doors
at night the foxes carried off their caps and gloves, and made their
way under the covering. They nosed the noses of the sleepers to find
out whether they were dead or living, and attempted to nibble at any
who held their breath. As the female sea-lions and sea-bears often
suffocate their young during sleep, the foxes every morning made an
inspection of the place where these animals lie down in immense
herds, and if they found a dead young one they immediately helped
each other, like good scavengers, to carry away the carcase. When
men were employed out of doors they had to drive the foxes away with
sticks, and they became, in consequence of the slyness and cunning
with which they knew how to carry out their thefts and the skill
which they showed in combining to gain an end which they could not
compass as single animals, actually dangerous to the shipwrecked
men, by whom they were therefore heartily hated, pursued, tormented,
and killed. Since then thousands and thousands of foxes have been
killed on Behring Island by the fur-hunters. Now they are so scarce
that during our stay there we did not see one. Those that still
survive, besides, as the Europeans settled on the island informed
me, do not wear the precious dark blue dress formerly common but the
white, which is of little value. On the neighbouring Copper Island,
however, there are still dark blue foxes in pretty large
numbers.[362]

Nine hundred sea-otters were killed here by Steller and his
companions in 1741-42. The following quotation is taken from
Steller's description of this animal which is now so shy at the
sight of man:--

    "With respect to playfulness it surpasses every other
    animal that lives either in the sea or on the land. When it
    comes up out of the sea it shakes the water from its fur,
    and dresses it as a cat its head with its fore-paws,
    stretches its body, arranges its hair, throws its head this
    way and that, contemplating itself and its beautiful fur
    with evident satisfaction. The animal is so much taken up
    with this dressing of itself, that while thus employed it
    may easily be approached and killed. If one strikes a
    sea-otter twenty times across the back, it bears it
    patiently, but if its large beautiful tail be struck once
    it turns its head to its pursuer, as if to offer it as a
    mark for his club in place of the tail. If it eludes an
    attack it makes the most laughable gestures to the hunter.
    It looks at him, placing one foot above the head as if to
    protect it from the sunlight, throws itself on its back,
    and turning to its enemy as if in scorn scratches itself on
    the belly and thighs. The male and female are much attached
    to each other, embrace and kiss each other like men. The
    female is also very fond of its young. When attacked she
    never leaves it in the lurch, and when danger is not near
    she plays with it in a thousand ways, almost like a
    child-loving mother with her young ones, throws it
    sometimes up in the air and catches it with her fore-feet
    like a ball, swims about with it in her bosom, throws it
    away now and then to let it exercise itself in the art of
    swimming, but takes it to herself with kisses and caresses
    when it is tired."

According to recent researches the _sea-otter_, sea-beaver or
Kamchatka-beaver (_Enhydris lutris_, Lin.) is a species neither of
the otter nor the beaver, but belongs to a peculiar genus, allied to
a certain extent to the walrus. Even this animal, unsurpassed in the
beauty of its skin, has been long since driven away not only from
Behring Island but also from most of the hunting-grounds where it
was commonly killed by thousands, and if an effective law be not
soon put in force to keep the hunting in bounds, and check the war
of extermination which greed now carries on against it, no longer
with clubs and darts but with powder and breechloaders, the
sea-otter will meet the same fate which has already befallen
Steller's sea-cow. Of the sea-lion (_Eumetopias Stelleri_, Lesson),
which in Steller's time were found in abundance on the shore cliffs
of Behring Island, there are now only single animals there along
with the sea-bears (_Otaria ursina_, Lin.); and finally, the most
remarkable of all the old mammalia of Behring Island, the great
sea-cow, is completely extinct.

_Steller's sea-cow_ (_Rhytina Stelleri_, Cuvier) in a way took the
place of the cloven-footed animals among the marine mammalia. The
sea-cow was of a dark-brown colour, sometimes varied with white
spots or streaks. The thick leathery skin was covered with hair
which grew together so as to form an exterior skin, which was full
of vermin and resembled the bark of an old oak. The full grown
animal was from twenty-eight to thirty-five English feet in length
and weighed about sixty-seven cwt. The head was small in proportion
to the large thick body, the neck short, the body diminishing
rapidly behind. The short fore-leg terminated abruptly without
fingers or nails, but was overgrown with a number of short thickly
placed brush-hairs, the hind-leg was replaced by a tail-fin
resembling a whale's. The animal wanted teeth, but was instead
provided with two masticating plates, one in the gum the other in
the under jaw. The udders of the female, which abounded in milk,
were placed between the fore-limbs. The flesh and milk resembled
those of horned cattle, indeed in Steller's opinion surpassed them.
The sea-cows were almost constantly employed in pasturing on the
sea-weed which grew luxuriantly on the coast, moving the head and
neck while so doing much in the same way as an ox. While they
pastured they showed great voracity, and did not allow themselves to
be disturbed in the least by the presence of man. One might even
touch them without them being frightened or disturbed. They
entertained great attachment to each other, and when one was
harpooned the others made incredible attempts to rescue it.

When Steller came to Behring Island, the sea-cows pastured along the
shore, collected like cattle into herds. The shipwrecked men, for
want of suitable implements, did not hunt them at first. It was only
after a thoughtless love of slaughter had driven all other animals
suitable for food far from their winter quarters, that they began to
devise means to catch the sea-cow also. They endeavoured to harpoon
the animal with a strong iron hook made for the purpose, and then
drag it to land. The first attempt was made on the 1st June/21st May
1742, but it was unsuccessful. It was not until after many renewed
attempts that they at last succeeded in killing and catching a
number of animals, and dragging them at high water so near land that
they were dry at ebb. They were so heavy that forty men were
required to do this, we may conclude from these particulars that the
number of sea-cows killed during the first wintering on Behring
Island was not very large. For the first one was killed only six
weeks before the shipwrecked men left the island, and the hunting
thus fell at a time when they could leave the building of the vessel
to occupy themselves in that way only in case of necessity. Besides,
only two animals were required to yield flesh-food to all the men
for the period in question.

It is remarkable that the sea-cow is so mentioned by later
travellers only in passing, that this large animal, still hunted by
Europeans in the time of Linnæus, would scarcely have been
registered in the system of the naturalist if Steller had not
wintered on Behring Island. What Krascheninnikov says of the sea-cow
is wholly borrowed from Steller, and in the same way _nearly all_
the statements of later naturalists as to its occurrence and mode of
life. That this is actually the case is shown by the following
abstract, _complete_ as far as I know, of what is said of the
sea-cow in the only original account of the first hunting voyages of
the Russians to the Aleutian Islands, which was published at Hamburg
and Leipzig in 1776 with the title, _Neue, Nachrichten von denen
neuentdeckten Insuln in der See zwischen Asien und Amerika, aus
mitgetheilten Urkunden und Auszügen verfasset von J.L.S._**
(Scherer).[363] In this book the sea-cow is mentioned at the
following places:--

    "Ivan Krassilnikoff's vessel started first in 1754 and
    arrived on the 8th October at Behring Island, where all the
    vessels fitted out for hunting the sea-otter on the remote
    islands are wont to pass the winter, in order to provide
    themselves with a sufficient stock of the flesh of the
    sea-cow" (_loc. cit._ p. 38).

    "The autumn storms, or rather the wish to take on board a
    stock of provisions, compelled them (a number of hunters
    sent out by the merchant Tolstyk under command of the
    Cossack Obeuchov) to touch at Commander's Island (Behring
    Island) where, during the winter up to the 24th/13th June,
    1757, they obtained nothing else than sea-cows, sea-lions,
    and large seals. They found no sea-otters this year."
    (_ibid_ p. 40).

    "They (a Russian hunting vessel under Studenzov in 1758)
    landed on Behring Island to kill sea-cows, as all vessels
    are accustomed to do." (_ibid_ p. 45).

    "After Korovin in 1762 (on Behring Island) had provided
    himself with a sufficient stock of the flesh and hides of
    the sea-cow for his boats.... he sailed on" (_ibid_ p. 82).

In 1772 DMITRI BRAGIN wintered on Behring Island during a hunting
voyage. In a journal kept at the request of Pallas, the large marine
animals occurring on the island are enumerated, but not a word is
said about the sea-cow (PALLAS, _Neue nordische Beyträge_, ii. p.
310).

SCHELECHOV passed the winter 1783-84 on Behring Island, but during
the whole time he only succeeded in killing some white foxes, and in
the narrative of the voyage there is not a word about the sea-cow
(GRIGORI SCHELECHOV _russischen Kaufmanns erste und zweite Reise_,
&c., St. Petersburg, 1793).

Some further accounts of the sea-cow have been obtained through the
mining engineer PET. JAKOVLEV, who visited Commander's Islands in
1755 in order to investigate the occurrence of copper on Copper
Island. In the account of this voyage which he gave to Pallas there
is not indeed one word about the sea-cow, but in 1867 PEKARSKI
published in the _Memoirs_ of the Petersburg Academy some extracts
from Jakovlev's journal, from which it appears that the sea-cow
already in his time was driven away from Copper Island. Jakovlev on
this account on the 27th November, 1755, laid a petition before the
authorities on Kamchatka, for having the hunting of the sea-cow
placed under restraint of law and the extermination of the animal
thus prevented, a thoughtful act honourable to its author, which
certainly ought to serve as a pattern in our times (J. FR. BRANDT,
_Symbolæ Sirenologicæ, Mém. de l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg_, t.
xii. No. 1, 1861-68, p. 295).

In his account of Behring's voyage (1785-94) published in 1802,
Sauer says, p. 181: "Sea-cows were very common on Kamchatka and the
Aleutian Islands,[364] when they were first discovered, but the last
was killed on Behring Island in 1768, and none has been seen since
then."

On the ground of the writings of which I have given an account
above, and of various pieces of information collected during this
century from the Russian authorities in the region, by the skilful
conservator WOSNESSENSKI, the academicians von Baer and Brandt[365]
came to the conclusion that the sea-cow had scarcely been seen by
Europeans before the 19th/8th November, 1741, when Steller, the day
after his landing on Behring Island for the first time saw some
strange animals pasturing with their heads under water on the shores
of the island; and that the animal twenty-seven years afterwards, or
in 1768, was completely exterminated The latter statement however is
undoubtedly incorrect; for, in the course of the many inquiries I
made of the natives, I obtained distinct information that living
sea-cows had been seen much later. A _creole_ (that is, the
offspring of a Russian and an Aleutian), who was sixty-seven years
of age, of intelligent appearance and in the full possession of his
mental faculties, stated "that his father died in 1847 at the age of
eighty-eight. He had come from Volhynia, his native place, to
Behring Island at the age of eighteen, accordingly in 1777. The two
or three first years of his stay there, _i.e._ till 1779 or 1780,
sea-cows were still being killed as they pastured on sea-weed. The
heart only was eaten, and the hide used for _baydars_.[366] In
consequence of its thickness the hide was split in two, and the two
pieces thus obtained had gone to make a _baydar_ twenty feet long,
seven and a half feet broad, and three feet deep. After that time no
sea-cows had been killed."

There is evidence, however, that a sea-cow had been seen at the
island still later. Two _creoles_, Feodor Mertchenin and Stepnoff,
stated, that about twenty-five years ago at Tolstoj-mys, on the east
side of the island, they had seen an animal unknown to them which
was very thick before, but grew smaller behind, had small fore-feet,
and appeared with a length of about fifteen feet above water, now
raising itself up, now lowering itself. The animal "blew," not
through blowholes, but through the mouth, which was somewhat drawn
out. It was brown in colour with some lighter spots. A back fin was
wanting, but when the animal raised itself it was possible, on
account of its great leanness, to see its backbone projecting. I
instituted a through examination of both my informants. Their
accounts agreed completely, and appeared to have claims to be
regarded as trustworthy. That the animal which they saw was actually
a sea-cow, is clearly proved both by the description of the animal's
form and way of pasturing in the water, and by the account of the
way in which it breathed, its colour, and leanness. In _Aüsfurliche
Beschreibung von sonderbaren Meerthieren_, Steller says, p. 97,
"While they pasture, they raise every fourth or fifth minute their
nose from the water in order to blow out air and a little water;" p.
98, "During winter they are so lean that it is possible to count
their vertebræ and ribs;" and p. 54, "Some sea-cows have pretty
large white spots and streaks, so that they have a spotted
appearance." As these natives had no knowledge of Steller's
description of the animal, it is impossible that their statement can
be false. The death-year of the Rhytina race must therefore be
altered at least to 1854. With reference to this point it may be
remarked that many circumstances indicate that the Rhytina herds
were rather driven away from the rich pastures on Behring Island
than exterminated there, and that the species became extinct because
in their new haunt they were unable to maintain the struggle for
existence. The form of the sea-cow, varying from that of most recent
animals, besides indicates that, like the long-tailed duck on
Iceland, the dront on Mauritius, and the large ostrich-like birds on
New Zealand, it was the last representative of an animal group
destined to extinction.

Mr. OSCHE, one of the Alaska Company's skin inspectors, a native of
Liffland and at present settled on Copper Island, informed me that
the bones of the sea-cow also occurred on the western side of that
island. On the other hand, such bones are said not to be found on
the small island described farther on lying off the colony on
Behring Island, although Rhytina bones are common on the
neighbouring shores of the main island.

This is the scanty information I have been able to collect from the
natives and others resident in the quarter regarding the animal in
question. On the other hand, my endeavours to procure Rhytina bones
were crowned with greater success, and I succeeded in actually
bringing together a very large and fine collection of skeleton
fragments.

When I first made the acquaintance of Europeans on the island, they
told me that there was little probability of finding anything of
value in this respect, for the company had offered 150 roubles for a
skeleton without success. But before I had been many hours on land,
I came to know that large or small collections of bones were to be
found here and there in the huts of the natives. These I purchased,
intentionally paying for them such a price that the seller was more
than satisfied and his neighbours were a little envious. A great
part of the male population now began to search for bones very
eagerly, and in this way I collected such a quantity that twenty-one
casks, large boxes, or barrels were filled with Rhytina bones; among
which were three very fine, complete skulls, and others more or less
damaged, several considerable collections of bones from the same
skeleton, &c.

[Illustration: SKELETON OF RHYTINA SHOWN AT THE 'VEGA' EXHIBITION AT
THE ROYAL PALACE STOCKHOLM. (After a photograph.) ]

[Illustration: ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF THE RHYTINA.
1. Drawing in an old map of the Behring Sea, found by Middendorff
   (_Sibir. Reise_ iv. 2 p. 839).
2. Sketch by Steller, given to Pallas
   (Pallas, Icones ad zoographiam _Rosso-Asiaticam_, Fasc. ii.) ]

The Rhytina bones do not lie at the level of the sea, but upon a
strand-bank thickly overgrown with luxuriant grass, at a height of
two or three metres above it. They are commonly covered with a layer
of earth and gravel from thirty to fifty centimetres in thickness.
In order to find them, as it would be too troublesome to dig the
whole of the grassy bank, one must examine the ground with a pointed
iron rod, a bayonet, or some such tool. One soon learns to
distinguish, by the resistance and nature of the sound, whether the
rod stuck into the ground has come into contact with a stone, a
piece of wood, or a fragment of bone. The ribs are used by the
natives, on account of their hard ivory-like structure, for shoeing
the runners of the sledges or for carvings. They have accordingly
been already used up on a large scale, and are more uncommon than
other bones. The finger-bone, which perhaps originally was
cartilaginous, appears in most cases to be quite destroyed, as well
as the outermost vertebræ of the tail. I could not obtain any such
bones, though I specially urged the natives to get me the smaller
bones too and promised to pay a high price for them.

[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED FORM OF THE SEA-COW. After J. Fr. Brandt
(_Symbolæ Sirenologicæ_, Fasc. iii. p. 282). ]

The only large animal which is still found on Behring Island in
perhaps as large numbers as in Steller's time is the _sea-bear_.
Even it had already diminished so that the year's catch was
inconsiderable,[367] when in 1871 a single company obtained for a
payment to the Russian crown, if I recollect right, of two roubles
for every animal killed, and exclusive right to the hunting, which
was accordingly arranged in a more purposelike way. At certain times
of the year the killing of the sea-bear is wholly prohibited. The
number of the animals to be killed is settled beforehand, quite in
the same way as the farmer at the time of killing in autumn is wont
to do with his herd of cattle. Females and young are only killed
exceptionally. Even the married males, or more correctly the males
that can get themselves a harem and can defend it, commonly escape
being killed, if not for any other reason, because the skin is too
often torn and tattered and the hair pulled out. It is thus the
bachelors that have to yield up their skins.

That a wild animal may be slaughtered in so orderly a way, depends on
its peculiar mode of life.[368] For the sea-bears are found year after
year during summer at certain points projecting into the sea
(rookeries), where, collected in hundreds of thousands, they pass
several months without the least food. The males (oxen) come first to
the place, most of them in the month of May or at the beginning of June.
Combats of excessive violence, often with a deadly issue for one of the
parties, now arise regarding the space of about a hundred square feet,
which each seal-ox considers necessary for its home. The strongest and
most successful in fight retain the best places near the shore, the
weaker have to crawl farther up on land, where the expectation of
getting a sufficient number of spouses is not particularly great. The
fighting goes on with many feigned attacks and parades. At first the
contest concerns the proprietorship of the soil. The attacked therefore
never follows its opponent beyond the area it has once taken up, but
haughtily lays itself down, when the enemy has retired, in order in the
aims of sleep to collect forces for a new combat. The animal in such a
case grunts with satisfaction, throws itself on its back, scratches
itself with its fore-feet, looks after its toilet, or cools itself by
slowly fanning with one of its hind-feet, but it is always on the alert
and ready for a new fight until it is tired out and meets its match, and
is driven by it farther up from the beach. One of the most peculiar
traits of these animals is that during their stay on land they
unceasingly use their hind-paws as fans, and sometimes also as parasols.
Such fans may on a warm day be in motion at the same time by the hundred
thousand at a "rookery."

[Illustration: SEA-BEARS Male, Female, and Young. (From a water colour
painting by H.W. Elliott.) ]

In the middle of June the females come up from the sea. At the
water's edge they are received in a very accommodating way by some
strong oxen that have succeeded in securing for themselves places
next the shore, and now are bent by fair means or foul on annexing
the fair for their harem. But scarcely is the female that has come
up out of the water established with seal-ox No. 1, when this ox
rushes towards a new beauty on the surface of the water. Seal-ox No.
2 now stretches out his neck and without ceremony lays hold of No.
1's spouse, to be afterwards exposed to a repetition of the trick by
No. 3. In such cases the females are quite passive, never fall out
with each other, and bear with patience the severe wounds they often
get when they are pulled about by the combatants, now in one
direction, now in another. All the females are finally distributed
in this way after furious combats among the males, those of the
latter who are nearest the beach getting from twelve to fifteen
consorts to their share. Those that have been compelled to settle
farther from the shore must be content with four or five. Soon after
the landing of the females they bring forth their young, which are
treated with great indifference and are protected by the adopted
father only within the boundaries of the harem. Next comes the
pairing season, and when it has passed there is an end to the
arrangement and distribution into families at first so strictly
maintained. The seal-oxen, rendered lean by three months absolute
fasting, by degrees leave the "rookery," which is taken possession
of by the sea-cows, the young, and a number of young males, that
have not ventured to the place before. In the middle of September,
when the young have learned to swim, the place is quite abandoned,
with the exception of single animals that have remained behind for
one reason or other. In long continued heavy rain many of the
animals besides seek protection in the sea, but return when the rain
ceases. Continuous heat and sunshine besides exert the same
influence, cold, moist air, with mist-concealed sun, on the other
hand draw them up on land by thousands.

Males under six years of age cannot, like the older males, possess
themselves, by fighting, of spouses and a home of their own. They
therefore collect, along with young females, in herds of several
thousand to several hundred thousand, on the shores between the
rookeries proper, some of them close packed next the water's edge,
others scattered in small flocks a little farther from the shore on
the grass, where they by turns play with each other with a
frolicsomeness like that of young dogs, by turns he down to sleep at
a common signal in all conceivable positions.

[Illustration: "SEAL ROOKERY" ON ST. PAUL'S ISLAND, ONE OF THE
PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. (After a drawing by H.W. Elliott.) ]

It is these unfortunate useless bachelors which at the properly
managed hunting stations yield the contingent for slaughter. For
this purpose they are driven by the natives from the shore slowly,
about a kilometre an hour, and with frequent rests, to the place of
slaughter, situated a kilometre or two from the shore. Then the
females and the young ones are driven away, as well as the males
whose skins are unserviceable. The rest are first stunned with a
blow on the head, and afterwards stabbed with a knife.

While the _Vega_ steamed down towards Behring Island we met, already
far from land, herds of sea-bears, which followed the vessel from
curiosity for long stretches. Being unacquainted with the sea-bear's
mode of life, I believed from this circumstance that they had
already left their summer haunts, but on our arrival at the colony I
was informed that this was not the case, but that a very great
number of animals still remained at the rookery on the north-eastern
point of the island. Naturally one of our first excursions was to
this place, situated about twenty kilometres from the village. Such
a journey cannot now be undertaken alone and unattended, because
even an involuntary want of caution might easily cause much economic
loss to the natives, and to the company that owns the right of
hunting. During the journey we were accordingly accompanied by the
chief of the village, a black-haired stammering Aleutian, and "the
Cossack," a young, pleasant, and agreeable fellow, who on solemn
occasions wore a sabre nearly as long as himself, but besides did
not in the least correspond to the Cossack type of the writers of
novels and plays.

The journey was performed in large sledges drawn by ten dogs over
snow-free rounded hills and hill-plateaus covered with a rather
scanty vegetation, and through valleys treeless as the mountains,
but adorned with luxuriant vegetation, rich in splendid lilies,
syngenesia, umbellifera, &c. The journey was sometimes tedious
enough, but we now and then went at a whistling rate, especially
when the dog-team descended the steep mountain slopes, or went
through the morasses and the clay puddles formed in the constantly
used way. The driver was bespattered from top to toe with a thick
layer of mud, an inconvenience attending the unusual team, which was
foreseen before our departure from the colony, in consequence of
which our friends there urged that, notwithstanding the fine
weather, we should all take overcoats. The dog-team was kept pretty
far from the shore in order not to frighten the seals, and then we
went on foot to the place where the sea-bears were, choosing our way
so that we had the wind in our faces. We could in this way, without
disturbing them, come very near the animals, which, according to the
undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated statement made to us on the spot,
were collected at the time to the number of 200,000, on the
promontory and the neighbouring shores. We obtained permission to
creep, accompanied by our guide, close to a herd lying a little
apart. The older animals became at first somewhat uneasy when they
observed our approach, but they soon settled down completely,
and we had now the pleasure of beholding a peculiar spectacle.
We were the only spectators. The scene consisted of a beach
covered with stones and washed by foaming breakers, the background
of the immeasurable ocean, and the actors of thousands of
wonderfully-formed animals. A number of old males lay still and
motionless, heedless of what was going on around them. Others
crept clumsily on their small short legs between the stones of
the beach, or swam with incredible agility among the breakers,
played, caressed each other, and quarrelled. At one place two
old animals fought, uttering a peculiar hissing sound, and in
such a way as if the attack and defence had been carried out in
studied attitudes. At another place a feigned combat was going
on between an old and a young animal. It looked as if the latter
was being instructed in the art of fighting. Everywhere the small
black young ones crept constantly backwards and forwards among the
old sea-bears, now and then bleating like lambs calling on their
mothers. The young ones are often smothered by the old, when the
latter, frightened in some way, rush out into the sea. After such
an alarm hundreds of dead young are found on the shore.

[Illustration: SLAUGHTER OF SEA-BEARS. (After a drawing by H.W.
Elliott.) ]

[Illustration: SEA-BEARS ON THEIR WAY TO THE "ROOKERIES."
(After a drawing by H.W. Elliott.) ]

"Only" thirteen thousand animals had been killed that year. Their
flayed carcases lay heaped on the grass by the shore, spreading far
and wide a disagreeable smell, which, however, had not frightened
away their comrades lying on the neighbouring promontory, because,
even among them, a similar smell prevailed in consequence of the
many animals suffocated or killed in fight with their comrades, and
left lying on the shore.[369] Among this great flock of sea-bears
sat enthroned on the top of a high stone a single sea-lion, the only
one of these animals we saw during our voyage.

For a payment of forty roubles I induced the chief of the village to
skeletonise four of the half putrefied carcases of the sea-bear left
lying on the grass, and I afterwards obtained, by the good-will of
the Russian authorities, and without any payment, six animals, among
them two living young, for stuffing. Even the latter we were
compelled to kill, after in vain attempting to induce them to take
some food. One of them was brought home in spirits for anatomical
examination.

The part of Behring Island which we saw forms a high plain resting
on volcanic rocks,[370] which, however, is interrupted at many
places by deep kettle valleys, the bottoms of which are generally
occupied by lakes which communicate with the sea by large or small
rivers. The banks of the lakes and the slopes of the hills are
covered with a luxuriant vegetation, rich in long grass and
beautiful flowers, among them an iris cultivated in our gardens, the
useful dark reddish-brown Sarana lily, several orchids, two species
of rhododendron with large flowers, umbellifera as high as a man,
sunflower-like synanthea, &c. Quite another nature prevailed on the
island lying off the haven, regarding which Dr. Kjellman and Dr.
Stuxberg make the following statements:--

    "Toporkoff Island is formed of an eruptive rock, which
    everywhere rises along the shore some scores of feet from
    high-water mark, in the form of steep cracked walls from
    five to fifteen metres in height, which is different at
    different places. Above these steep rock-walls the surface
    of the island forms an even plain; what lies below them
    forms a gently sloping beach.

    "This gently sloping beach consists of two well-marked
    belts; an outer devoid of all vegetation, an inner
    overgrown with _Ammadenia peploides, Elymus mollis_, and
    two species of umbellifera, _Heracleum sibiricum_, and
    _Angelica archangelica_, the two last forming an almost
    impenetrable thicket fifty metres broad and as high as a
    man, along the slope. The steep rock-walls are coloured
    yellow at some places by lichens, mostly _Calopaca murorum_
    and _Cal. crenulata_; at other places they are covered
    pretty closely with _Cochlearia fenestrata_. The uppermost
    level plain is covered with a close and luxuriant turf,
    over which single stalks of the two species of umbellifera
    named above raise themselves here and there. The vegetation
    on this little island unites a very uncommon poverty in
    species with a high degree of luxuriance.

    "Of the higher animals we saw only four kinds of birds, viz
    _Fratercula cirrhata_, a black guillemot (_Una grylle_ var.
    _columba_), a species of cormorant (Phalocrocorax) and a
    sort of gull (Larus). _Fratercula cirrhata_ lived here by
    millions. They haunted the upper plain, where they had
    everywhere excavated short, deep, and uncommonly broad
    passages to sleep in, provided with two openings. From
    these on our arrival they flew in large flocks to the
    neighbouring sea and back. Their number was nearly equal to
    that of looms in the Arctic loomeries. The black guillemots
    and cormorants kept to the cliffs near the shore.

    "The number of the evertebrate land animals amounted to
    about thirty species. The most numerous were Machilis,
    Vitrina, Lithobius, Talitrus, some Diptera and beetles.
    They all lived on the inner belt of the shore, where the
    ground was uncommonly damp."

Behring Island might without difficulty feed large herds of cattle,
perhaps as numerous as the herds of sea-cows that formerly pastured
on its shores. The sea-cow besides had chosen its pasture with
discrimination, the sea there being, according to Dr. Kjellman, one
of the richest in algæ in the world. The sea-bottom is covered at
favourably situated places by forests of seaweed from twenty to
thirty metres high, which are so dense that the dredge could with
difficulty force its way down into them, a circumstance which was
much against the dredging. Certain of the algæ are used by the
natives as food.

In the course of our journey to the hunting place we had an
opportunity, during a rest about halfway between it and the village,
of taking part in a very peculiar sort of fishing. The place where
we rested was in an even grassy plain, resembling a natural meadow
at home, crossed by a large number of small rivulets. They abounded
in several different kinds of fish, among them a Coregonus, a small
trout, a middle-sized long salmon with almost white flesh, though
the colour of its skin was a purplish-red, another salmon of about
the same length, but thick and hump-backed. These fish were easily
caught. They were taken with the hand, were harpooned with common
unshod sticks, were stabbed with knives, caught with the insect net,
&c. Other kinds of salmon with deep red flesh are to be found in the
large rivers of the island. We obtained here for a trifle a welcome
change from the preserved provisions of which we had long ago become
quite tired. The Expedition was also presented by the Alaska Company
with a fine fat ox, milk, and various other provisions, and I cannot
sufficiently value the goodwill shown to us not only by the Russian
official, N GREBNITSKI, a zealous and skilful naturalist, but also
by the officials of the Alaska Company and all others living on the
island with whom we came into contact.

[Illustration: ALGA FROM THE SHORE OF BEHRING ISLAND.
_Thalassiophyllum Clathrus_ Post. and Rupr.
One-fourth of the natural size. ]

It was my original intention to sail from Behring Island to
Petiopaulovsk, in order from thence to put a stop to the
undertakings which were possibly in contemplation for our relief.
This however became unnecessary, because a steamer, which was to
start for Petropaulovsk as soon as its cargo was on board, had
anchored by the side of the _Vega_ two days after our arrival. The
steamer belonged to the Alaska Company, was named the _Alexander_,
was commanded by Captain SANDMAN, and was manned almost exclusively
by Swedes, Danes, Fins, and Norwegians[371]. We found on the
_Alexander_ two naturalists, Dr. BENEDIKT DYBOVSKI and Dr. JULIAN
WIEMUT. The former is a Pole exiled to Siberia but now pardoned,
whose masterly zoological works are among the best contributions
which have been made during recent decades to our knowledge of the
natural conditions of Siberia. His researches have hitherto mainly
concerned the Baikal region. Now he wishes to extend them to
Kamchatka, and has therefore voluntarily taken a physician's post at
Petropaulovsk. Science has reason to expect very rich results from
his work and that of his companions in one of the most interesting,
most mis-known, and least known lands of the north.

The _Vega_ left Behring Island on the afternoon of the 19th August, and
anchored at Yokohama on the evening of the 2nd September. The first part
of the passage, while we were still in the cold northerly Polar Sea
current, was favoured by fair winds and moderate heat. The surface
temperature of the sea was from +9° to +10°. On the 25th August in 45°
15' N.L. and 156° E.L. from Greenwich the temperature of the sea-water
began to rise so rapidly that the thermometer in 40° Lat. and 147° 41'
Long already showed +23.4° at the surface. This indicated that we had
come from the cold current favourable to us into Kuro-sivo, the Gulf
Stream of the Pacific. The wind was now at times unfavourable and the
heat oppressive, notwithstanding the frequent rain showers accompanied
by lightning and heavy squalls. In such unfavourable weather on the 31st
August the mainmast of the _Vega_ was struck by lightning, the flash and
the report being of excessive violence. The vane was broken loose and
thrown into the sea along with some inches of the pole. The pole itself
was split pretty far down, and all on board felt a more or less violent
shaking, the man who felt it most standing at the time near the
hawse-hole. The incident was not attended by any further noteworthy
unpleasant consequences.

On our arrival at Yokohama we were all in good health and the _Vega_
in excellent condition, though, after the long voyage, in want of
some minor repairs, of docking, and possibly of coppering. Naturally
among thirty men some mild attacks of illness could not be avoided
in the course of a year, but no disease had been generally
prevalent, and our state of health had constantly been excellent. Of
scurvy we had not seen a trace.


[Footnote 356: In February 1871 the right of hunting on these islands
was granted by the Russian government to Hutchinson, Kohl,
Philippeus &c. Co., who have made over their rights to the Alaska
Commercial Company of San Francisco. ]

[Footnote 357: According to a communication made to me by Mr. Henry
W. Elliot, who, in order to study the fur-bearing seals in the North
Behring Sea, lived a considerable time at the Seal Islands
(Pribylov's Islands, &c.) on the American side, and has given an
exceedingly interesting account of the animal life there in his
work, _A Report upon the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of
Alaska_, Washington, 1875, the statement in my report to Dr.
Dickson, founded on oral communications of Europeans whom I met with
at Behring Island, that from 50,000 to 100,000 animals are killed
yearly at Behring and Copper Island, is thus probably somewhat
exaggerated. ]

[Footnote 358: Original accounts of the wintering on Behring Island
are to be found in Müller's _Sammlung Russischen Geschichte_, St
Petersburg, 1768, iii, pp. 228-238 and 242-268, (Steller's)
_Topographische und physikalische Beschreibung der Beringsinsel_
(Pallas' _Neue Nordische Beyträge_, St. Petersburg and Leipzig,
1781-83, ii. p. 225), G.W. Steller's _Tagebuch seiner Seereise aus
dem Petripauls Hafen. . . und seiner Begebenheiten auf der
Rückreise_ (Pallas' _Neueste Nordische Beyträge_, St. Petersburg and
Leipzig, 1793-96, i. p. 130; ii. p. 1). ]

[Footnote 359: According to Müller, whose statements (based on
communications by Waxel?) often differ from those of Steller. The
latter says that the flesh of the sea-otter is better than that of
the seal, and a good antidote to scurvy. The flesh of the young
sea-otter might even compete with lamb as a delicacy. ]

[Footnote 360: To judge by what is stated in Steller's description
of Behring Island (_Neue nord. Beytr._, ii, p. 290) no one would
have dared to attack "diese grimmigen Thiere," and the only sea-lion
eaten during the winter was an animal wounded at Kamchatka and
thrown up dead on the coast of Behring Island. The fin-like feet
were the most delicate part of the sea-lion. ]

[Footnote 361: According to Müller's official report, probably
written for the purpose of refuting the rumours regarding Steller's
fate current in the scientific circles of Europe. According to the
biography prefixed to Georg Wilhelm Steller's _Beschreibung von dem
Lande Kamtschatka, herausgegeben von J.B.S._ (Scheerer), Frankfurt
and Leipzig, 1774, Steller had in 1745 begun his return to St.
Petersburg, and was already beyond Novgorod, when he received orders
to appear before the court at Irkutsk. After a year he obtained
permission to travel to St. Petersburg, but when he came to the
neighbourhood of Moscow, he received a new order to return, and for
farther security he was placed under a guard. They had travelled a
good way into Siberia, when he froze to death while the guard went
into a public-house to warm themselves and quench their thirst. ]

[Footnote 362: As early as Schelechov's wintering at 1783-84 the
foxes on Behring Island were principally white. During Steller's
wintering, over a third of the foxes on the island had a bluish fur
(_Neue nord. Beytr._, ii, p. 277). In the year 1747-48 a fur hunter,
Cholodilov, caught on Behring Island 1,481 blue foxes and 350
sea-otters, and the following year another hunter returned with over
a thousand sea otters and two thousand blue foxes, which probably
were also caught on Behring and Copper Islands (_Neue Nachrichten
von denen neuentdeckten Insuln_, Hamburg u Leipzig, 1766, p. 20). In
the year 1751-53 Jugov caught on the same island 790 sea-otters,
6,844 black and 200 white foxes, and 2,212 sea-bears (_loc. cit._ p.
22). In 1752-53 the crew of a vessel belonging to the Irkutsk
merchant, Nikifor Trapeznikoff, caught on Behring Island 5
sea-otters, 1,222 foxes (colour not stated), and 2,500 sea-bears
(_loc. cit._ p. 32). It thus appears as if the eager hunting had an
influence not only on the number of the animals but also on their
colour, the variety in greatest demand becoming also _relatively_
less common than before. ]

[Footnote 363: From this little work, compiled from the original
journals (Cf. Coxe, _Russian Discoveries_, 1780, p. vi.) we see that
the undaunted courage and the resolution which, matched with other
qualities not so praiseworthy, distinguished the _Promyschlenni_
during their expeditions of exploration, tribute-collecting, and
plunder from the Ob to Kamchatka, did not fail them in the attempt
to force their way across the sea to America. It happens yearly that
a ship's crew save themselves from destruction in the most
extraordinary craft, for necessity has no law. But it is perhaps not
so common that an exploring expedition, wrecked on an uninhabited
treeless island, builds for itself of fragments from its own vessel,
indeed even of driftwood, a new one in order to sail out on the
ocean to discover new fishing-grounds or new wild tribes, willing to
pay "jassak" to the adventurers. This however happened very
frequently during the Russian voyages of discovery and hunting to
the Aleutian Islands from 1745 to 1770, and it was remarkable that
the craft built in this way were used for years, even after the
return from the first voyage. ]

[Footnote 364: The sea-cow does not appear to have ever occurred on
the Aleutian Islands; on the other hand, according to Steller, dead
sea-cows have sometimes been cast ashore on Kamchatka, where they
even obtained from the Russians a peculiar name _kapustnik_, derived
from the large quantity of sea-weed found in their stomach. It
appears to me that this name, specially distinctive of a
graminivorous animal, appeals to indicate that on the first arrival
of the Russians at Kamchatka the sea-cow actually visited
occasionally the coasts of that peninsula. It is probable that in
former times the sea-cow was to be met with as far south as the
north part of Japan. Some scientific men have even conjectured that
the animal may have occurred north of Behring's Straits. This
however is improbable. Among the mass of subfossil bones of marine
animals which we examined at Pitlekaj the bones of the sea-cow did
not appear to be present. ]

[Footnote 365: Von Baer's and Brandt's numerous writings on the
sea-cow are to be found in the publications of the St. Petersburg
Academy. ]

[Footnote 366: That the hide of the sea-cow was used for _baydars_
is evident from the short extract given from Korovin's voyage. On
hearing this "creole's" account I inquired whether there were not
to be found remaining on the island any very old sea-cow skins that
had been used for _baydars_, but the answer unfortunately was in the
negative. ]

[Footnote 367: The number of these animals killed on Behring Island
is shown by the following statement given me by Mr. Henry. W.
Elliot:

In the Year       In the Year         In the Year
   1867   27,500     1872   29,318       1877   21,532
   1868   12,000     1873   30,396       1878   31,340
   1869   24,000     1874   31,292       1879   42,752
   1870   24,000     1875   36,274       1880   48,504
   1871    3,614     1876   26,960


During the eighteen years from 1862 to 1880 there have thus been
shipped from Behring Island 389,462 skins. The catch on the Pribylov
Islands has been still larger. These islands were discovered in
1786, but the number of animals killed there is not known for the
first ten years; it is only known that it was enormously large. In
the years 1797-1880--that is in eighty-four years--over
three-and-a-half millions of skins have been exported from these
islands. In recent years the catch has increased so that in each of
the years from 1872 to 1880, 99,000 animals might have been killed
without inconvenience. ]

[Footnote 368: The traits here given of the sea-bear's mode of life
are mainly taken from Henry W. Elliot's work quoted above. ]

[Footnote 369: Elliott (_loc. cit._ p. 150) remarks that not a
single self-dead seal is to be found in the "rookery," where there
are so many animals that they probably die of old age in thousands.
This may be explained by the seals, when they become sick,
withdrawing to the sea, and forms another contribution to the
question of the finding of self-dead animals to which I have already
referred (vol. i. p. 322). ]

[Footnote 370: According to a statement by Mr. Giebnitski, tertiary
fossils and coal seams are also to be found on Behring Island, the
former north of the colony in the interior, the latter at the beach
south of Behring's grave. Also in the neighbourhood of the colony
the volcanic rock-masses are under-stratified by thick sandy beds. ]

[Footnote 371: The first European who welcomed us after the
completion of the North-east passage was a Fin now settled in
California, from Björkboda works in Kimito parish, in which I had
lived a great deal when a youth. He was sent by the Alaska Company
to do some work on Behring Island. As we steamed towards the
colony he rowed to meet us, and saluted us with the cry "ar det
Nordenskiöld?" ("Is it Nordenskiöld?") His name was Isak Andersson. ]



CHAPTER XVI.

    Arrival at Yokohama--A Telegram sent to Europe--The stranding
    of the steamer _A.E. Nordenskiöld_--_Fêtes_ in Japan--
    The Minister of Marine, Kawamura--Prince Kito-Shira-Kava--
    Audience of the Mikado--Graves of the Shoguns--Imperial Garden
    at Tokio--The Exhibition there--Visit to Enoshima--
    Japanese manners and customs--Thunberg and Kämpfer.


Yokohama, the first harbour, telegraph station, and commercial town
at which the _Vega_ anchored after circumnavigating the north coast
of Asia, is one of the Japanese coast cities which were opened to
the commerce of the world after the treaty between the United States
of America and Japan negotiated by Commodore PERRY.[372] At this
place there was formerly only a little fishing village, whose
inhabitants had never seen Europeans and were forbidden under severe
punishments from entering into communication or trading with the
crews of the foreign vessels that might possibly visit the coast.
The former village is now, twenty years later, changed into a town
of nearly 70,000 inhabitants, and consists not only of Japanese, but
also of very fine European houses, shops, hotels, &c. It is also the
residence of the governor of Kanagava _Ken_. It is in communication
by rail with the neighbouring capital Tokio, by regular weekly
steamship sailings with San Francisco on the one hand, and Hong
Kong, India, &c., on the other, and finally by telegraph not only
with the principal cities of Japan but also with all the lands that
have got entangled in the threads of the world's telegraph net.

The situation of the town on the western shore of the Yedo or Tokio
Bay, which is perhaps rather large for a haven, is not particularly
fine. But on sailing in we see in the west, if the weather be fine,
Fusiyama's snow-clad, incomparably beautiful volcanic cone raise
itself from a cultivated forest-clad region. When one has seen it,
he is no longer astonished that the Japanese reproduce with such
affection on their varnished wares, porcelain, cloth, paper,
sword-ornaments, &c., the form of their highest, stateliest, and also
grimmest mountain. For the number of the men who have perished by
its eruptions is reckoned by hundreds of thousands, and if tradition
speaks truth the whole mountain in a far distant antiquity was
formed in a single night. Before we enter Yedo Bay we pass a
volcano, active during last year, situated on the volcanic island
Oshima, known in Japanese history as the place of exile of several
of the heroes in the many internal struggles of the country.

While we sailed, or more correctly, steamed--for we had still
sufficient coal remaining to permit the engine to be used--up the
Bay of Yedo, the coasts were for the most part concealed with mist,
so that the summit of Fusiyama and the contours of the shore only
now and then gleamed forth from the fog and cloud. The wind besides
was against us, on which account it was 9.30 in the evening of the
2nd September before we could anchor in the haven that had been
longed-for for such a length of time. I immediately hastened on
land, along with Captain Palander, in order to send home a telegram
across Siberia about the fortunate issue of the voyage of the
_Vega_. At the telegraph station I was informed that the Siberian
line was interrupted by inundations for a space of 600 versts, and
that the telegram must therefore be sent by India, whereby the cost
was nearly doubled. The telegraph officials also made difficulties
about taking the foreign gold coin of various kinds which I had
about me. Fortunately the latter difficulty was immediately removed
by the accidental presence of the Russian consul, Mr. PELIKAN, while
I was treating with the telegraph officials. When he heard that it
concerned the sending home of a telegram from the much-talked-of
_Vega_ expedition, he immediately offered to arrange the affair
until I had time to operate on the letter of credit I carried with
me from Messrs. James Dickson &c. Co. of Gothenburg. Soon after I met
with the Swedish consul, Mr. VAN OORDT, who gave us a large parcel
of letters from home. It was very gladly received by most of us, as,
so far as I know, it did not bring the thirty members of the
expedition a single unexpected sorrowful message. I got, however,
soon after landing, an unpleasant piece of news, viz that the
steamer _A.E. Nordenskiöld_, which Mr. Sibiriakoff had sent to
Behring's Straits and the Lena to our relief, had stranded on the
east coast of Yesso. The shipwreck fortunately had not been attended
with any loss of human life, and the vessel lay stranded on a
sandbank in circumstances which made it probable that it would be
got off without too great cost.

As the report of our arrival spread, I was immediately waited upon
by various deputations with addresses of welcome, invitations to
_fêtes_, clubs, &c. A series of entertainments and festivities now
began, which occupied a great part of the time we remained in this
splendid and remarkable country. Perhaps a sketch of these
festivities may yield a picture of Japan during the state of
transition, which still prevails there, and which in a decade or two
will undoubtedly belong to a past and to a great extent forgotten
period, a picture which to future writers may possibly form a not
unwelcome contribution to the knowledge of the Japan that now (1879)
is. Such a sketch would however carry me too far beyond the subject
of this narrative of travel, and require too much space, on which
account I must confine myself to an enumeration of the festivities
at the head of which were public authorities, learned societies, or
clubs.

[Illustration: FUSIYAMA. ]

On the 10th September a grand dinner was given at the Grand Hotel,
the principal European hotel--and very well kept--of Yokohama, by
the Dutch minister, Chevalier VAN STOETWEGEN, who at the same time
represents Sweden and Norway in Japan.

[Illustration: THE STEAMER "A.E. NORDENSKIÖLD," STRANDED ON THE EAST
COAST OF YEZO. (After a Japanese photograph.) ]

The members of the Expedition were here introduced to several
members of the Japanese Government.

[Illustration: KAWAMURA SUMIYOSHI. Japanese Minister of Marine. ]

We were invited to a _déjeûner à la fourchette_, at one o'clock P.M.
on the 11th September, at the Imperial summer palace Hamagoten, by
Admiral KAWAMURA, minister of marine. At this entertainment there
were present, besides the scientific men and officers of the _Vega_,
and our minister, Herr van Stoetwegen, several of the ministers and
highest officials of Japan. Some of them spoke one or other of the
European languages, others only Japanese, in which case officials of
lower rank acted as interpreter these however taking no part in the
entertainment along with the other guests. It was arranged after the
European pattern, with abundance of dishes and wines. The palace
consisted of a one-stoned wooden house in the Japanese style of
construction. The rooms, to which we were admitted, were provided
with European furniture, much the same as we would expect to find in
the summer residence of a well-to-do family in Sweden. It was
remarkable that the Japanese did not take the trouble to ornament
the loom or the table to any considerable extent with the beautiful
native bronzes or porcelain, of which there is such abundance in the
country. The summer palace was surrounded by a garden which the
Japanese consider something very extraordinary, and also on a very
large scale. We should call it a small, well and originally kept
miniature park, with carefully dressed turf, wonderful dwarf trees,
miniature stone bridges, small ponds and waterfalls. The
entertainment was very pleasant, and all, from our intelligent host
to the Premier, Daiyo-daiyin, and the Imperial Prince, SANYO
SANITOMI, showed us much friendliness. The latter looked a sickly
young man, some years past twenty. He was, however, much older, and
had taken a leading part in the most important political
transactions since the opening of the ports. Our host, Admiral
Kawamura, had more the appearance of a man of science than of a
warrior. The modest exterior, however, concealed a great and noble
man. For Kawamura, as commander of the Mikado's troops, had with
special distinction brought about the suppression of the revolt
under the brave Saigo Kichinosuke, who had at the restoration of the
power of the Mikado been its heart and sword, but soon after fell
before the government he himself contributed to create, and is now,
a couple of years after, admired and sung by former friends and by
former enemies as a national hero. All the Japanese present at the
_déjeûner_ were clad in European dress--in black dress coat and
white tie. Even the interpreters and attendants wore the European
dress. The people, the lower officials, and the servants in private
houses are still clothed in the Japanese dress, but do not wear a
sword, which is now prohibited. Many of the people have even
exchanged the old troublesome Japanese dressing of the hair for the
convenient European style.

In the course of conversation after the _déjeûner_ the ministers
offered to do all they could to make our stay in the country
agreeable and instructive. Distinguished foreigners are always well
received in Japan, and we are informed that a special committee is
appointed to make arrangements for their reception. This has given
offence in certain quarters, and shortly before our arrival a
proclamation was issued by a secret society, which threatened, if no
change were made, to kill one of the ministers and one of the
foreigners who were entertained in this, in the opinion of the
secret society, extravagant way. One of my Japanese friends promised
me a copy of the proclamation, but did not keep his promise,
probably because it was impossible for the uninitiated to get hold
of the dangerous writing.

On the 13th September a grand dinner was arranged for us by the
German Club, the photographer ANDERSEN being chairman. The hall was
adorned in a festive manner with flags, and with representations of
the _Vega_ in various more or less dangerous positions among the
ice, which had been got up for the occasion, the bill of fare had
reference to the circumstances of our wintering, &c. A number of
speeches were made, the feeling was cheerful and merry.

On the 15th September there was a grand entertainment in Tokio, given by
the Tokio Geographical Society, the Asiatic Society of Japan, and the
German Asiatic Society. It was held in the great hall in Koku-Dai-Gaku,
a large stone building surrounded with beautiful trees, which were
lighted up for the occasion by a number of variegated paper lanterns.
Several Japanese ladies dressed in European style took part in the
entertainment. I sat by the side of the chairman, Prince
KITA-SHIRA-KAVA, a young member of the imperial house, who had served
some time in the German army and speaks German very well. During the
disturbances which were caused by the removal of the residence from
Kioto to Yedo (Tokio), a group of insurgents had seized the prince, then
a minor, who under the name of RINNOJINO-MIYA was chief priest in a
temple, and endeavoured to set him up in opposition to the Emperor. The
plan failed, and in consequence of the reconciliation at the end of the
conflict, which distinguished in so honourable a way the many involved
and bloody political struggles in Japan during recent years, this
adventure was attended with no other insult for him than that the former
chief priest was sent to a German military school. He was recalled
sooner than was intended because he wished to marry a European, which
was considered below the dignity of the family of the Mikado. After his
return he was declared nearest heir to the throne, in case the Mikado
should die without male heirs, and his name, KITA-SHIRA-KAVA-NO-MIYA,
was changed a second time to YOHI HISHA. The former name was at the
bottom of the speech he made for us at the dinner, and which he gave me,
and the latter, with the addition, "Prince of Japan," was on his calling
card. The dinner was quite European, with a large number of speeches,
principally in European languages, but also in Japanese. Before every
guest lay a map, of the form of a fan, with the course of the _Vega_
marked upon it. As a memorial of the feast I received some days after a
large medal in silver inlaid in gold, of which a drawing is given on
pages 306, 307. We were conveyed back to the Tokio railway station in
European equipages, in the same way as we had been brought to the
dinner. During dinner musicians from the band of the imperial navy
played European pieces of music with great skill, to the evident
satisfaction of the Japanese.

On the forenoon of the 17th September we were presented at the court
of the Mikado in Tokio by the Swedish-Dutch minister. We were
fetched from the railway station by imperial equipages, consisting
of simple but ornamental and convenient _suflett_ carriages, each
drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses of no great size. As is
common in Japan, a running groom, clad in black, accompanied each
carriage. The reception took place in the imperial palace, a very
modest wooden building. The rooms we saw were furnished, almost
poorly, in European fashion. We first assembled in an antechamber,
the only remarkable ornament of which was a large piece of nephrite,
which was a little carved and had a Chinese inscription on it. Here
we were met by some of the ministers and the interpreter. After a
short conversation, in the course of which the interpreter got a
sight of the written speech, or more correctly the words of
salutation, I was to speak, we were conducted into an inner
apartment where the Emperor, clad in a uniform of European style and
standing in front of a throne, received us. The only thing unusual
at our reception was that we were requested at our departure not to
turn our backs to the Emperor, and on entering and departing to make
three bows, one at the door, another when we had come forward a
little on the floor, and one at the place where we were to stand.
After we had been presented the Emperor read a speech in Japanese,
which was translated into French by the interpreter, and of which,
before we left the place, a beautiful copy was given me, I then read
my salutation, on which our minister, van Stoetwegen, said a few
words, and got some words in reply. After leaving the imperial
chamber, we were entertained in the anteroom with Japanese tea and
cigars. The two princes who had taken part in the entertainment of
the 15th came and talked a little with us, as did the minister of
foreign affairs. The Emperor MUTSUHITO, in whose name reforms have
been carried out in Japan to an extent to which history can scarcely
show anything equal, was born the 3rd November, 1850. He is
considered the 121st Mikado of the race of Jimmu Tenno, the members
of which have reigned uninterruptedly in Japan for nearly two
thousand years, with varying fates and with varying power--now as
wise lawgivers and mighty warriors, now for long periods as weak and
effeminate rulers, emperors only in seeming, to whom almost divine
homage was paid, but who were carefully freed from the burden of
government and from all actual power. In comparison with this race,
whose first ancestor lived during the first century after the
foundation of Rome, all the royal houses now reigning in Europe are
children of yesterday. Its present representative does not look to
be very strong. During the whole audience he stood so motionless
that he might have been taken for a wax figure, if he had not
himself read his speech. Prince Kita-Shira-Kava has the appearance
of a young lieutenant of hussars. Most of the ministers have sharply
marked features,[373] which remind one of the many furious storms
they have survived, and the many personal dangers to which they have
been exposed, partly in honourable conflict, partly through
murderers' plots. For, unfortunately, a political murder is not yet
considered in Japan an infamous crime, but the murderer openly
acknowledges his deed and takes the consequences. Repeated murderous
attempts have been made against the men of the new time. In order to
protect themselves from these, ministers, when they go out,
generally have their carriages surrounded by an armed guard on
horseback.

[Illustration: THE FIRST MEDAL WHICH WAS STRUCK AS A MEMORIAL OF THE
VOYAGE OF THE "VEGA." Size of the original. ]

[Illustration: THE FIRST MEDAL WHICH WAS STRUCK AS A MEMORIAL OF THE
VOYAGE OF THE "VEGA." Size of the original. ]

On the 18th September several of the members of the _Vega_
expedition were invited to a _déjeûner à la fourchette_ by Admiral
Kawamura, minister of marine. This entertainment had an interest for
us because we were here for the first time received into a Japanese
home. I sat at table by the side of Lady Kawamura. Even the children
were present at the entertainment. Lady Kawamura was dressed in the
Japanese fashion, tastefully but very plainly, if we except a heavy
gold chain encircling the waist. In other respects the entertainment
was arranged according to the European mode, with a succession of
dishes and wines, both in abundance, according to the laws of
gastronomy. When it was over our host offered us an airing in a
carriage, during which I rode with the lady and one of the children,
a little girl about ten years of age, who would have been very
beautiful if she had not been disfigured, in the eyes of Europeans,
by the thick white paint that was evenly spread over her whole face,
and gave it a sickly appearance. Lady Kawamura herself was not
painted, nor was she disfigured with blackened teeth. Most of the
married women of Japan are accustomed after marriage to blacken
their formerly dazzlingly white teeth, but it is to be hoped that
this unpleasant custom will soon disappear, as the women of
distinction have begun to abandon it. During this excursion we
visited, among other places, the graves of the Tycoons, the imperial
garden, and a very remarkable exhibition in the capital.

A number of the Tycoons, or, as they are more correctly called,
Shoguns, are buried in Tokio. Their place of sepulture is one of the
most remarkable memorials of Old Japan. The graves are in a temple
which is divided into several courts, surrounded by walls and
connected with each other by beautiful gates. The first of these
courts is ornamented with more than two hundred stone lanterns,
presented to the temple by the feudal princes of the country, the
name of the giver and the date at which it was given being inscribed
on each. Some of these peculiar memorials are only half-finished,
perhaps an evidence of the sudden close of the power of the Shoguns
and the feudal princes in Japan. In another of the temple courts are
to be seen lanterns of bronze, partly gilt, presented by other
feudal princes. A third court is occupied by a temple, a splendid
memorial of the old Japanese architecture, and of the antique method
of adorning their sanctuaries with wooden carvings, gilding, and
varnishing. The temple abounds in old book-rolls, bells, drums,
beautiful old lacquered articles, &c. The graves themselves lie
within a separate enclosure.

The common Japanese gardens are not beautiful according to European
taste. They are often so small that they might without inconvenience,
with trees, grottos, and waterfalls, be accommodated in a small State's
department in one of the crystal palaces of the international
exhibitions. All, passages, rocks, trees, ponds, yea, even the fishes in
the dams, are artificial or artificially changed. The trees are, by a
special art which has been very highly developed in Japan, forced to
assume the nature of dwarfs, and are besides so pruned that the whole
plant has the appearance of a dry stem on which some green clumps have
been hung up here and there. The form of the gold fish swimming in the
ponds has also been changed, so that they have often two or four
tail-fins each, and a number of growths not known in their natural
state. On the walks thick layers of pebbles are placed to keep the feet
from being dirtied, and at the doors of dwelling-houses there is nearly
always a block of granite with a cauldron-like depression excavated in
it, which is kept filled with clean water. Upon this stone cauldron is
placed a simple but clean wooden scoop, with which one can take water
out of the vessel to wash himself with.

The imperial garden in Tokio is distinguished from these miniature
gardens by its greater extent, and by the trees, at least at most
places, bearing fruit. There is here a veritable park, with
uncommonly large, splendid, and luxuriantly-growing trees.

[Illustration: STONE LANTERN AND STONE MONUMENT. In a Japanese Temple
Court. ]

The public is generally excluded from the garden. At our visit we
were entertained in one of the imperial summer-houses with Japanese
tea, sweetmeats, and cigars.

Last of all we visited the Exhibition. It had been closed for some
time back on account of cholera. We saw here a number of beautiful
specimens of Japanese art, from the flint tools and pottery of the
Stone Age to the silks, porcelain, and bronzes of the present. In no
country is there at this day such a love for exhibitions as in
Japan. There are small exhibitions in most of the large towns. Many
were exceedingly instructive; in all there were to be seen beautiful
lacquered wares, porcelain, swords, silk, cloths, &c. In one I saw a
collection of the birds and fishes of Japan, in another I discovered
some vegetable impressions, by means of which I became acquainted
with the remarkable locality for fossil plants at Mogi, of which I
shall give an account farther on.

[Illustration: JAPANESE HOUSE IN TOKIO. ]

On the evening of the 18th September I was invited by the Danish
consul, Herr BAVIER, to a boat excursion up the river which
debouches at Tokio. At its mouth it is very broad and deep, and it
branches somewhat farther up into several streams which are
navigable by the shallow boats of the Japanese. With the present
limited development of roads and railways in Japan, this river and
its tributaries form the most important channels of communication
between the capital and the interior of the country. During our row
we constantly met with boats laden with provisions on their way to,
or with goods on their way from, the town. The pleasant impression
of these and of the remarkable environs of the river is sometimes
disturbed by a bad odour coming from a passing boat, and reminding
us of the care with which the Japanese remove human excreta, the
most important manure of their well-cultivated land. Along the banks
of the river there are numerous restaurants and tea-houses. At long
intervals we see a garden on the banks, which has belonged to some
of the former Daimio palaces. The restaurants and tea-houses are
generally intended only for the Japanese; and Europeans, although
they pay many times more than the natives, are not admitted. The
reason of this is to be found in our manners, which are coarse and
uncultivated in the eyes of the natives. "The European walks with
his dirty boots on the carpets, spits on the floor, is uncivil to
the girls, &c." Thanks to the letters of introduction from natives
acquainted with the restaurant-keepers, I have been admitted to
their exclusive places, and it must be admitted that everything
there was so clean, neat, and orderly, that even the best European
restaurants cannot compare with them. When a visitor enters a
Japanese restaurant which is intended exclusively for the Japanese,
he must always take off his boots at the stair else he gets
immediately into disfavour. He is received with bended knee by the
host and all the attendants, male, but principally female, and then
he is almost always surrounded by a number of young girls constantly
laughing and chattering. These girls have commonly sold themselves
to the restaurant-keeper for a certain time, during which they carry
on a life which, according to European standards of morality, is not
very commendable. When the time fixed in the agreement has passed,
they return to their homes and marry, without having sunk in any way
in the estimation of their relatives. But those are unfortunate who,
in any of the towns that are not yet opened to foreigners, carry on
a love intrigue with a European. They are then openly pointed out,
even in the newspapers, as immoral, and their respectability is
helplessly gone. Formerly they were even in such cases severely
punished.

[Illustration: JAPANESE LADY AT HER TOILETTE. ]

All women of the lower classes, and even most of the higher, wear
the Japanese dress. The more distinguished ladies are often
exceedingly beautiful, they have in particular beautiful necks.
Unfortunately they are often disfigured by paint, for which the
ladies here appear to have a strong liking. The dress of the younger
women, even among the poor, is carefully attended to; it is not
showy but tasteful, and nearly the same for all classes. Their
manners are very attractive and agreeable. The women of the upper
classes already begin to take part in the social life of the
Europeans, and all European gentlemen and ladies with whom I have
conversed on this point agree in stating that there is no difficulty
in the way of a Japanese woman leaving the narrow circle to which
she was formerly confined, and entering with pleasure and womanly
dignity into European society. She appears to be born "a lady."

On the 20th and 21st September the Governor of Yokohama had arranged
an excursion for me, Dr. Stuxberg, and Lieut. Nordquist, to the
sacred island or peninsula Enoshima, situated at a short distance
from the town. We first travelled some English miles along the
excellent road Tokaido, one of the few highways in Japan passable in
carriages. Then we travelled in _jinrikishas_ to the famous image of
Buddha (Daibutsu) at Kamakura[374], and visited the Shinto chief
priest living in the neighbourhood and his temple.

The priest was fond of antiquities, and had a collection, not very
large indeed, but composed almost entirely of rarities. Among other
things he showed us sabres of great value, a head ornament
consisting of a single piece of nephrite which he valued at 500
_yen_,[373] a number of old bronzes, mirrors, &c. We were received
as usual with Japanese tea and sweetmeats. The priest himself took
us round his temple. No images were to be seen here, but the walls
were richly carved and ornamented with a number of drawings and
gildings. The innermost wall of the temple was fenced by heavy doors
provided with secure locks and bolts, within which "the divine
spirit dwelt," or within which "there was nothing else," as the
priest phrased it on another occasion.

Enoshima is a little rocky peninsula, which is connected with the
mainland by a low, sandy neck of land. Occasionally this neck of
land has been broken through or overflowed, and the peninsula has
then been converted into an island. It is considered sacred, and is
studded with Shinto temples. On the side of the peninsula next the
mainland there is a little village, consisting of inns, tea-houses,
and shops for pilgrims' and tourists' articles, among which are
beautiful shells, and the fine siliceous skeleton of a sponge,
_Hyalonema mirabilis_, Gray. Here I lived for the first time in a
Japanese inn of the sort to which Europeans in ordinary
circumstances are not admitted. I was accompanied by two officials
from the governor's court at Yokohama, and it was on their assurance
that I did not belong to the common sort of uncultivated and
arrogant foreigners that the host made no difficulty in receiving
us.

After we had at our entrance saluted the people of the inn and
passed some time in the exchange of civilities, there came a girl,
and, in a kneeling posture, offered the foreigners Japanese tea,
which is always handed round in very small cups only half full. Then
we took off our shoes and went into the guest-chamber. Such chambers
in the Japanese inns are commonly large and dazzlingly clean.
Furniture is completely wanting but the floor is covered with mats
of plaited straw. The walls are ornamented with songs suitable for
the place, or mottoes, and with Japanese paintings. The rooms are
separated from each other by thin movable panels, which slide in
grooves, which can be removed or replaced at will. One may,
therefore, as once happened to me, lay himself down to sleep in a
very large room, and, if he sleeps sound, awake in the morning in a
very small one. The room generally looks out on a Japanese
garden-inclosure, or if it is in the upper story, on a small
balcony. Immediately outside there is always a vessel filled with
water and a scoop. Generally on one side of the room there is a
wall-press, in which the bed-clothes are kept. Those, the only
household articles in the room, consist of a thick mat, which is
spread on the floor, a round cushion for the head, or instead of it
a wooden support, stuffed on the upper side, for the neck during
sleep, and a thick stuffed night-shirt which serves at covering.

[Illustration: A JINRIKISHA. ]

[Illustration: JAPANESE BEDROOM. ]

As soon as one comes in the female attendants distribute
four-cornered cushions for sitting on, which are placed on the floor
round a wooden box, on one corner of which stands a little brazier,
on the other a high clay vessel of uniform breadth, with water in
the bottom, which serves as a spittoon and tobacco-ash cup. At the
same time tea is brought in anew, in the small cups previously
described, with saucers, not of porcelain, but of metal. Pipes are
lighted, and a lively conversation commences. Along with the tea
sweetmeats are brought in, of which, however, some cannot be
relished by Europeans. The brazier forms the most important
household article of the Japanese. Braziers are very variable in
size and shape, but are often made in an exceedingly beautiful and
tasteful way, of cast-iron or bronze, with gilding and raised
figures. Often enough, however, they consist only of a clay crock.
The Japanese are very skilful in keeping up fire in them without the
least trace of fumes being perceptible in the room. The fuel
consists of some well-burned pieces of charcoal, which lie imbedded
in white straw-ashes, with which the fire-pan is nearly filled to
the brim. When some glowing coals are laid in such ashes they retain
their heat for hours, until they are completely consumed. In every
well-furnished house there are a number of braziers of different
sizes, and there are often four-cornered hatches in the floor, which
conceal a stone foundation intended as a base for the large brazier,
over which the food is cooked.

At meal-times all the dishes are brought in at the same time on
small lacquered tables, about half a foot high, and with a surface
of four square feet. The dishes are placed in lacquered cups, less
frequently in porcelain cups, and carried to the mouth with
chop-sticks, without the help of knife, fork, or spoon. For fear of
the fish-oils, which are used instead of butter, I never dared to
test completely the productions of the Japanese art of cookery; but
Dr. Almquist and Lieut. Nordquist, who were more unprejudiced, said
they could put up with them very well. The following _menu_ gives an
idea of what a Japanese inn of the better class has to offer:--

    Vegetable soup.
    Boiled rice, sometimes with minced fowl.
    Boiled fish or raw fish with horse-radish.
    Vegetables with fish-sauce.
    Tea.

Soy is used to the fish. The rice is brought in hot in a wooden
vessel with a lid, and is distributed in abundance, but the other
dishes in extremely small portions. After meals, especially in the
evening, the Japanese often drink warm _saki_, or rice-brandy, out
of peculiar porcelain bottles and small cups set apart for that
purpose alone.

During the meal one is commonly surrounded by a numerous _personnel_
of female attendants, squatted down on the floor, who keep up with
the guest, if he understands their language, a lively conversation,
interrupted by salvoes of hearty laughter. The girls remain while
the man undresses in the evening, and permit themselves to make
remarks on the difference of the _physique_, of the Europeans and
Japanese, which are not only, in our way of thinking, unsuitable for
young girls, but even impertinent towards the guest. The male
attendants are seldom seen, at least in the inner apartments. In the
morning one washes himself in the yard or on the balcony, and if he
wishes to avoid getting into disfavour, the guest will be careful
not to spill anything or spit on the mat.

The Japanese tobacco-pipe now in use resembles that of the Chukches,
is very small, and is smoked out in a couple of whiffs. A Japanese
smokes without stopping a score of pipes in succession.
Tobacco-smoking is now very general among high and low of both
sexes. It was introduced at the close of the sixteenth century, it
is uncertain whether from Corea or from the Portuguese possessions
in Asia, and spread with great rapidity. As among us, it here too at
first gave occasion to stringent prohibitions, and a lively exchange
of writings for and against. In a work by the learned Japanologist,
Mr. E.M. SATOW ("The Introduction of Tobacco into Japan,"
_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol vi. part i. p.
68), the following statements among others are made on this
subject:--

    "In 1609 there were in the capital two clubs whose main
    delight was to contrive quarrels with peaceful citizens.
    Upwards of fifty of the members of these clubs were
    suddenly arrested and thrown into prison; but justice was
    satisfied when four or five of the leaders were executed,
    the rest were pardoned. As these societies were originally
    smoking clubs, the tobacco-plant came by the bad behaviour
    of their members into disrepute, and its use was
    prohibited. At that time tobacco was smoked in long pipes,
    which were stuck in the belt like a sword, or carried after
    the smoker by an attendant. In 1612 a proclamation was
    published in which tobacco-smoking and all trade in tobacco
    were prohibited, under penalty of forfeiture of estate. The
    prohibition was repeated several times, with as little
    success as in Europe."

[Illustration: TOBACCO SMOKERS. Japanese drawing. ]

Mr. Satow further gives the following peculiar extracts
from a Japanese work, which enumerates the advantages and
disadvantages that are connected with tobacco-smoking:--


"_A_--ADVANTAGES.

"1. It dispels the vapours and increases the energies."

"2. It is good to produce at the beginning of a feast."

"3. It is a companion in solitude."

"4. It affords an excuse for resting now and then from
work, as if in order to take breath."

"5. It is a storehouse of reflection, and gives time for the
fumes of wrath to dispense."


"_B_--DISADVANTAGES

"1. There is a natural tendency to hit people over the head
with one's pipe in a fit of anger."[376]

"2. The pipe comes sometimes to be used for arranging the
burning charcoal in the brazier."

"3. An inveterate smoker has been known to walk about
among the dishes with his pipe in his mouth."

"4. People knock the ashes out of their pipes while still
alight and forget to extinguish the fire."

"5. Hence clothing and mats are frequently scorched by
burning tobacco ash."

"6. Smokers spit indiscriminately in braziers, foot-warmers,
and kitchen fires."

"7. Also in the crevices between the floor-mats."

"8. They rap the pipe violently on the edge of the brazier."

"9. They forget to have the ash-pot emptied till it is full
to overflowing."

"10. They use the ash-pot as nose-paper (_i.e._ they blow their
nose into the ash-pot)".

As during our stay at Enoshima as the governor's guests we were
constantly attended by two officials from his court, I considered it
my duty to show myself worthy of the honour by a liberal
distribution of drink-money. This is not given to the attendants,
but is handed, wrapped up in paper, and accompanied by some choice
courteous expressions, to the host himself. He on his part makes a
polite speech with apologies that all had not been so well arranged
as his honoured guest had a right to expect. He accompanies the
traveller on his departure a shorter or longer distance in
proportion to the amount of drink-money and the way in which his
guest has behaved.

[Illustration: ITO-KESKE. A Japanese Editor of Thunberg's writings. ]

It is a specially praiseworthy custom among the Japanese to
allow the trees in the neighbourhood of the temples to stand
untouched. Nearly every temple, even the most inconsiderable,
is therefore surrounded by a little grove, formed of the most
splendid pines, particularly Cryptomeria and Ginko, which often
wholly conceal the small, decayed, and ill-kept wooden hut which
is dedicated to some of the deities of Buddha or Shinto.

On the 23rd September the Europeans and Japanese of Yokohama gave a
dinner and ball for us in the hall of the English club. It was
beautifully lighted and decorated. Among other things there were to
be seen on a wall portraits of Berzelius and Thunberg, surrounded by
garlands of greenery. The latter has a high reputation in Japan. His
work on the flora of the country has lately been published in a
Japanese edition with a wood-cut portrait, by no means bad, of the
famous Swedish naturalist,[377] engraved in Japan; and a monument to
his and Kämpfer's memory is to be found at Nagasaki, erected there
at the instance of von Siebold.[378] The chairman of the feast was
Dr. GEERTZ, a Dutchman, who had lived a long time in the country and
published several valuable works on its natural productions.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO THUNBERG AND KAEMPFER AT NAGASAKI. ]

On the 26th September I started for Tokio, in order thence to
undertake a journey proposed and arranged by the Danish consul, Herr
Bavier, to Asamayama, a yet active volcano in the interior of the
country. In consequence of an unexpected death among the European
consuls at Yokohama, Herr Bavier, however, could not join us until
the day after that which had been fixed for our departure. The 27th
accordingly was passed in Tokio among other things, in seeing the
beautiful collections of antiquities made by the _attaché_ of the
Austrian legation, Herr H. VON SIEBOLD, son of the famous naturalist
of the same name. Japan has also, like most other lands, had its
Stone Age, from which remains are found at several places in the
country, both on Yezo and on the more southerly islands. Implements
from this period are now collected assiduously both by natives and
Europeans, and have been described by H. von Siebold in a work
accompanied by photographic illustrations. In general the implements
of the Japanese stone folk have a resemblance to the stone tools
still in use among the Eskimo, and even in this fruitful land the
primitive race, as the bone remains in the kitchen-middens show,
lived at first mainly by hunting and fishing.


[Footnote 372: The Dutch had permission in former times to send some
vessels annually to Nagasaki. By Perry's treaty, signed on the 31st
March, 1854, Shimoda and Hakodate were opened to the Americans.
Finally, by new treaties with the United States and various European
powers, the harbours Kanagava (Yokohama), Nagasaki, Hakodate,
Niigata, Hiogo, and Osaka, were assigned for commerce with
foreigners. ]

[Footnote 373: At first it strikes a European as if all the Japanese
had about the same appearance, but when one has got accustomed to
the colour of the skin and the traits of the race, the features of
the Japanese appear as various in form and expression as those of
Europeans. ]

[Footnote 374: At the close of the twelfth century this now
inconsiderable town was the residence of Joritomo, the founder of
the Shogun power, and the arranger of the Japanese feudal system. ]

[Footnote 375: Five _yen_ are about equal to 1 pound sterling. ]

[Footnote 376: The Japanese pipes are now so small that no serious
results from this disadvantage are to be dreaded. In former times
the pipes used were long and probably heavy. The Dyaks of Borneo
still use pipes so heavy that they may be used as weapons. ]

[Footnote 377: The work bears the title _Tai-sei-hon-zo-mei-so_
(short list of European plant-names), by Ito-Keske, 1829, 3 vols. ]

[Footnote 378: Carl Peter Thunberg, born at Jönköping in 1743, famed
for his travels in South Africa, Japan, &c., and for a number of
important scientific works, finally Professor at Upsala, died in
1828. Engelbert Kämpfer, born in Westphalia in 1651, was secretary
of the embassy that started from Sweden to Persia in 1683. Kämpfer,
however, did not return with the embassy, but continued his travels
in the southern and eastern parts of Asia, among them, even to
Japan, which he visited in 1690-92, he died in 1716. Kämpfer's and
Thunberg's works, together with the great work of von Siebold, who
erected the monument to them, form the most important sources of the
knowledge of the Japan that once was. ]



CHAPTER XVII.

    Excursion to Asamayama--The Nakasendo road--Takasaki--
    Difficulty of obtaining quarters for the night--The Baths
    at Ikaho--Massage in Japan--Swedish matches--Travelling
    in _Kago_--Savavatari--Criminals--Kusatsu--The Hot Springs
    and their healing power--Rest at Rokuriga-hara--The summit
    of Asamayama--The descent--Journey over Usui-toge--
    Japanese actors--Pictures of Japanese folk-life--
    Return to Yokohama.


On the 28th September, early in the morning, accompanied by Lieut.
Hovgaard, Herr Bavier, an interpreter, and a Japanese cook skilled
in European cookery, I started on a journey to Asamayama. At first
we travelled in two very rattling and inconvenient carriages, drawn
each by a pair of horses, to the town Takasaki, situated on the
great road "Nakasendo," which passes through the interior of the
country and connects Tokio and Kioto. This road is considered
something grand by the Japanese. In Sweden it would be called an
indifferently kept district road. On this road _jinrikishas_ are met
in thousands, and a great many horses, oxen, and men, _bearing_
heavy burdens, but with the exception of the posting carriages, by
which, for some years back, a regular communication between Tokio
and Takasaki has been kept up, not a single wheeled vehicle drawn by
horses or oxen, and though the road passes through an unbroken
series of populous villages, surrounded by well cultivated rice
fields and small gardens, there is not a single workhorse or work-ox
to be seen. For all the ground in Japan is cultivated by the hand,
and there are few cattle.

Most of the roads in the country consist of foot-paths, so narrow
that two laden horses can pass each other only with difficulty.
Goods are therefore carried, where there is no canal or river, for
the most part by men. The plains are extraordinarily well
cultivated, and we must specially admire the industry with which
water-courses have been cut and the uneven slopes changed into level
terraces.

The post-horses on Nakasendo were so poor and wretched that in
Sweden one would have been liable to punishment for cruelty to
animals for using them. They went, however, at a pretty good speed.
There were places for changing horses at regular distances of
fifteen to twenty kilometres. The driver besides halted often on the
way at some dwelling-house to take a couple of scoopfuls of water
out of the water-vessel standing before it and throw them into the
horses' mouths and between their hind-legs. The opportunity was
always taken advantage of by the girls of the house to come out and
offer the travellers a small cup of Japanese tea, an act of courtesy
that was repaid with some friendly words and a copper coin.

When we visited any of the peasants' gardens by the wayside we were
always received with extreme friendliness, either on a special dais
in the common room looking to the road, or in an inner room whose
floor was covered with a mat of dazzling whiteness, and on whose
walls hung pictures, with songs and mottoes. The brazier was brought
forward, tea and sweetmeats were handed round, all with lively
conversation and frequent bows. The difference between the palace of
the rich (if we may distinguish with the name any building in Japan)
and the dwelling of the less well-to-do is much smaller here than in
Europe. We did not see any beggars in our journey into the interior
of the country.[379] Nor did the distraction of class appear to be
so sharp as might be expected in a land where the evils of rank had
been so great as in Old Japan. We several times saw in the inns by
the roadside, people of condition who were travelling in
_jinrikishas_ eat their rice and drink their _saki_ together with
the coolies who were drawing their vehicles.

To judge by the crowds of children who swarmed everywhere along the
roads the people must be very prolific. A girl of eight or ten years
of age was seldom to be seen without another young one bound on her
back. This burden did not appear to trouble the sister or attendant
very much. Without giving herself any concern about the child or
thinking of its existence, she took part actively in games, ran
errands, &c.

Even in the interior of the country foreigners are received with
great friendliness. The lower classes in Japan have also reason for
this, for whatever influence the latest political changes may have
had on the old _kuge_, _daimio_, and _samurai_ families of Japan, the
position of the cultivator of the soil is now much more secure than
before, when he was harmed by hundreds of small tyrants. His dress
is the same as before, with the exception, however, that a great
proportion of the male population, even far into the interior, have
laid aside the old troublesome way of collecting the hair in a knot
over a close shaven spot on the crown of the head. Instead, they
wear their thick raven-black hair cut short in the European style.
How distinctive of the new period this change is may be seen from
the eagerness with which the Japanese authorities questioned GOLOVIN
about the religious and political revolutions which they assumed to
have been connected with the change in the European mode of wearing
the hair during the commencement of the nineteenth century, for the
Russian ambassador LAXMAN, who was highly esteemed by the Japanese,
had worn a pig-tail and powdered hair, while Golovin and his
companions had their hair unpowdered and cut short.[380] When it is
warm the workmen wear only a small, generally light-blue, girdle
round the waist and between the legs. Otherwise they are naked.
They are thus seen to be in many cases strongly tattooed over the
greater part of the body. I have not seen the women working naked.
They perhaps do so at the warmest season of the year. At least they
do not refrain from undressing completely while bathing right in
the midst of a crowd of men known and unknown, a state of things
which at first, in consequence of the power of prejudice, shocks
the European, but to which even the former prude gets accustomed
sooner than one would suppose. We even frequently see European
ladies drawn in a _jinrikisha_ by a youth completely naked with the
exception of the blue girdle. Many, especially of the younger men,
have besides so well-formed a body, that the sculptor who could
accurately reproduce it in marble would at once attain a reputation
co-extensive with the globe.

Takasaki is the residence of a governor, with a population of about
20,000; but, like most of the towns of Japan, it differs little
from many of the villages we passed through. We arrived late in the
evening, and there had our first and last experience of an
inconvenience of which Europeans often complain in travelling in
Japan, and to which they have themselves given occasion by the
offensive way in which they not unfrequently behave. We knocked at
the door of one inn after another without being received. At one
place "the house was full," at another "the rooms were under
repair," at a third "the inn people were out," &c. At last we had
to apply to the police. When we had shown them our passport, we
succeeded with their help in getting a night's lodging with an
elderly host, who received us with a countenance which clearly
indicated that he would rather have hewn us in pieces with one of
the two swords he had formerly as _samurai_ been entitled to wear,
than received us under his roof. After our entrance he still turned
to the police official with the cry of lamentation: "Must I then
actually receive these barbarians?" But we had our revenge in a
noble way. We took off our boots before we entered the room, were so
profuse with talk, civilities, and bows, and on the whole behaved in
such a courteous fashion, that our previously distracted host not
only bade us welcome back, but also gave us a letter of introduction
to the innkeepers at an inn where we were to stay next, declaring
that if we showed this letter we need not fear any such disagreeable
adventure as that just described.

Most of the houses in the Japanese towns are built of pretty thin,
carefully joined timbers. But besides these there are to be seen
here and there small houses with very thick walls, windows provided
with heavy iron gratings, and doors that could be fastened with
large locks and bolts. These houses are fire-resisting, and are used
as storehouses for valuables and household articles when there is
danger of fire. Fires are so common in Japan that it is supposed
that a tenth part of every town is burned down yearly. The fireman
corps is numerous, well ordered from old times, its members bold and
daring. During our stay overnight at Takasaki we were lodged in such
a fireproof house, in very large clean apartments with the floor
partly covered with carpets after the European pattern. The walls
were very thick and of brick, the interior fittings and stairs on
the other hand of wood.

I have just mentioned that we were compelled to resort to the police
in order to obtain quarters for the night. Policemen are numerous in
Japan, both in town and country. For the most part they are taken
from the former _samurai_ class. They are clothed in the European
style, and walk, with a long stick in a certain position under the
arm, quietly and calmly on the streets and roads, without, except in
cases of necessity, making any show of their authority. Commonly
they are, or appear to be, young, and all have a gentlemanlike
appearance. In a word, they appear to be equal to the best European
police of the present day, and stand immeasurably above the guardian
of the peace, or rather the raiser of dispeace, as he appeared some
decades ago on the European continent. During the latest revolt the
police were employed by the Government as infantry, and elicited
general admiration by the fire, the gallantry, and the contempt of
death with which they went into action with their old favourite
weapon, the Japanese sword.

A passport is still required for travelling in the interior of the
country, but this is easily obtained at the request of the consul if
health or the wish to prosecute researches be given as the reason,
it being possible perhaps to include common love of travelling under
the latter head. Commercial travelling is not yet permitted in the
interior, nor is the right of settling for the purpose of carrying
on business granted to Europeans. The foreign ambassadors have often
entered into negotiations in order to bring about a change on this
point, but hitherto without success, because the Government, as a
condition for the complete opening of the country, require the
abrogation of the unreasonable "extraterritorial" arrangement which
is in force, and by which the foreigner is not subject to the common
laws and courts of Japan, but to the laws of his own country,
administered by consular courts. An alteration in this point may
however be brought about in a short time, as Japan will soon be
sufficiently powerful to be able to abrogate all the injurious
paragraphs in her treaties with the civilised countries of Europe.
Now, besides, the ambassadors of the foreign powers, who in former
times all acted together, have divided into two parties, of which
one--Russia and America--wishes, or at least feigns to wish,
gradually to free Japan from all tutelage and to place it on an
equality with other civilised countries, the other again--England,
Germany, Holland, and France--wishes still to retain the
guardianship, which was established by violence, and confirmed by
treaty several years ago.

Shortly before our arrival a quarrel took place between Japan and
the European powers about, as the Japanese themselves said, a breach
of international law, which caused much irritation in the country. A
German vessel coming from Nagasaki, where the cholera was raging, on
the advice of the German minister broke the quarantine prescribed by
the Government, and without further precautions discharged her cargo
in the harbour of Yokohama. That the cholera in this town was
thereby _made worse_ is indeed not only unproved but also
undoubtedly incorrect, though many Japanese in their irritation
positively affirmed that this was the case, but the words that were
uttered by Japan's _fêted_ guest, ex-President General GRANT,[381]
that the Japanese Government had the right without more ado to sink
the vessel, have left a memory in the minds both of the Government
and of the people, which may in the future lead them to a perhaps
unwise but fully justified exertion of their strength were such a
deed to be repeated.

The first impression of the Japanese, both men and women, is
exceedingly pleasant, but many Europeans who have lived a
considerable time in the country say that this impression is not
maintained, a circumstance which in my belief depends more on the
Europeans themselves than on the Japanese. For the European
merchants are said not to find it so easy to cut gold here with a
case-knife as before, and the ambassadors of the Great Powers find
it day by day more difficult to maintain their old commanding
standpoint towards a government which knows that a great future is
before the country, if inconsiderate ambition or unlooked-for
misfortune do not unexpectedly hinder its development. Another
reproach, that the Japanese can imitate what another has done, but
is unable himself to invent anything new, appears on the other hand
to be justified in the meantime. But it is unreasonable to demand
that a nation should not only in a few decades pass through a
development for which centuries have been required in Europe, but
also immediately reach the summit of the knowledge of our time so as
to be at the same time creative. But it would be wonderful, if the
natural science, literature, and art of the nineteenth century,
transplanted among a gifted people, with a culture so peculiar and
so pervasive, and with an art-sense so developed as those of Japan,
did not in time produce new, splendid, and unexpected fruit. The
same irresistible necessity which now drives the Japanese to learn
all that the European and the American know, will, when he has
reached that goal, spur him on to go further up the Nile river of
research.

A short distance beyond Takasaki the road to the volcano to which we
were on our way, was no longer along Nakasendo, and we could
therefore no longer continue our journey in carriages drawn by
horses, but were compelled to content ourselves with _jinrikishas_.
In these, on the 29th of September, we traversed in five and a half
hours the very hilly road to Ikaho, noted for its baths, situated at
a height of 700 metres above the sea. The landscape here assumes a
quite different stamp. The road which before ran over an unbroken
plain, thickly peopled, and cultivated like a garden, now begins to
pass between steep uncultivated hills, overgrown with tall, uncut,
withered grass, separated by valleys in which run purling rivulets,
nearly concealed by exceedingly luxuriant bushy thickets. Ikaho is
celebrated for the warm, or more correctly hot, springs which well
up from the volcanic hills which surround the little town, which is
beautifully situated on a slope. As at the baths of Europe, invalids
seek here a remedy for their ailments, and the town therefore
consists almost exclusively of hotels, baths, and shops for the
visitors. The baths are situated, partly in large open wooden sheds,
where men and women bathe together without distinction, partly in
private houses. In every bath there is a basin one metre in depth,
to which a constant stream of water is conducted from some of the
hot springs. The spring water has of course cooled very much before
it is used, but is still so hot notwithstanding that I could only
with difficulty remain in it a couple of seconds.

In the streets of the town we often met blind persons who walked
about very safely without any attendant, only feeling their way with
a long bamboo. They blew a short pipe now and then to warn
passers-by of their presence. I thought at first that these
unfortunates were trying to regain the sight of the eye at the hot
springs, but on inquiring whether the water was beneficial in that
respect, I was informed that they were not there as seekers after
health, but as "massageurs" (shampooers). Massage has been in use in
Japan for several centuries back, and therefore persons are often to
be met with in the streets offering their services as massageurs,
crying in the streets in about the same way as the fruit-sellers in
Russia.

The inn where we lodged for the night, consisted as usual of a
number of very clean rooms covered with mats, without furniture, but
ornamented with songs and mottoes on the walls. One would live here
exceedingly well, if like the Japanese he could manage to live
wholly on the floor and conform carefully to the indispensable
rules, an observance which besides is necessary, because otherwise
the inmate is exposed to a very unfriendly reception not only from
his host but also from the attendants. An inconvenience in
travelling in Japan is the difficulty a European has in accustoming
himself to the dietary of the Japanese. Bread they do not use, nor
meat, but their food consists mainly of rice and fish, with fowls,
fruit, mushrooms, sweetmeats, Japanese tea, &c., in addition. Fish
is generally eaten raw, and in that case is said to differ little in
taste from our pickled salmon. The food is not unfrequently cooked
with fish oils of anything but an agreeable taste. If a traveller
wishes to avoid this dietary, he must have his own cook with him on
the journey. In this capacity there attended us a Japanese, whose
name was Senkiti-San, but who was commonly called by his companions
Kok-San (Mr. Cook). He had learned European (French) cooking at
Yokohama, and during the journey devoted himself with so great zeal
to his calling, that even in the deserts at the foot of Asamayama he
gave himself no rest until he could offer us a dinner of five
dishes, consisting of chicken soup, fowl omelette, fowl-beefsteak,
fowl _fricassé_, and omelette _aux confitures_, all thus consisting
only of fowls and hens' eggs, cooked in different ways.

For some years back lucifer matches have been an article of
necessity in Japan, and it was pleasing to us Swedes to observe that
the Swedish matches have here a distinct preference over those of
other countries. In nearly every little shop, even in the interior
of the country, are to be seen the well-known boxes with the
inscription "Säkerhets tändstickor utan svafvel och fosfor." But if
we examine the boxes more carefully, we find upon many of them,
along with the magic sentence unintelligible to the Japanese, an
inscription indicating that they have been made by some Japanese
manufacturer. On other boxes this is completely wanting, but the
falsification is shown by an unfortunate error in the inscription.
It thus appears that the Swedish matches are not only introduced
into Japan on a large scale, but are also counterfeited, being made
with the Swedish inscription on the box and with a cover resembling
that used at home. The imitation, however, is not nearly so good as
the original, and my Japanese servant bade me therefore, when I
purchased a box of matches, observe carefully that I got one of the
right (Swedish) sort.

Photography also has spread so rapidly in the country that at many
places in small towns and villages in the interior Japanese
photographers are to be met with who put out of their hands by no
means bad work. The Japanese appear to have a great liking for
having their by no means remarkable dwellings photographed. On
several occasions, when we left a place we received from our host as
a parting gift a photograph of his house or inn. Perhaps this was
done with the same view as that which induces his European
brother-in-trade to advertise at great expense.

[Illustration: JAPANESE KAGO. ]

Between Ikaho and Savavatari, our next resting-place, the road was
so bad that the _jinrikisha_ could no longer be used, we accordingly
had to use the _kago_, a Japanese sedan-chair made of bamboo, of the
appearance of which the accompanying wood-cut gives an idea. It is
exceedingly inconvenient for Europeans, because they cannot like the
Japanese sit with their legs crosswise under them, and in course of
time it becomes tiresome to let them dangle without other support by
the side of the _kago_. Even for the bearers this sedan chair
strikes me as being of inconvenient construction, which is shown
among other things by their halting an instant every two hundred, or
in going up a hill, every hundred paces, in order to shift the
shoulder under the bamboo pole. We went up-hill and down-hill with
considerable speed however, so that we traversed the road between
Ikaho and Savavatari, 6 _ri_ or 23.6 kilometres in length, in ten
hours. The road, which was exceedingly beautiful, ran along flowery
banks of rivulets, overgrown with luxuriant bamboo thickets, and
many different kinds of broad-leaved trees. Only round the old
temples, mostly small and inconsiderable, were to be seen ancient
tall Cryptomeria and Ginko trees. The burying places were commonly
situated, not as at home, in the neighbourhood of the larger
temples, but near the villages. They were not inclosed, but marked
out by stone monuments from a third of a metre to half a metre in
height, on one side of which an image of Buddha was sometimes
sculptured. The recent graves were often adorned with flowers, and
at some of them small foot-high Shinto shrines had been made of
wooden pins.

Savavatari, like Ikaho, is built on the slope of a hill. The streets
between the houses are almost all stairs or steep ascents. Here too
there well up from the volcanic rocks acidulous springs, at which
invalids seek to regain health. The watering-place, however, is of
less repute than Ikaho or Kusatsu.

While we walked about the village in the evening we saw at one place
a crowd of people. This was occasioned by a competition going on
there. Two young men, who wore no other clothes than a narrow girdle
going round the waist and between the legs, wrestled within a circle
two or three metres across drawn on a sandy area. He was considered
the victor who threw the other to the ground or forced him beyond
the circle. A special judge decided in doubtful cases. The beginning
of the contest was most peculiar, the combatants kneeling in the
middle of the circle and sharply eying each other in order to make
the attack at a signal given by the judge, when a single push might
at once make an end of the contest. In this competition there took
part about a dozen young men, all well grown, who in their turn
stepped with some encouraging cries or gestures into the circle in
order to test their powers. The spectators consisted of old men and
women, and boys and girls of all ages. Most of them were clean and
well-dressed, and had a very attractive appearance.

[Illustration: JAPANESE WRESTLERS. ]

Here it was the youth of the village themselves that took part in
the contest. But there are also in Japan persons who carry on these
games as their occupation, and exhibit themselves for money. They
are in general very fat, as appears from the accompanying drawing,
which represents the beginning of the contest, when both the
combatants are still watching to get a good hold.

[Illustration: JAPANESE BRIDGE. After a Japanese drawing. ]

Next day, the 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The
road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as
far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past
deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous
construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle
to traverse it, so that we had to use in some cases _kagos_, in
others riding-horses. Unfortunately the Japanese high saddle does
not suit the European, and if the traveller prefers a riding-horse
to a _kago_, he must, if he does not carry a saddle with him,
determine to ride on an unsaddled horse, which, with the wretched
steeds that are only available here, soon becomes so unpleasant that
he at last prefers to let his legs hang benumbed from the _kago_. A
peculiarity in Japan is that the rider seldom himself guides his
horse. It is commonly led by a halter by a groom running alongside
the rider. These grooms are very light-footed and enduring, so that
even at a rapid pace they are not left behind. Running footmen also
attend the carriages of people of distinction in the towns and the
mail-coaches on Nakasendo. When there is a crowd before the carriage
they jump down and drive away the people by a dreadful shouting.
From the mail-coach they also blow the post-horn, not just to the
advantage of the ear-drums of the travellers.

[Illustration: JAPANESE MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE. ]

The scenery by the roadside was exceedingly beautiful. Now it
consisted of wild valleys, filled with luxuriant vegetation which
completely concealed the crystal-clear streams purling in the
bottoms; now of level grassy plains or hill-slopes, thickly studded
with solitary trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks. The inhabitants
were fully occupied with the chestnut harvest. Before every hut mats
were spread out, on which chestnuts lay drying in thick layers.
Grain and cotton were being dried in the same small way, as it
appeared to us Europeans. On the plains there stood besides in the
neighbourhood of the cabins large mortars, by which the grain was
reduced to groats. On the hills these tramp-stamps are partly
replaced by small mills of an exceedingly simple construction,
introduced by the Dutch.

We passed the 2nd October at Kusatsu, the Aix-la-Chapelle of Japan,
famed like that place for its hot sulphurous springs. Innumerable
invalids here seek an alleviation of their pains. The town lives
upon them, and accordingly consists mainly of baths, inns, and shops
for the visitors.

The inns are of the sort common in Japan, spacious, airy clean,
without furniture, but with good braziers, miniature tea-services,
clean matting, screens ornamented with poetical mottoes, which even
when translated were almost unintelligible to us, friendly hosts,
and numerous female attendants. If the traveller brings his own cook
with him, as we did, he can live very comfortably, as I have before
stated, at such an inn.

[Illustration: INN AT KUSATSU. ]

The hot springs which have conferred on Kusatsu its importance rise
at the foot of a pretty high hill of volcanic origin. The rocks in
the surrounding country consist exclusively of lava and volcanic
tuffs, and a short distance from the town there is an extinct
volcano in whose crater there are layers of sulphur.[382] In the
immediate neighbourhood of the place where the main spring rises
there is a thick solidified lava stream, surrounded by tuffs, which
near the surface is cleft into a number of large vesicular blocks.
From this point the hot water is conducted in long open wooden
channels to the bath-house of the town, and to several evaporating
pools, some by the wayside, others in the town, intended for
collecting the solid constituents of the water, which are then sold
in the country as medicine. The great evaporation from these pools,
from the open channels and the hot baths, wraps the town almost
constantly in a cloud of watery vapour, while a very strong odour of
sulphuretted hydrogen reminds us that this is one of the
constituents of the healing waters.

The road between the wells and the town appears to form the
principal promenade of the place. Along this are to be seen
innumerable small monuments, from a half to a whole metre in height,
consisting of pieces of lava heaped upon each other. These miniature
memorials form by their littleness a peculiar contrast to the
_bauta_ stones and _jettekast_ of our Swedish forefathers, and are
one of the many instances of the people's fondness for the little
and the neat, which are often to be met in Japan. They are said to
be erected by visitors as thank-offerings to some of the deities of
Buddha or Shinto.

I received from a Japanese physician the following information
regarding the wells at Kusatsu and their healing power. In and near
the town there are twenty-two wells, with water of about the same
quality, but of different uses in the healing of various diseases.
In the hottest well the water where it rises has a temperature of
162° F (= 72.2° C.). The largest number of the sick who
seek health at the baths, suffer from syphilis. This disease is now
cured according to the European method, with mercury, iodide of
potassium, and baths. The cure requires a hundred days, from seventy
to eighty per cent. of the patients are cured completely, though
purple spots remain on the skin. The disease does not break out
anew. A large number of leprous patients also visit the baths. The
leprosy is of various kinds; that with sores is alleviated by the
baths, and is cured possibly in two years; that without sores but
with the skin insensible is incurable, but is also checked by
frequent bathing. All true lepers come from the coast provinces. A
similar disease is produced also among the hills by the eating of
tainted fish and fowl. This disease consists in the skin becoming
insensible, the nerves inactive, and the patient, who otherwise
feels well, finding it impossible to walk. It is also cured
completely in very severe cases, by baths, ammonia applied inwardly,
castor-oil, Peruvian bark, &c. A third type of this ailment is the
bone-disease, _kak'ke'_, which is exceedingly common in Japan, and
is believed to be caused by unvarying food and want of exercise. It
is very obstinate, but is often cured in two or three years with
chloride of iron, albumen, change of diet from the common Japanese
to the European, with red wine, milk, bread, vegetables, &c. This
disease begins with a swelling in the legs, then the skin becomes
insensible, first on the legs, next on the stomach, the face, and
the wrists. Then the swelling falls, fever comes on, and death takes
place. There are besides, certain wells for curing rheumatism, for
which from two to three years are required; for eye-diseases and for
headache, the latter playing an important part among the illnesses
that are cured at Kusatsu. It principally attacks women between
twenty and thirty years of age. One of the Kusatsu wells acts very
beneficially in this case. Its water is conducted to a special
bathing-shed open to the street, intended exclusively for the men
and women who suffer from this disease.

Many of the baths at Kusatsu are taken so hot that special
precautions must be adopted before one steps down into the water.
These consist in winding cotton cloths round those parts of the body
which are most sensitive, and in causing the body to perspire
strongly before the bath is taken, which is done by the bathers with
cries and shouts and with certain movements stirring the water in
the basin with large heavy boards. They then all step down into the
bath and up again simultaneously at a sign given by the physician
sitting at the back of the bathing shed. Without this arrangement it
would perhaps be difficult to get the patients to go into the bath,
for agreeable it could not be, to judge from the grave faces of the
bathers and the fire-red colour of their bodies when they come out.

The baths are under open sheds. Men and women all bathe in common,
and in presence of both male and female spectators. They make their
remarks without reserve on the diseases of the patients, even if
they are of that sort about which one would not speak willingly even
to his physician. Often the bath-basin is not fenced off in any way,
except that it is protected from rain and sunshine by a roof resting
on four posts. In such cases the bathers dress and undress in the
street.

[Illustration: BATH AT KUSATSU. ]

In consequence of the situation of Kusatsu at a height of 1050
metres above the sea, the winter there is very cold and windy. The
town is then abandoned not only by the visitors to the baths, but
also by most of the other inhabitants. Already, at the time of our
visit, the number of bathers remaining was only inconsiderable. Even
these were preparing to depart. During the second night that we
passed at Kusatsu, our night's rest was disturbed by a loud noise
from the next room. It was a visitor who was to leave the place the
following morning, and who now celebrated his recovery with _saki_
(rice-brandy) and string music.

The environs of Kusatsu are nearly uncultivated, though the
vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant. It consists partly of bamboo
thickets, partly of a high rich grass, above which rise solitary
pines, mixed with a few oaks or chestnuts.

On the 3rd October we continued our journey to the foot of
Asamayama. The road was very bad, so that even the _kago_ bearers
had difficulty in getting along. It first ran across two valleys
more than 300 feet deep, occupied with close, luxuriant, bushy
thickets. We then came to an elevated plain of great extent covered
with unmown grass, studded with beautiful oaks and chestnuts. The
plain was not turned to any account, though thousands of the
industrious population could find an abundant living there by
tending cattle. Farther up the oaks and chestnuts were mixed with a
few birches, resembling those at home, and we came next to complete
deserts, where the ground consisted of lava blocks and lava gravel,
scarcely covered by any grass, and yielding nourishment only to
solitary pines. This continued to the place--Rokuriga-hara--where we
were to pass the night, and from which the next day we were to
ascend the summit of Asamayama.

Rokuriga-hara is situated at a height of 1270 metres above the sea.
There was no inn here, nor any place inhabited all the year round,
but only a large open shed. This was divided into two by a passage
in the middle. We settled on one side of this, making our bed as
well as we could on the raised floor, and protecting ourselves from
the night air with coverings which our thoughtful host at Kusatsu
had lent us. On the other side of the passage our _kago_ bearers and
guide passed the night crowding round a log fire made on a stone
foundation in the middle of the floor. The _kago_ bearers were
protected from the very perceptible night cold only by thin cotton
blouses. In order to warm them I ordered an abundant distribution of
_saki_, a piece of generosity that did not cost very much, but which
clearly won me the undivided admiration of all the coolies. They
passed the greater part of the night without sleep, with song and
jest, with their _saki_ bottles and tobacco pipes. We slept well and
warmly after partaking of an abundant supper of fowl and eggs,
cooked in different ways by Kok-San with his usual talent and his
usual variety of dishes.

We had been informed that at this place we would hear a constant
noise from the neighbouring volcano, and that hurtful gases
(probably carbonic acid) sometimes accumulated in such quantities in
the neighbouring woods that men and horses would be suffocated if
they spent the night there. We listened in vain for the noise, and
did not observe any trace of such gases. All was as peaceful as if
the glowing hearth in the interior of the earth was hundreds of
miles away. But we did not require the evidence of the column of
smoke which was seen to use from the mountain top, which formed the
goal of our visit, or of the inhabitants who survived the latest
eruption, to come to the conclusion that we were in the
neighbourhood of an enormous, still active volcano. Everywhere round
our resting-place lay heaps of small pieces of lava which had been
thrown out of the volcano (so-called lapilli), and which had not yet
had time to weather sufficiently to serve as an under-stratum for
any vegetation, and a little from the hut there was a solidified
lava stream of great depth.

Next day, the 4th October, we ascended the summit of the mountain.
At first we travelled in _kago_ over a valley filled with pretty
close wood, then the journey was continued on foot up the steep
volcanic cone, covered with small lava blocks and lapilli. The way
was staked out with small heaps of stones raised at a distance of
about 100 metres apart. Near the crater we found at one of these
cairns a little Shinto shrine, built of sticks. Its sides were only
half a metre in length. Our guide performed his devotions here. One
of them had already at a stone cairn situated farther down with
great seriousness made some conjurations with reference to my
promise to make an extra distribution of red wine, if we got good
weather at the top.

As on Vesuvius, we can also on Asamayama distinguish a large
exterior crater, originating from some old eruption, but now almost
completely filled up by a new volcanic cone, at whose top the
present crater opens. This crater has a circumference of about two
kilometres, the old crater, or what the old geologists called the
elevation-crater, has been much larger. The volcano is still active.
For it constantly throws out "smoke," consisting of watery vapour,
sulphurous acid, and probably also carbonic acid. Occasionally a
perceptible smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is observed. It is
possible without difficulty to crawl to the edge of the crater and
glance down into its interior. It is very deep. The walls are
perpendicular, and at the bottom of the abyss there are to be seen
several clefts from which vapours arise. In the same way "smoke"
forces its way at some places at the edge of the crater through
small imperceptible cracks in the mountain. Both on the border of
the crater, on its sides and its bottom there is to be seen a yellow
efflorescence, which at the places which I got at to examine it
consisted of sulphur. The edge of the crater is solid rock, a
little-weathered augiteandesite differing very much in its nature at
different places. The same or similar rocks also project at several
places at the old border of the crater, but the whole surface of the
volcanic cone besides consists of small loose pieces of lava,
without any trace of vegetation. Only at one place the brim of the
old crater is covered with an open pine wood. The volcano has also
small side craters, from which gases escape. The same coarse
fantasy, which still prevails in the form of the hell-dogma among
several of the world's most cultured peoples, has placed the home of
those of the followers of Buddha who are doomed to eternal
punishment in the glowing hearths in the interior of the mountain,
to which these crater-openings lead; and that the heresies of the
well-meaning Bishop Lindblom have not become generally prevalent in
Japan is shown among other things by this, that many of these
openings are said to be entrances to the "children's hell." Neither
at the main crater nor at any of the side craters can any true lava
streams be seen. Evidently the only things thrown out from them have
been gases, volcanic ashes, and lapilli. On the other hand,
extensive eruptions of lava have taken place at several points on
the side of the mountain, though these places are now covered with
volcanic ashes.

After having eaten our breakfast in a cleft so close to the smoking
crater that the empty bottles could be thrown directly into the
bottomless deeps, we commenced our return journey. At first we took
the same way as during the ascent, but afterwards held off to the
right, down a much steeper and more difficult path than we had
traversed before. The mountain side had here a slope of nearly
forty-five degrees, and consisted of a quite loose volcanic sand,
not bound together by any vegetable carpet. It would therefore have
been scarcely possible to ascend to the summit of the mountain this
way, but we went rapidly downwards, often at a dizzy speed, but
without other inconvenience than that one now and then fell flat and
rolled head-foremost down the steep slopes, and that our shoes were
completely torn to tatters by the angular lava gravel. Above the
mountaintop the sky was clear of clouds, but between it and the
surface of the earth there spread out a thick layer of cloud which
seen from above resembled a boundless storm-tossed sea, full of
foaming breakers. The extensive view we would otherwise have had of
the neighbouring mountain ridges from the top of Asamayama was thus
concealed. Only here and there an opening was formed in the cloud,
resembling a sun-spot, through which we got a glimpse of the
underlying landscape. When we came to the foot of the mountain we
long followed a ridge, covered with greenery, formed of an immense
stream of lava, which had issued from an opening in the mountain
side now refilled. This had probably taken place during the
tremendous eruption of 1783, when not only enormous lava-streams
destroyed forests and villages at the foot of the mountain, but the
whole of the neighbouring region between Oiwake and Usui-toge,
previously fertile, was changed by an ash-rain into an extensive
waste. Across this large plain, infertile and little cultivated,
situated at a height of 980 metres above the sea, we went without a
guide to the village Oiwake, where we lodged for the night at an inn
by the side of the road Nakasendo, one of the cleanest and best kept
of the many well-kept inns I saw during our journey in the interior
of the country.

Hence I sent a messenger on foot to Takasaki to order a carriage to
Tokio. A former _samurai_ undertook for a payment of three _yen_,
(about 12_s_) to carry the message. Oiwake is indeed situated on the
great road Nakasendo, but it can here only with difficulty be
traversed by carriages, because between this village and Takasaki it
is necessary to go over the pass Usui-toge, where the road, though
lowered considerably of late, rises to a height of 1200 metres. We
therefore here used _jinrikishas_, a mode of conveyance very
agreeable to tourists, which, though introduced only recently, has
already spread to all parts of the country.

[Illustration: JAPANESE LANDSCAPE. ]

Every one with an open eye for the beauties of nature and interest
in the life and manners of a foreign people, must find a journey in
_jinrikisha_ over Usui-toge pleasant in a high degree. The landscape
here is extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps unmatched in the whole
world. The road has been made here with great difficulty between
wild, black, rocky masses, along deep clefts, whose sides are often
covered with the most luxuriant vegetation. No fence protects the
_jinrikisha_ in its rapid progress down the mountains from the
bottomless abysses by the wayside. A man must therefore not be weak
in the nerves if he is to derive pleasure from the journey. He must
rely on the coolie's keen eye and sure foot. On all sides one is
surrounded by a confused mass of lofty shattered mountain tops, and
deep down in the valleys mountain streams rush along, whose
crystal-clear water is collected here and there into small lakes
confined between heights covered with greenery. Now the traveller
passes a dizzy abyss by a bridge of the most defective construction,
now he sees a stream of water rushing down from an enormous height
by the wayside. Thousands of foot-passengers, crowds of pilgrims,
long rows of coolies, oxen and horses bearing heavy burdens meet the
traveller, who during frequent rests at the foot of the steep slopes
has an opportunity of studying the variegated life of the people. He
is always surrounded by cheerful and friendly faces, and the
pleasant impression is never disturbed by the expressions of
coarseness in speech and behaviour which so often meet us in Europe.

It is not until the traveller has passed the mountain ridge and
descended to a height of only 300 metres above the sea that the road
becomes passable for a carriage. While we exchanged, not without
regret, our clean, elegant _jinrikishas_ for two inferior vehicles
drawn by horses, I saw two men wandering from shop to shop, standing
some moments at each place, ringing a bell and passing on when they
were not attended to. On my inquiry as to what sort of people they
were, I was informed that they were wandering players. For me of
course they did not ring in vain. For a payment of fifty cents they
were ready immediately to show in the street itself a specimen of
their art. One of them put on a well-made mask, representing the
head of a monster, with a movable jaw and terrible teeth. To the
mask was fastened a cloak, in which the player wrapt himself during
the representation. He then with great skill and supple tasteful
gestures, which would have honoured a European _danseuse_,
represented the monster now creeping forward fawningly, now rushing
along to devour its prey. A numerous crowd of children collected
around us. The small folks followed the representation with great
glee, and gave life to the play, or rather formed its proper
background, by the feigned tenor with which they fled when the
monster approached with open mouth and rolling eyes, and the
eagerness with which they again followed and mocked it when its back
was turned.

[Illustration: BURDEN BEARERS ON A JAPANESE ROAD. Japanese drawing. ]

In few countries are dramatic representations of all kinds so much
thought of as in Japan. Playhouses are found even in small towns.
The play is much frequented, and though the representations last the
whole day, they are followed by the spectators with the liveliest
interest. There are playbills as at home, and numerous writings on
subjects relating to the theatre. Among the Japanese books which I
bought, there was for instance a thick one, with innumerable
woodcuts, devoted to showing how the first Japanese artists
conceived the principal scenes in their _rôles_, two volumes of
playbills bound up together, &c.

The Japanese pieces indeed strike a European as childish and
monstrous, but one must admire many praiseworthy traits in the play
itself, for instance the naturalness with which the players often
declaim monologues lasting for a quarter or half an hour. The
extravagances which here shock us are perhaps on the whole not more
absurd than the scenes of the opera of to-day, or the buskins,
masks, and peculiar dresses, which the Greeks considered
indispensable in the exhibition of then great dramatic masterpieces.
When the Japanese have been able to appropriate what is good in
European culture, the dramatic art ought to have a grand future
before it among them, if the development now going on is carried out
cautiously so that the peculiarities of the people are not too much
effaced. For, in many departments, and not least in that of art,
there is much to be found here which when properly developed will
form a new and important addition to the culture of the West, of
which we are so proud.

The large Japanese theatres, besides, often resemble the European
ones in their interior arrangement. The partition between the stage
and the space occupied by the spectators is the same as among us.
Between the acts the former is concealed by a curtain. The stage is
besides provided with painted scenes representing houses, woods,
hills, &c., supported on wheels, so that a complete change of scene
can be effected in a few moments. The music has the same place
between the stage and the spectators as at home. The latter, as at
home, are distributed partly in a gently rising amphitheatre, partly
in several tiers of boxes rising one above another, the lowest tier
being considered the principal one. The Japanese do not sit in the
same way as we do. Neither the amphitheatre nor the boxes
accordingly are provided with chairs or benches, but are divided
into square compartments one or two feet deep, each intended for
about four persons. They sit on cushions, squatting cross-legged in
the common Japanese fashion. The compartments are divided by broad
cross beams, which form the passages by which the spectators get to
their places. During the play we saw attendants running about with
tea, _saki_, tobacco pipes, and small braziers. For every one smokes
during the acts, and places himself in his crib as comfortably as
possible. The piece is followed with great attention, favourite
actors and favourite passages being saluted with lively applause.
Even women and children visit the theatre, and I have seen the
former give their children suck without the least discomposure among
thousands of spectators. Besides the plays intended for the public,
there are given also a number of other dramatic representations, as
society plays, peculiar family plays intended for the homes of the
old feudal princes, spectacles got up for the Mikado, and some which
have a half religious significance, &c.

On the evening of the 5th October we came to Takasaki, prepared to
start immediately for Tokio. But though the messenger we sent had
duly executed his commission, horses could not be procured before
midnight. We passed the evening with our former host, who at our
first visit received us so unwillingly, but now with great
friendliness. We would easily have reconciled ourselves to the
delay, for a Japanese small town such as Takasaki has much worth
seeing to offer a European, but a great part of the time was wasted
in fruitless attempts to get the horse-hirer to let us have the
horses a few hours earlier. In spending time in long conversations
mixed with civilities and bows the Japanese are masters. Of this bad
habit, which still often makes the European desperate, it will not
perhaps be long necessary to complain, for everything indicates that
the Japanese too will soon be carried along at the endlessly roaring
speed of the Steam Age.

When we had at last got horses we continued our journey, first in a
carriage to Tokio, then by rail to Yokohama, arriving there on the
afternoon of the 6th October. From this journey I shall only relate
an incident which may form a little picture throwing light on life
in Japan.

While we halted for a short time in the morning of the 6th October
at a large inn by the roadside, we saw half a dozen young girls
finishing their toilets in the inn-yard. In passing we may say, that
a Japanese peasant girl, like girls in general, may be pretty or the
reverse, but that she generally is, what cannot always be said of
the peasant girls at home, cleanly and of attractive manners. They
washed themselves at the stream of water in the inn-yard, smoothed
their artistically dressed hair, which, however, had been but little
disturbed by the cushions on which they had slept, and brushed their
dazzlingly white teeth. Soap is not used for washing, but a cotton
bag filled with bran. The teeth were brushed with a wooden pin, one
end of which was changed by beating into a brush-like collection of
wooden cords. The tooth-powder consisted of finely powdered shells
and corals, and was kept in small, neat wooden boxes, which, along
with tooth-brushes and small square bundles of a very strong and
cheap paper, all clearly intended for the use of the peasants, were
sold for a trifle in most of the innumerable shops along the road.
For such stupid regulations as in former times in Europe rendered
traffic in the country difficult, and often obliged the countryman
to betake himself to the nearest town to buy some horse-shoes or a
roll of wire, appear not to be found in Japan, on which account most
of the peasants living on a country road seek a subsidiary way of
making a living by trafficking in small articles in request among
the country people.

Incidents of the sort referred to we had seen so many times before
that on this occasion it would not have attracted any further
attention on our part, if we had not thereby been reminded that we
must look after our own exterior, before we could make our entrance
into the capital of Japan. We therefore took from the carriage our
basket with linen, shaving implements, and towels, settled down
around the stream of water at which the girls stood, and immediately
began to wash and shave ourselves. There was now general excitement.
The girls ceased to go on with their own toilet, and crowded round
us in a ring in order to see how Europeans behave in such cases, and
to give us the assistance that might be required. Some ran laughing
and bustling about, one on the top of another, in order immediately
to procure us what we wanted, one held the mirror, another the
shaving-brush, a third the soap, &c. Round them gathered other elder
women, whose blackened teeth indicated that they were married. A
little farther off stood men of all ages. Chance had here quite
unexpectedly shown us a picture from folk-life of the most agreeable
kind. This pleasant temper continued while we immediately after, in
the presence of all, ate our breakfast in the porch of the
ground-floor, surrounded by our former ministering spirits, now
kneeling around us, continually bowing the head to the ground,
laughing and chattering. The same fun went on when a little after I
bought some living fresh-water fishes and put them in spirit, yet
with the difference that the girls now, with some cries, to show
their fear of handling the living animals--though fish-cleaning was
one of their ordinary occupations--handed over to the men the
trouble of taking the fishes and putting them into the spirit-jars.
For a worm placed in spirit they feigned the greatest terror,
notwithstanding its covering of spirit and glass, and ran shrieking
away when any one suddenly brought the jar with the worm near their
faces. It ought to be noted to the honour of the Japanese, that
although we were by no means surrounded by any select circle, there
was not heard during the whole time a single offensive word among
the closely-packed spectators, a fact which gives us an idea of the
excellent tone of society which prevails here, even among the lowest
of the population, and which shows that the Japanese, although they
have much to learn from the Europeans, ought not to imitate them in
all. In Japan there is much that is good, old, and national to take
note of, perhaps more than the Japanese at present have any idea of,
and undoubtedly more than many of the European residents will allow.


[Footnote 379: On the contrary, we saw a number of beggars on the
country roads in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. ]

[Footnote 380: _Voyage de M. Golovin_, Paris, 1818, i. p. 176.
Golovin, who was captain in the Russian navy, passed the years
1811-13 in imprisonment in Japan. He and his comrades in misfortune
were received with great friendliness by the people, and very well
treated by the authorities, if we except the exceedingly tedious
examinations to which they were subjected to extract from them the
most minute particulars regarding Europe, and particularly Russia. ]

[Footnote 381: General Grant, as is well known, visited Japan in the
autumn of 1879. He left Yokohama the day after the _Vega_ anchored
in its harbour. ]

[Footnote 382: According to the statement of the inhabitants, I had
not time to visit the place. ]



CHAPTER XVIII.

    Farewell dinner at Yokohama--The Chinese in Japan--Voyage
    to Kobe--Purchase of Japanese Books--Journey by rail to Kioto
    --Biwa Lake and the Legend of its Origin--Dredging there--
    Japanese Dancing-Girls--Kioto--The Imperial Palace--Temples
    --Swords and Sword-bearers--Shintoism and Buddhism--
    The Porcelain Manufacture--Japanese Poetry--Feast in a
    Buddhist Temple--Sailing across the Inland Sea of Japan
    --Landing at Hirosami and Shimonoseki--Nagasaki--Excursion
    to Mogi--Collection of Fossil Plants--Departure from Japan.


The last days at Yokohama were taken up with farewell visits there
and at Tokio. An afternoon's leisure during the last day I spent in
the capital of Japan I employed in making an excursion in order to
dredge from a Japanese boat in the river debouching at the town. The
Japanese boats differ from the European in being propelled not by
rowing but by sculling. They have usually a deck above the level of
the water, which is dazzlingly white and laid with matting, like the
rooms in a Japanese house. The dredging yielded a great number of
Anodonta, large Paludina, and some small shells.

During our stay in Japan I requested Lieutenant Nordquist to make as
complete a collection of the land and fresh-water crustacea of the
country as the short time permitted. In consequence of the unusual
poverty of the country in these animal forms the result was much
smaller than we had hoped. During a preceding voyage to the Polar
Sea I had assisted in making a collection of land crustacea on
Renoe, an island north of the limit of trees in the outer
archipelago of northern Norway. It is possible to collect there in a
few hours as many annuals of this group as in fertile Japan in as
many days. There are parts of Japan, covered with thick woods and
thickets of bushes, where during a forenoon's excursion one can
scarcely find a single crustacean, although the ground is full of
deep, shady clefts in which masses of dried leaves are collected,
and which therefore ought to be an exceedingly suitable haunt for
land mollusca. The reason of this poverty ought perhaps to be sought
in the want of chalk or basic calcareous rocks, which prevails in
the parts of Japan which we visited.

After the Swedish-Dutch minister had further given us a splendid
farewell dinner at the Grand Hotel, to which, as before, the
Japanese minsters and the representatives of the foreign powers in
Japan were invited, we at last weighed anchor on the 11th October to
prosecute our voyage. At this dinner we saw for the first time the
Chinese embassy which at the time visited Japan with the view of
settling the troublesome Loo-Choo affair which threatened to lead to
a war between the two great powers of Eastern Asia. The Chinese
ambassadors were, as usual, two in number, being commissioned to
watch one over the other. One of them laughed immoderately at all
that was said during dinner, although he did not understand a word.
According to what I was told by one who had much experience in the
customs of the heavenly empire, he did this, not because he heard or
understood anything worth laughing at, but because he considered it
good manners to laugh.

Remarkable was the interest which the Chinese labourers settled at
Yokohama took in our voyage, about which they appeared to have read
something in their own or in the Japanese newspapers. When I sent
one of the sailors ashore to execute a commission, and asked him how
he could do that without any knowledge of the language, he replied,
"There is no fear, I always meet with some Chinaman who speaks
English and helps me." The Chinese not only always assisted our
sailors as interpreters without remuneration, but accompanied them
for hours, gave them good advice in making purchases, and expressed
their sympathy with all that they must have suffered during our
wintering in the high north. They were always cleanly, tall, and
stately in their figures, and corresponded in no particular to the
calumnious descriptions we so often read of this people in European
and American writings.

From Yokohama the course was shaped for Kobe, one of the more
considerable Japanese ports which have been opened to Europeans.
Kobe is specially remarkable on account of its having railway
communication with Osaka, the most important manufacturing town of
Japan, and with Kioto, the ancient capital and seat of the Mikado's
court for centuries.

I had already begun at Yokohama to buy Japanese books, particularly
such as were printed before the opening of the ports to Europeans.
In order to carry on this traffic with greater success, I had
procured the assistance of a young Japanese very familiar with
French, Mr. OKUSCHI, assistant in Dr. Geertz' chemico-technical
laboratory at Yokohama. But because the supply of old books in this
town, which a few years ago had been of little importance, was very
limited, I had at first, in order to make purchases on a large
scale, repeatedly sent Mr. Okuschi to Tokio, the seat of the former
Shogun dynasty, and from that town, before the departure of the
_Vega_ from Yokohama, to Kioto, the former seat of learning in
Japan. The object of the _Vega's_ call at the port of Kobe was to
fetch the considerable purchases made there by Mr. Okuschi[383]

Kobe, or Hiogo, as the old Japanese part of the town is called, is a
city of about 40,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated at the
entrance to the Inland Sea of Japan, _i.e._, the sound which
separates the main island from the south islands, Shikoku and
Kiushiu. Mountain ridges of considerable height here run along the
sea-shore. Some of the houses of the European merchants are built on
the lower slopes of these hills, with high, beautiful, forest-clad
heights as a background, and a splendid view of the harbour in
front. The Japanese part of the town consists, as usual, of small
houses which, on the side next the street, are occupied mainly with
sale or work-shops where the whole family lives all day. The streets
have thus a very lively appearance, and offer the foreigner an
endless variety of remarkable and instructive pictures from the
life of the people. The European part of the town, on the other
hand, is built with stately houses, some of which are situated on
the street that runs along the shore. Here, among others, are to be
found splendid European hotels, European clubs, counting-houses,
shops, &c.

Not far from Kobe, and having railway communication with it, is
Osaka, the largest manufacturing town of Japan, famed for its
theatres and its dancing-girls. Unfortunately I had not time to
visit it, for I started for the old capital, Kioto, a few hours
after the _Vega_ anchored, and after I had waited on the governor in
order to procure the passport that is still required for travelling
in the interior. He received me, thanks to a letter of introduction
I had with me from one of the ministers at Tokio, in an exceedingly
agreeable way. His reception-room was part of a large European stone
house, the vestibule of which was tastefully fitted up in European
style with a Brussels carpet gay with variegated colours. At our
visit we were offered Japanese tea, as is customary everywhere in
Japan, both in the palace of the Emperor and the cabin of the poor
peasant. The Governor was, as all the higher officials in Japan now
are, dressed like a European of distinction, but he could not speak
any European language. He showed himself, however, to be much
interested in our voyage, and immediately ordered an official in his
court, who was well acquainted with English, Mr. YANIMOTO, to
accompany me to Kioto.

We travelled thither by a railway constructed wholly in the European
style. At Kioto my companion, at my special request, conducted me
not to the European hotel there, but to a Japanese inn, remarkable
as usual for cleanliness, for a numerous crowd of talkative female
attendants, and for the extreme friendliness of the inn people to
then guests as soon as they indicated, by taking off then boots at
the door, that it was their intention not to break Japanese customs
and usages in any offensive way. A calling card and a letter from
Admiral Kawamura, minister of marine, which I sent from the hotel to
the Governor of Kioto, procured me an adjutant No. 2, a young,
cheerful, and talkative official, Mr. KOBA-YASCHI, whose eyes
sparkled with intelligence and merry good humour. One would sooner
have taken him for a highly-esteemed student president at some
northern university, than for a Japanese official. It was already
late in the day, so that before nightfall I had time only to take
the bath which, at every Japanese inn not of too inferior a kind, is
always at the traveller's call, and arrange the dreding excursion
which, along with Lieut. Nordquist, I intended to make next day on
Lake Biwa.

[Illustration: JAPANESE SHOP. ]

The road between Kioto and Biwa we travelled the following morning
in _jinrikishas_. In a short time there will be communication
between these two places by a railway constructed exclusively by
native workmen and native engineers. It will be, and is intended to
be, an actual Japanese railway. For a considerable distance it
passes through a tunnel, which, however, as some of the Europeans at
Kobe stated, might easily have been avoided "if the Japanese had not
considered it desirable that Japan, too, should have a railway
tunnel to show, as such are found both in Europe and America." It is
probable, in any case, that the bends which would have been required
if the tunnel was to be avoided, would have cost more by the
additional length than the tunnel, and that therefore the procedure
of the Japanese was better considered than their envious European
neighbours would allow. There appears to prevail among the European
residents in Japan a certain jealousy of the facility with which
this country, till recently so far behind in an industrial respect,
assimilates the skill in art and industry of the Europeans, and of
the rapidity with which the people thereby make themselves
independent of the wares of the foreign merchants.

When we reached Lake Biwa we were conducted by Mr. Koba-Yaschi to an
inn close by the shore, with a splendid view of the southern part of
the lake. We were shown into beautiful Japanese rooms, which had
evidently been arranged for the reception of Europeans, and in which
accordingly some tables and chairs had been placed. On the tables we
found, on our arrival, bowls, with fruit and confections, Japanese
tea, and braziers. The walls were formed partly of tastefully gilt
paper panels ornamented with mottoes, reminding visitors of the
splendid view.

A whole day of the short time which was allowed me to study the
remarkable things of Kioto I devoted to Lake Biwa, because lakes are
exceedingly uncommon in the south, for they occur only in the
countries which have either been covered with glaciers in the most
recent geological periods, or, in consequence of the action of
volcanic forces, have been the scene of violent disturbances of the
surface of the earth. I believed that Lake Biwa would form an
exception to this, but I was probably mistaken, for tradition
relates that this lake was formed in a single night at the same time
that the high volcanic cone of Fusiyama was elevated. This
tradition, in its general outline, corresponds so closely with the
teaching of geology, that scarcely any geologist will doubt its
truth.

After our arrival at the inn we had to wait a very long time for the
steamer I had ordered. On this account I thoughtlessly enough broke
out in reproaches on my excellent Japanese adjutants, who, however,
received my hard words only with friendly smiles, which increased
still further my impatience at the loss of time which was thus
occasioned. It was not until far on in the day, when I was already
out dredging from a small steamer, that I was informed as to the
cause of the delay. The Biwa Steamship Company had, at the request
of the Governor, intended to place at my disposal a very large boat
well provided with coal, but after taking the coal on board it had
sunk so deep that it grounded in the mud of the harbour. We had
already got far out with the little steamer when the large one at
last got off. I was now obliged to exchange vessels in order to be
received "in a more honourable way." It was not until this took
place that I was informed that I was guest and not master, on which
account I was obliged to employ the rest of the afternoon in
excusing my former violent behaviour, in which, with the help of
friendly words, beer, and red wine, I succeeded pretty well, to
judge by the mirth which soon began to prevail among my now very
numerous Japanese companions.

On the little steamer I had ordered two of my crew whom I had
brought with me from the _Vega_ to prepare a meal for the Japanese
and ourselves. In this way the dinner that had been arranged for us,
without my knowledge, became superfluous. I was obliged instead to
receive as a gift the provisions and liquors purchased for the
dinner, consisting of fowls, eggs, potatoes, red wine and beer,
giving at the same time a receipt as a matter of form.

During our excursion on the lake we met with various boats laden
with sea-weed, which had been taken up from the bottom of the lake
to be used as manure for the neighbouring cultivated fields. Partly
among these algæ, partly by dredging, Lieut. Nordquist collected
various interesting fresh-water crustacea (Paludina, Melania, Unio,
Planorbis &c.,) several sorts of shrimps (a Hippolyte) small fishes,
&c. Lake Biwa abounds in fish, and harbours besides a large
clumsily-formed species of lizard. In order to make further
collections of the animal forms occurring there, Lieut. Nordquist
remained at the lake till next day. I, on the other hand, went
immediately back to Kioto, arriving there in the evening after
nightfall.

After having eaten, along with my two Japanese companions, an
unexceptionable European dinner at the inn of the town, kept by
Japanese, but arranged in European style, we paid a visit to a
company of Japanese dancing-girls.

Kioto competes with Osaka for the honour of having the prettiest
dancing-girls. These form a distinct class of young girls, marked by
a peculiar variegated dress. They wear besides a peculiar
hair-ornament, are much painted, and have their lips coloured black
and gold. At the dancing places of greatest note a European is not
received, unless he has with him a known native who answers for his
courteous behaviour. After taking off his shoes on entering, the
visitor is introduced to a separate room with its floor covered with
matting and its walls ornamented with Japanese drawings and mottoes,
but without other furniture. A small square cushion is given to each
of the guests. After they have settled themselves in Japanese
fashion, that is to say, squatting cross-legged, pipes and tea are
brought in, on which a whole crowd of young girls come in and,
chatting pleasantly, settle themselves around the guests, observing
all the while complete decency even according to the most exacting
European ideas. There is not to be seen here any trace of the
effrontery and coarseness which are generally to be found in similar
places in Europe. One would almost believe that he was among a crowd
of school-girls who had given the sour moral lessons of their
governess the slip, and were thinking of nothing else than
innocently gossiping away some hours. After a while the dance
begins, accompanied by very monotonous music and singing. The slow
movements of the legs and arms of the dancers remind us of certain
slow and demure scenes from European ballets. There is nothing
indecent in this dance, but we learn that there are other dances
wilder and less decorous.

The dancing-girls are recruited exclusively from the poorer classes,
pretty young girls, to help their parents or to earn some styvers
for themselves, selling themselves for a certain time to the owners
of the dancing-places, and when the time agreed upon has come to an
end returning to their homes, where notwithstanding this they marry
without difficulty. All the dancing-girls therefore are young, many
of them pretty even according to European ideas, though their
appearance is destroyed in our eyes by the tasteless way in which
they paint themselves and colour their lips. Unfortunately I had not
time to avail myself of the opportunity which Kioto offers the
foreigner of judging with certainty regarding the Japanese taste in
female beauty. For here, as at various other Japanese towns, there
are a number of girls who have been officially selected as the most
beautiful among the youth of the place. The Japanese may visit them
for a certain payment, but to Europeans they do not show themselves
willingly, and only for a large sum. When this takes place at any
time, it is only a dumb show for a few moments, during which no
words are exchanged.

[Illustration: JAPANESE COURT DRESS. ]

The Governor had promised to carry me round next day to see whatever
was remarkable in the town. I was not much delighted at this,
because I feared that the whole day would be taken up with
inspecting the whole or half-European public offices and schools,
which had not the slightest interest for me. My fear however was
quite unjustified. The Governor was a man of genius, who, according
to the statements of my companions, was reckoned among the first of
the contemporary poets of Japan. He immediately declared that he
supposed that the new public offices and schools would interest me
much less than the old palaces, temples, porcelain and _faïence_
manufactories of the town, and that he therefore intended to employ
the day I spent under his guidance in showing me the latter.

[Illustration: NOBLE IN ANTIQUE DRESS. ]

We made a beginning with the old imperial palace Gosho, the most
splendid dwelling of Old Japan. It is not however very grand
according to European ideas. A very extensive space of ground is
here covered with a number of one-story wooden houses, intended for
the Emperor, the imperial family, and their suite. The buildings
are, like all Japanese houses, divided by movable panels into a
number of rooms, richly provided with paintings and gilded
ornamentation, but otherwise without a trace of furniture. For the
palace now stands uninhabited since the Mikado overthrew the Shogun
dynasty and removed to Tokio. It already gives a striking picture of
the change which has taken place in the land. Only the imperial
family and the great men of the country were formerly permitted to
enter the sacred precincts of Gosho. Now it stands open to every
curious native or foreigner and it has even as an exhibition
building been already pressed into the service of industry.
Alongside the large buildings there are several small ones, of which
one was intended to protect the Emperor-deity during earthquakes,
the others formed play-places for the company of grown children who
were then permitted to govern the country.

[Illustration: BUDDHIST PRIEST. ]

Much more remarkable and instructive than the now deserted imperial
palace are the numerous temples at Kioto, of which we visited
several. We were generally received by the priests in a large
vestibule, whose floor was covered with a fine woollen carpet and
was provided with tables and chairs of European patterns. The
priests first offered us Japanese tea, cigars, and sweetmeats, then
we examined some valuable articles exhibited in the room, consisting
of bronzes, works in the noble metals, splendid old lacquer work,
and a number of famous swords dedicated to the temple. These were
the only things that our freethinking Governor treated with
reverence, for the rest neither the priests nor their reliques
seemed to inspire him with any particular respect.

[Illustration: A SAMURAI. ]

When a valuable Japanese sword is exhibited one touches neither the
hilt nor the scabbard, and of course still less the blade, with the
bare hand, but it is taken hold of either with a gloved hand, or
with the hand with a handkerchief or piece of cloth wrapped round
it. The blade is only half bared, the steel setting is looked at
against the light and admired; on the often exceedingly valuable
blades which are not mounted, but only provided with a wooden case
to protect them from rust, the maker's mark is examined, and so on.
As among us in former times, the swordsmith's is the only handicraft
which in old times was held in high esteem in Japan, and immense
sums were often paid for sword-blades forged by famous masters of
the art. Among old Japanese writings are to be found many works
specially treating of the making of weapons. But since the swordsmen
(_samurai_) have now been forbidden to show themselves armed, old
Japanese swords are sold in all the towns by hundreds and thousands,
often for a trifle. During our stay in the country I purchased for a
comparatively limited sum a fine collection of such weapons. Even
those who cannot appreciate the artistic forging of the blade, the
steel-setting, and tempering, must admire the exceedingly tasteful
casting and embossing of the ornamentation, especially of the
guard-plates of the sword. They are often veritable works of art,
unsurpassed in style and execution.

It is not very many years ago since the men who belonged to the
_samurai_ class never showed themselves abroad without being armed
with two swords. Even schoolboys went armed to the first European
schools that were established in the country. This gave occasion to
several acts of violence during the time which succeeded the opening
of the ports, for which reason the European ambassadors some years
after requested that carrying the sword in time of peace should be
prohibited. To this the Japanese government answered that it would
make short work with the minister who should publish such a
prohibition. Soon after, however, it gave _permission_ to those who
desired it to go without weapons, and the carrying of arms soon
became so unfashionable that one of the authorities did dare at last
to issue a distinct prohibition of it. During our stay in Japan,
accordingly, we did not see a single man armed with the two swords
formerly in use.

After we had seen and admired the treasures in the temple vestibule,
we visited the temple itself. This is always of wood, richly
ornamented with carvings and gilding. If it is dedicated to Shinto,
there are no images in it, and very few ornaments, if we except a
mirror and a large locked press with the doors smashed in, which
sometimes occupies the wall opposite the entrance, and in which, as
I have already stated, the spirit of the deity is said to dwell. The
Shinto temples are in general poor. Many are so inconsiderable as to
look almost like dovecotes. They are often completely deserted, so
that it is difficult to discover them among the magnificent trees by
which they were surrounded. The entrance to the temple is indicated
by a gate (_torryi_) of wood, stone, or copper, and here and there
are ropes, stretched over the way, to which written prayers and vows
are affixed.

Even those who have long studied Japan and its literature have very
little knowledge of the inner essence of Shintoism. This religion is
considered by some a pure deism, by others a belief with political
aims, the followers of which worship the departed heroes of the
country. Of a developed morality this religion is wholly devoid. In
the same way it appears to be uncertain whether Shintoism is a
survival of the original religion of the country or whether it has
been brought from abroad.

[Illustration: GATE ACROSS THE ROAD TO A SHINTO TEMPLE. ]

Buddhism was introduced from China by Corea. Its temples are more
ornamented than the Shinto temples, and contain images of deities,
bells, drums, holy books, and a great quantity of altar ornaments.
The transmigration of souls, and rewards and punishments in a life
after this, are doctrines of Buddhism. Outside the temples proper
there are to be found in many places large or small images in stone
or bronze of the deities of Buddha. The largest of these consist of
colossal statues in bronze (_Daibutsu_), representing Buddha in a
sitting position, and themselves forming the screen to a temple with
smaller images. A similar statue is also to be found at Kamakura,
another at Tokio, a third at Nara near Kioto, and so on. Some have
of late years been sold for the value of the metal, one has in this
way been brought to London, and is now exhibited in the Kensington
Museum. The metal of the statues consists of an alloy of copper with
tin and a little gold, the last named constituent giving rise to the
report that their value is very considerable. To give an idea of the
size of some _Daibutsu_ statues it may be mentioned that the one at
Nara is fifty-three and a half feet high, and that one can crawl
into the head through the nose orifices.


[Illustration: BUDDHIST TEMPLE AT KOBE. ]

Nearly all the _Daibutsu_ images are made after nearly the same
design, which has been improved from generation to generation until
the countenance of the image has received a stamp of benevolence,
calm, and majesty, which has probably never been surpassed by the
productions of western art. _Daibutsu_ images evidently stand in
the same relation to the works of private sculptors as folk-poetry
to that of individual bards.

As I have before pointed out, the Western taste for the gigantic was
not prevalent in Old Japan. It was evidently elegance and neatness,
not grandeur, that formed the object towards which the efforts of
the artist, the architect, and the gardener were directed. Only the
_Daibutsu_ images, some bells, and other instruments of worship form
exceptions to this. During our excursion at Kioto we passed an
inclosure where the walls were built of blocks of stone so colossal,
that it was difficult to comprehend how it had been possible to lift
and move them with the means that were at the disposal of the
Japanese in former times. In the neighbourhood of that place there
was a grave, probably the only one of its kind. It is described in
the following way in an account of the curiosities of Kioto written
by a native:--

    "Mimisuka, or the grave of the noses and the ears, was
    erected by Hideyoshi Taiko, who lived about A.D. 1590. When
    the military chiefs of this famous man attacked Corea with
    a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, he gave orders that
    they should bring home and show him all the ears and noses
    of the enemies who were killed in the contest, for it was
    an old practice in Japan to cut off the enemies' heads to
    show them to the king or the commander of the army. But it
    was now impossible to bring the heads of the dead Corean
    warriors to Japan, because the distance was too great.
    Hideyoshi therefore gave the above order, and the ears and
    noses, which were brought to Japan, were buried together at
    that place. The grave is 730 feet in circumference, and is
    30 feet high."

Kioto is one of the principal places for the manufacture of
_faïence_, porcelain, and _cloisonné_. The productions of the
ceramic art are, as is well-known, distinguished by their tasteful
forms and beautiful colours, and are highly valued by connoisseurs,
on which account they are exported on a large scale to Europe and
America. The works are numerous and small, and are owned for the
most part by families that for a long succession of generations have
devoted themselves to the same occupation. The articles are burned
in very small furnaces, and are commonly sold in a shop which is
close to the place where they are made. The making of porcelain in
Japan, therefore, bears the stamp rather of handicraft than of
manufacturing industry. The wares gain thereby in respect of art to
an almost incredible degree. They have the same relation to the
productions of the great European manufactories that the drawing of
an artist has to a showily coloured lithograph. But the price is
high in proportion, and the Japanese porcelain is too dear for
every-day use even in its own country. Nearly all the large sets of
table porcelain that I saw in Japan were, therefore, ordered from
abroad. The cups which the natives themselves use for rice, tea, and
_saki_ are, however, of native manufacture; but even in a
well-provided Japanese household there is seldom so much porcelain
as would be required for a proper coffee-party at home.

In the evening the Governor had invited us to a dinner, which was
given in a hall belonging to a literary society in the town. The
rooms were partly furnished in European style with tables, chairs,
Brussels carpets, &c. The dinner was European in the arrangement of
dishes, wines, and speeches. The dishes and wines were abundant and
in great variety. The company were very merry, and the host appeared
to be greatly pleased, when I mentioned that at one of the places
which I had seen that day I saw a wall adorned by a motto of his
composition. He immediately promised to write a similar one on me
with reference to my visit to the town, and when a few moments after
he had the first line ready, he invited his Japanese guests to write
the second. They tried for a good while with merry jests to hit upon
some suitable conclusion, but in vain. Early the following morning
Mr. Koba-Yaschi came to me, bringing with him a broad strip of silk
on which the following was pencilled in bold, nobly-formed
characters:

    Umi hara-no-hate-made
    Akiva-Sumi-watare,

which when translated runs thus:

    "As far as the sea extends
    The autumn moon spreads her beneficent light."

According to the explanation which I received the piece points out
that the autumn moon spreads her beneficent rays as far as to that
place in the high north where we wintered. After the above-quoted
verse came the following addition in Japanese: "Written by Machimura
Masanavo, Governor of Kioto-Fu, to Professor Nordenskiöld, on the
occasion of a dinner given to him during the autumn of 1879." The
whole besides was signed with the author's common, as well as his
poetical, name, and had his seal attached. His poetical name was
RIO-SAN, which may be literally translated "Dragon-Mountain."

The poetry of the Japanese is so unlike that of the Western nations
that we find it difficult to comprehend the productions of the
Japanese poets. Perhaps they ought more correctly to be called
poetical mottoes. They play a great part in the intellectual life of
the Japanese. Their authors are highly esteemed, and even in the
homes of the poorer classes the walls are often ornamented with
strips of silk or paper on which poems are written in large, bold,
pencil characters. Among the books I brought home with me are many
which contain collections of the writings of private poets and
poetesses, or selections from the most famous of the productions of
Japanese literature in this department. A roll of drawings which
turned up very often represents the sorrowful fate of a famous
poetess. First of all she is depicted as a representative Japanese
beauty, blooming with youth and grace, then she is represented in
different stages of decay, then as dead, then as a half-decayed
corpse torn asunder by ravens, and finally as a heap of bones. The
series ends with a cherry-tree in splendid bloom, into which the
heroine, after her body had passed through all the stages of
annihilation, has been changed. The cherry-tree in blossom is
considered by the Japanese the ideal of beauty in the vegetable
kingdom, and during the flowering season of this tree excursions are
often undertaken to famous cherry-groves where hour after hour is
passed in tranquil admiration of the flower-splendour of the tree.
Unfortunately I was so late in getting the explanation of the
beautiful poetical idea that ran through this series of pictures,
some of which were executed with execrable truth to nature, that I
missed the opportunity of purchasing it.

[Illustration: RIO SAN'S SEAL. ]

I was obliged to leave Kioto too early in order to be present at a
_fête_, which was given to us at Kobe by the Japanese, Europeans,
and Chinese who were interested in our voyage. The entertainment was
held in a Buddhist temple without the town, and was very pleasant
and agreeable. The Japanese did not seem at all to consider that
their temple was desecrated by such an arrangement. In the course of
the afternoon for instance there came several pilgrims to the
temple. I observed them carefully, and could not mark in their
countenances any trace of displeasure at a number of foreigners
feasting in the beautiful temple grove whither they had come on
pilgrimage. They appeared rather to consider that they had come to
the goal of their wanderings at a fortunate moment, and therefore
gladly accepted the refreshments that were offered them.

On the morning of the 18th October the _Vega_ again weighed anchor,
to proceed on her voyage. The course was shaped through the Inland
Sea of Japan for Nagasaki. When I requested of the Governor of Kobe
permission to land at two places on the way, he not only immediately
granted my request, but also sent on the _Vega_ the same
English-speaking official from his court who had before attended me
to Kioto. The weather was clear and fine, so that we had a good
opportunity of admiring the magnificent environs of the Inland Sea.
They resemble much the landscape in a northern archipelago. The
views here are however more monotonous in consequence of their being
less variety in the contours of the mountains. Here as at Kobe the
hills consist mainly of a species of granite which is exposed to
weathering on so large a scale that the hard rocks are nearly
everywhere decomposed into a yellow sand unfavourable for
vegetation. The splendid wild granite cliffs of the north
accordingly are absent here. All the hill-tops are evenly rounded,
and everywhere, except where there has been a sand-slip, covered
with a rich vegetation, which in consequence of the evenness of
height of the trees gives little variety to the landscape, which
otherwise is among the most beautiful on the globe.

[Illustration: BURYING PLACE AT KIOTO. ]

We landed at two places, on the first occasion at Hirosami. Here
some fishermens' cabins and some peasants' houses formed a little
village at the foot of a high, much-weathered granite ridge. The
burying-place was situated near one of the houses, close to the
shore. On an area of some hundred square yards there were numerous
gravestones, some upright, some fallen. Some were ornamented with
fresh flowers, at one was a Shinto shrine of wooden pins, at another
stood a bowl with rice and a small _saki_ bottle. Our zoologists
here made a pretty rich collection of littoral animals, among which
may be mentioned a cuttle-fish which had crept down amongst the wet
sand, an animal that is industriously searched for and eaten by the
natives. Among the cultivated plants we saw here, as many times
before in the high-lying parts of the country, an old acquaintance
from home, namely buckwheat.

The second time the _Vega_ anchored at a peasant village right
opposite Shimonoseki. When we landed there came an official on
board, courteously declaring that we had no right to land at that
place. But he was immediately satisfied and made no more
difficulties when he was informed that we had the permission of the
Governor, and that instead of the usual passport an official from
Kobe accompanied the vessel. Shimonoseki has a melancholy reputation
in European-Japanese history from the deeds of violence done here by
a united English, French, Dutch, and American fleet of seventeen
vessels on the 4th and 5th September, 1864, in order to compel the
Japanese to open the sound to foreigners, and the unreasonably heavy
compensation which after the victory was won they demanded from the
conquered. Although only fifteen years have passed since this
occurred, there appears to be no trace of bitter feeling towards
Europeans among the inhabitants of the region. At least we were
received at the village in the neighbourhood of which we landed with
extraordinary kindness. The village was situated at the foot of a
rocky ridge, and consisted of a number of houses arranged in a row
along a single street, the fronts of the houses being as usual
occupied as shops, places for selling _saki_, and workshops for home
industry. The only remarkable things besides that the village had to
offer consisted of a Shinto temple surrounded by beautiful trees and
a considerable salt-work, which consisted of extensive, shallow,
well-planned ponds now nearly dry, into which the sea-water is
admitted in order to evaporate, and from which the condensed salt
liquid is afterwards drawn into salt-pans in order that the
evaporation may be completed. It was remarkable to observe that
several crustacea throve exceedingly well in the very strong brine.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO NAGASAKI. ]

On the surrounding hills we saw thickets of the Japanese wax tree,
_Rhus succedaneus_. The wax is pressed out of the berries of this
bush with the help of heat. It is used on a large scale in making
the lights which the natives themselves burn, and is exported
bleached and refined to Europe, where it is sometimes used in the
manufacture of lights. Now, however, these wax lights are
increasingly superseded by American kerosene oil. The price has
fallen so much that the preparation of vegetable wax is now said
scarcely to yield a profit.[384]

We left this place next morning, and on the 21st October the _Vega_
anchored in the harbour of Nagasaki. My principal intention in
visiting this place was to collect fossil plants, which I supposed
would be found at the Takasima coal-mine, or in the neighbourhood of
the coal-field. In order to find out the locality without delay, I
reckoned on the fondness of the Japanese for collecting remarkable
objects of all kinds from the animal, vegetable, and mineral
kingdoms. I therefore hoped to find in some of the shops where old
bronzes, porcelain, weapons, &c., were offered for sale, fossil
plants from the neighbourhood, with the locality given. The first
day, therefore, I ran about to all the dealers in curiosities, but
without success. At last one of the Japanese with whom I conversed
told me that an exhibition of the products of nature and art in the
region was being arranged, and that among the objects exhibited I
might possibly find what I sought for.

Of course I immediately availed myself of the opportunity to see one
of the many Japanese local exhibitions of which I had heard so much.
It was yet in disorder, but I was, at all events, willingly
admitted, and thus had an opportunity of seeing much that was
instructive to me, especially a collection of rocks from the
neighbourhood. Among these I discovered at last, to my great
satisfaction, some beautiful fossil plants from Mogi, a place not
far from Nagasaki.

Immediately the following morning I started for Mogi, accompanied by
the Japanese attendant I had with me from Kobe, and by another
adjutant given me by the very obliging governor of Nagasaki. We were
to travel across the hills on horseback. I was accompanied, besides
my Japanese assistants and a man from the _Vega_, all on horseback,
by a number of coolies carrying provisions and other equipment. The
Governor had lent me his own horse, which was considered by the
Japanese something quite grand. It was a yellowish-brown stallion,
not particularly large, but very fine, resembling a Norwegian horse,
very gentle and sure-footed. The latter quality was also quite
necessary, for the journey began with a ride up a hundred smooth and
not very convenient stone steps. Farther on, too, the road, which
was exceedingly narrow and often paved with smooth stones, went
repeatedly up and down such stairs, not very suitable for a man on
horseback, and close to the edge of precipices several hundred feet
deep, where a single false step would have cost both the horse and
its rider their lives. But as has been said, our horses were
sure-footed and sure-eyed, and the riders took care in passing such
places not to pull the reins.

None of the mountain regions I have seen in Japan are so well
cultivated as the environs of Nagasaki. Every place that is somewhat
level, though only several hundred square yards in extent, is used
for growing some of the innumerable cultivated plants of the
country, principally rice but as such easily cultivated places occur
in only limited numbers, the inhabitants have by industry and hard
labour changed the steep slopes of the mountains into a succession
of level terraces rising one above the other, all carefully watered
by irrigating conduits.

Mogi is a considerable fishing village lying at the seaside twenty
kilometres south of Nagasaki in a right line, on the other side of a
peninsula occupied by lava beds and volcanic tuffs, which projects
from the island Kiushiu, which at that place is nearly cut asunder
by deep fjords. No European lives at the place, and of course there
is no European inn there. But we got lodgings in the house of one of
the principal or richest men in the village, a maker and seller _of
saki_, or as we would call him in Swedish, a brandy distiller and
publican. Here we were received in a very friendly manner, in clean
and elegant rooms, and were waited on by the young and very pretty
daughter of our host at the head of a number of other female
attendants. It may be supposed that our place of entertainment had
no resemblance to a public-house in Sweden. We did not witness here
the tipsy behaviour of some human wrecks, and as little some other
incidents which might have reminded us of public-house life in
Europe. All went on in the distillery and the public-house as calmly
and quietly as the work in the house of a well-to-do country squire
in Sweden who does not swear and is not quarrelsome.

_Saki_ is a liquor made by fermenting and distilling rice. It is
very variable in taste and strength, sometimes resembling inferior
Rhine wine, sometimes more like weak grain brandy. Along with _saki_
our host also manufactured vinegar, which was made from rice and
_saki_ residues, which with the addition of some other vegetable
substances were allowed to stand and acidify in large jars ranged in
rows in the yard.

When my arrival became known I was visited by the principal men of
the village. We were soon good friends by the help of a friendly
reception, cigars and red wine. Among them the physician of the
village was especially of great use to me. As soon as he became
aware of the occasion of my visit he stated that such fossils as I
was in search of did indeed occur in the region, but that they were
only accessible at low water. I immediately visited the place with
the physician and my companions from Nagasaki, and soon discovered
several strata containing the finest fossil plants one could desire.
During this and the following day I made a rich collection, partly
with the assistance of a numerous crowd of children who zealously
helped me in collecting. They were partly boys and partly girls, the
latter always having a little one on their backs. These little
children were generally quite bare-headed. Notwithstanding this they
slept with the crown of the head exposed to the hottest sun-bath on
the backs of their bustling sisters, who jumped lightly and securely
over stocks and stones, and never appeared to have any idea that the
burdens on their backs were at all unpleasant or troublesome.

According to Dr. A.G. NATHORST'S examination, the fossil plants which I
brought home from this place belong to the more recent Tertiary
formation. Our distinguished and acute vegetable paleontologist fixes
attention on the point, that we would have expected to find here a
fossil flora allied to the recent South Japanese, which is considered to
be derived from a Tertiary flora which closely resembles it. There is,
however, no such correspondence, for impressions of ferns are almost
completely wanting at Mogi, and even of pines there is only a single
leaf-bearing variety which closely resembles the Spitzbergen form of
_Sequoia Langsdorfii_, Brag. On the other hand, there are met with, in
great abundance, the leaves of a species of beech nearly allied to the
red beech of America, _Fagus ferruginea_, Ait., but not resembling the
recent Japanese varieties of the same family. There were found, besides,
leaves of Quercus, Juglans, Populus, Myrica, Salix, Zelkova,
Liquidambar, Acer, Prunus, Tilia, &c., resembling leaves of recent types
from the forests of Japan, from the forest flora of America, or from the
temperate flora of the Himalayas. But as the place where they were found
is situated at the sea-shore, quite close to the southern extremity of
Japan, it is singular that the tropical or sub-tropical elements of the
flora of Japan are here wanting. From this Dr. Nathorst draws the
conclusion that these are not, as has been hitherto supposed, the
remains of a flora originating in Japan, but that they have since
migrated thither from a former continent situated further to the south,
which has since disappeared. Dr. Nathorst's examination is not yet
completed, but even if this were the case, want of space would not
permit me to treat of this point at greater length. I cannot, however,
omit to mention that it was highly agreeable to be able to connect with
the memory of the _Vega_ expedition at least a small contribution from
more southerly lands to vegetable palæontology, a branch of knowledge to
which our preceding Arctic expeditions yielded new additions of such
importance through the fossil herbaria from luxuriant ancient forests
which they brought to light from the ice-covered cliffs of Spitzbergen
and from the basalt-covered sandstones and schists of the Noui-soak
Peninsula in Greenland, now so bleak.

[Illustration: FOSSIL PLANTS FROM MOGI.
1, 2. Beech Leaves (_Fagus ferruginea_ Ait., var. _pliocena_, Nath.).
3. Maple Leaf (_Acer Mono_, Max., var. _pliocena_, Nath.). ]

[Illustration: FOSSIL PLANT FROM MOGI. Leaf of _Zelkova Keakii_
Sieb., var. _pliocena_, Nath. ]

After our return from Mogi I made an excursion to the coal-mine at
Takasami, situated on an island some kilometres from the town. Even
here I succeeded in bringing together some further contributions to
the former flora of the region.

After the inhabitants of Nagasaki, too, had given us a grand parting
feast, at which speeches were spoken in Japanese, Chinese, English,
French, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Danish, and Swedish, a
proof of the mixture of nationalities which prevailed there, the
_Vega_ again weighed anchor on the 27th October, in order to
continue her voyage. We now left Japan to commence in earnest our
return, and on our departure we were saluted by the crews of two
English gun-boats anchored in the harbour, the _Hornet_ and the
_Sylvia_, manning the yards and bulwarks. It was natural that the
hour of departure, after fifteen months' absence from home, should
be looked forward to with joy. But our joy was mixed with a
regretful feeling that we were so soon compelled to leave--without
the hope of ever returning--the magnificent country and noble people
among whom a development is now going on which probably will not
only give a new awakening to the old cultured races of Eastern Asia,
but will also prepare a new soil for European science, industry, and
art. It is difficult to foresee what new undreamed-of blossoms and
fruit this soil will yield. But the Europeans are perhaps much
mistaken who believe that the question here is only that of clothing
an Asiatic feudal state in a modern European dress. Rather the day
appears to me to dawn of a time in which the countries round the
Mediterranean of eastern Asia will come to play a great part in the
further development of the human race.


[Footnote 383: The number of the works which the collection of
Japanese books contains is somewhat over a thousand. The number of
volumes amounts to five or six thousand, most of the volumes,
however, are not larger than one of our books of a hundred pages. So
far as can be judged by the Japanese titles, which are often little
distinctive, the works may be distributed among the various branches
of knowledge in the following way:

                                                          Number
                                                        of Works

 History                                                     176
 On Buddhism and Education                                   161
 On Shintoism                                                 38
 On Christianity (printed in 1715)                             1
 Manners and Customs                                          33
 The Drama                                                    13
 Laws                                                          5
 Politics, Political argumentative writings, partly new
   and privately printed against the recent statues           24
 Poetry and Prose fiction                                    137
 Heraldry, Antiquities, Ceremonies                            27
 The Art of War and the Use of Weapons                        41
 Chess                                                         1
 Coining                                                       4
 Dictionaries, Grammars                                       18
 Geography, Maps                                              76
 Natural History                                              68
 The Science of Medicine                                      13
 Arithmetic, Astronomy, Astrology                             39
 Handicrafts, Agriculture                                     43
 Notebooks                                                    73
 The art of making bouquets (Horticulture?)                   16
 Bibliography                                                  9
 Various                                                      20
                                                           -----
 Total                                                      1036 ]

[Footnote 384: Further information on this point is given by Henry
Gribble in "The Preparation of Vegetable Wax" (_Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. iii. part. i. p. 94. Yokohama,
1875). ]



CHAPTER XIX.

    Hong Kong and Canton--Stone-polishing Establishments at
    Canton--Political Relations in an English Colony--
    Treatment of the Natives--Voyage to Labuan--Coal Mines there
    --Excursion to the shore of Borneo--Malay Villages--Singapore
    --Voyage to Ceylon--Point de Galle--The Gem Mines at Ratnapoora
    --Visit to a Temple--Purchase of Manuscripts--The Population
    of Ceylon--Dr. Almquist's Excursion to the Interior of the Island.


Some days after our arrival at Yokohama the _Vega_ was removed to
the dock at Yokosuka, there to be protected by coppering against the
boring mussels of the warm seas, so injurious to the vessel's hull;
the opportunity being also taken advantage of by me to subject the
vessel to some trifling repairs and alterations in the fitting up,
which were desirable because during the remainder of our voyage we
were to sail not in a cold but in a tropical climate. The work took
somewhat longer time than was reckoned on, so that it was not until
the 21st September that the _Vega_ could leave the dock and return
to Yokohama. It had originally been my intention to remain in Japan
only so long as was necessary for the finishing of this work, during
which time opportunity could be given to the officers and crew of
the _Vega_ to rest after the labours and sufferings of the long
winter, to receive and answer letters from home, and to gather from
the newspapers the most important occurrences that had taken place
during our fourteen months' absence from the regions which are
affected by what takes place in the world. But as appears from the
foregoing narrative, the delay was longer than had been intended.
This indeed was caused in some degree by the difficulty of tearing
ourselves away after only a few days' stay from a people so
remarkable, so lovable, and so hospitable as the Japanese, and from
a land so magnificently endowed by nature. Besides, when the _Vega_
was again ready for sea, it was so near the time for the change of
the monsoon, that it was not advisable, and would not have been
attended with any saving of time, to sail immediately. For at that
season furious storms are wont to rage in these seas, and the wind
then prevailing is so unfavourable for sailing from Japan to the
southward, that a vessel with the weak steam-power of the _Vega_
cruising between Japan and Hong Kong in a head-wind might readily
have lost the days saved by an earner departure. On the other hand,
in the end of October and the beginning of November we could, during
our passage to Hong Kong, count on a fresh and always favourable
breeze. This took place too, so that, leaving Nagasaki on the 27th
October, we were able to anchor in the harbour of Hong Kong as early
as the 2nd November.

There was of course no prospect of being able to accomplish anything
for the benefit of science during a few days' stay in a region which
had been examined by naturalists innumerable times before, but I at
all events touched at this harbour that I might meet the expressed
wish of one of the members of the expedition not to leave eastern
Asia without having, during the voyage of the _Vega_, seen something
of the so much talked of "heavenly kingdom" so different from all
other lands.

For this purpose, however, Hong Kong is an unsuitable place. This
rich and flourishing commercial town, which has been created by
England's Chinese politics and opium trade, is a British colony with
a European stamp, which has little to show of the original Chinese
folk-life, although the principal part of its population consists of
Chinese. But at the distance of a few hours by steamer from Hong
Kong lies the large old commercial city of Canton, which, though it
has long been open to Europeans, is still purely Chinese, with its
peatstack-like architecture, its countless population, its temples,
prisons, flower-junks, mandarins, pig-tailed street-boys, &c. Most
of the members of the expedition made an excursion thither, and were
rewarded with innumerable indescribable impressions from Chinese
city life. We were everywhere received by the natives in a friendly
way,[385] and short as our visit was, it was yet sufficient to
dissipate the erroneous impressions which a number of European
authors have been pleased to give of the most populous nation. One
soon saw that he has to do with an earnest and industrious people,
who, indeed, apprehend much--virtue and vice, joy and sorrow--in
quite a different way from us, but towards whom we, on that account,
by no means have the right to assume the position of superiority
which the European is so ready to claim towards coloured races.

The greater portion of my short stay in Canton I employed in
wandering about, carried in a sedan-chair--horses cannot be used in
the city itself--through the streets, which are partly covered and
are lined with open shops, forming, undoubtedly, the most remarkable
of the many remarkable things that are to be seen here. The
recollection I have of these hours forms, as often happens when one
sees much that is new at once, a variegated confusion in which I can
now only with difficulty distinguish a connected picture or two. But
even if the impressions were clearer and sharper it would be out of
the question to occupy space with a statement of my own superficial
observations. If any one wishes to acquire a knowledge of Chinese
manners and customs, he will not want for books on the country, his
studies will rather be impeded by their enormous number, and often
enough by the inferior nature of their contents. Here I shall only
touch upon a single subject, because it especially interested me as
a mineralogist, namely, the stone-polishing works of Canton.

It is natural that in a country so populous and rich as China, in
which home and home life play so great a _rôle_, much money should
be spent on ornaments. We might therefore have expected that
precious stones cut and polished would be used here on a great
scale, but from what I saw at Canton, the Chinese appear to set much
less value on them than either the Hindoo or the European. It
appears besides as if the Chinese still set greater value on stones
with old "oriental polishing," _i.e._ with polished _rounded_
surfaces, than on stones formed according to the mode of polishing
now common in Europe with plane facets. Instead the Chinese have a
great liking for peculiar, often very well executed, carvings in a
great number of different kinds of stones, among which they set the
greatest value on nephrite, or, as they themselves call it, "Yii."
It is made into rings, bracelets, ornaments of all kinds, vases,
small vessels for the table, &c. In Canton there are numerous
lapidaries and merchants, whose main business is to make and sell
ornaments of this species of stone, which is often valued higher
than true precious stones. It was long so important an article of
commerce that the place where it was found formed the goal of
special caravan roads which entered China by the Yii gate. Amber
also appears to have a high value put upon it, especially pieces
which inclose insects. Amber is not found in China, but is brought
from Europe, is often fictitious, and contains large Chinese beetles
with marks of the needles on which they have been impaled. Other
less valuable minerals, native or foreign, are also used, among
others, compact varieties of talc or soap-stone and of pyrophyllite.
But works executed in these minerals do not fetch a price at all
comparable to that of nephrite. In the same shop in which I
purchased pieces of nephrite carefully placed in separate boxes, I
found at the bottom of a dusty chest, along with pieces of quartz
and old refuse of various kinds, large crystals, some of which were
exceedingly well formed, of translucent topaz. They were sold as
quartz for a trifle. I bought besides two pieces of carved topaz,
one of which was a large and very fine natural crystal, with a
Chinese inscription engraved on its terminal surface, which when
translated runs thus: "Literary studies confer honour and
distinction and render a man suitable for the court." The other was
a somewhat bluish inch-long crystal, at one end of which a human
figure, perhaps some Buddhist saint, was sculptured. The polishing
of stones is carried on as a home industry, principally in a special
part of the town. The workshop is commonly at the side of a small
sale counter, in a room on the ground-floor, open to the street. The
cutting and polishing of the stones is done, as at home, with metal
discs and emery or comminuted corundum, which is said to be found in
large quantities in the neighbourhood of Canton.

Large, commodious, well fitted up, but in their exterior very
unwieldy river steamers, built after American designs, now run
between Hong Kong and Canton. They are commanded by Europeans. The
dietary on board is European, and exceedingly good. There are
separate saloons for Europeans and Chinese. All over the poop and
the after-saloon weapons are hung up so as to be at hand, in case
the vessel should be attacked by pirates, or, as happened some years
ago, a number of them should mix themselves up with the Chinese
passengers with the intention of plundering the vessel.

Hong Kong was ceded to England in consequence of the war of 1842.
The then inconsiderable fishing village is now one of the most
important commercial cities of the globe. The harbour is spacious,
affording good anchorage, and is well protected by a number of large
and small granite islands. The city is built on the largest of these
on slopes which rise from the shore towards the interior of the
island. On the highest points the wealthiest foreign residents have
built their summer houses which are surrounded by beautiful gardens.
In winter they live in the city. We here met with a very gratifying
reception both from the Governor, Mr. POPE HENNESSY, and from the
other inhabitants of the town. The former invited Captain Palander
and me to live in the beautiful Governor's residence, gave a dinner,
arranged a stately official reception in our honour, and presented
to the Expedition a fine collection of dried plants from the
exceedingly well-kept botanical garden of the city, which is under
the charge of Mr. CHARLES FORD, the latter presented me with an
address of welcome at a festive meeting in the City Hall, specially
arranged for the purpose and numerously attended by the principal
men of the town. The meeting was opened by the Chairman, Mr.
KESWICK, with a speech of welcome, after which Mr. J.B. COUGHTRIE
read and presented the address, bound in red silk and beautifully
illuminated in black; gold, and red, with 414 signatures, among
which many were by Chinese. The address ended with a hearty
congratulation to us all and a promise of a memorial of our visit to
Hong Kong which should indicate the way in which the _Vega_
expedition was appreciated there. Some time after our return home
Palander and I received from members of the community of Hong Kong a
splendid silver vase each.

I here embraced with great interest the opportunity, which my coming
in contact with the principal men of the place afforded, of getting
a glance into the political relations which prevailed in this
vigorous and promising colony. At first sight they appeared to be by
no means satisfactory. Peace and unanimity evidently did not
prevail; for dissatisfaction with the Governor was loudly expressed
by many of the Europeans settled in Hong Kong. He favoured, they
said, the Chinese in an exceedingly partial way, and mitigated their
punishments to such a degree that Hong Kong would soon become a
place of refuge for all the robbers and thieves of Canton. At the
time of our visit an instructive parliamentary debate on a small
scale was proceeding in the Legislative Council of the city. The
controversy was carried on with a certain bitterness, but with a
proper observance of the parliamentary procedure customary in the
mother country. The eloquent leader of the opposition had evidently,
as is usual in such cases, the general feeling of the Europeans on
his side. For they appeared to be pretty well agreed that the only
means of protecting themselves against the evil-doers from the great
heavenly empire would be to punish them in an inhuman way when they
were taken in the act.

To an outsider it appeared, however, that the Governor not only had
humanity and justice on his side, but also acted with a true insight
into the future. When he came to the colony the corporal punishments
to which the Chinese were condemned were exceeding barbarous,
although mild in comparison with those common in China--a state of
things which the opposition brought forward in defence of the
severer punishments. Prisoners were repeatedly flogged with "the
cat," often with the result that they were attacked by incurable
consumption, they were prepared for the punishment by being
subjected for some time to a starvation-diet of rice and water; they
were branded when they left the prison, &c. Proceeding on the view
that the greatest security for a colony such as Hong Kong lies in
the affection which is cherished for it by the numerous native
population, the Governor had sought to protect it from unjust
attacks by Europeans. Considering that too barbarous punishments are
likely rather to promote than to deter from the commission of
crimes, in consequence of the protection the criminal in such a case
may reckon upon from sympathising fellow-creatures, and that mild
punishments are the first condition of a good protective police, the
Governor had diminished the floggings, forbidden the public
infliction of the punishment, given a reprimand in cases where "by
mistake" or by an evasion of the letter of the law extra strokes had
been given to criminals, exchanged "the regulation cat" for the
rattan, abolished the preliminary starvation-diet and the branding,
improved the prisons, &c. All this was now loudly complained of by
the European merchants, but was approved by the Chinese subjects in
the colony, who were however dissuaded from making any contrary
demonstrations.

When we came afterwards to other English possessions, we found that
the inhabitants were often more or less in conflict with the
authorities, but nowhere was there anything to prevent the
opposition from endeavouring to promote their views by public
meetings, by addresses in newspapers and pamphlets. In this way a
pretty active political life arises early, and this is probably one
of the main conditions of the capacity of the English colonies for
self-government, and of their vigour and influence on the
surrounding country.

It will in truth be highly interesting to see what influence will be
exerted on the great neighbouring empire if Mr. Hennessy's politics
with reference to the Chinese settled in Hong Kong be carried out,
and they be converted into fellow-citizens conscious that they are
protected by law in person and property, that they do not require to
crawl in the dust before any authority, and that so long as they
keep within the limits of the law they are quite safe from the
oppressions of all officials, and in the enjoyment of all the rights
and privileges which the English law confers upon the citizen.

Many of the Europeans settled at Hong Kong were convinced that for
another thousand years one would be justified in using the
expression regarding China: "Thou art what thou wast, and thou wilt
be what thou art." Others again stated that contact with Europeans
at Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and the accounts given by the
emigrants returning to China in thousands from California and
Australia are by slow degrees changing the aspect of the world in
the "heavenly empire," and thereby preparing for a revolution less
violent, but as thorough as that which has recently taken place in
Japan. If this comes about, China will be a state that must enter
into the calculation when the affairs of the world are settled, and
whose power will weigh very heavy in the scales, at least when the
fate of Asia is concerned. At Hong Kong and Canton the report was
current that the far-sighted Chancellor of the German Empire had
taken this factor into calculation in settling his plans for the
future.

Already the Chinese took part in the European life. A number of
Chinese names, as I have already said, were attached to the address
that was presented to me; at the Governor's reception many stout,
smiling heads provided with pigtails were seen; and Chinese had
taken part in the meetings at which the Governor's scheme of reform
was under discussion. There have also existed in the country from
time immemorial secret societies, which are said only to wait for a
favourable opportunity to endeavour to link their fates to the new
paths.[386] The observations that I made at Hong Kong and Canton
are, however, too superficial for me to wish to detain my reader
with these matters. I accordingly point to the numerous works on
these cities published by authors who have lived there as many
months or years as I have days, and proceed to sketch the
continuation of the voyage of the _Vega_.

Accompanied by the good wishes of many newly acquired friends, we left
the harbour of Hong Kong on the morning of the 9th November. It was my
original intention to steer our course to Manilla, but the loss of time
during our long stay in Japan compelled me to give up that plan. The
course was shaped, however, not directly for Singapore, but for Labuan,
a small English possession on the north side of Borneo. Its northern
extremity (the coal mine) lies in 5° 33' N.L. and 115° 12' E.L. England
took possession of Labuan on account of the coal-seams which are found
there, which are of special importance on account of the situation of
the island nearly in the midst of the large, numerous, and fertile
islands of south-eastern Asia. It was the coal-seams too that attracted
me to the place. For I wished to see whether I could not, in the
neighbourhood of the equator itself, collect valuable contributions
towards ascertaining the nature of the former equatorial climate.

We at first made rapid progress, thanks to a fresh and favourable
monsoon wind. But when we reached the so-called belt of calms, the
wind ceased completely, and we had now to avail ourselves of steam,
which, in consequence of the low power of the _Vega's_ engine and a
strong counter current, carried us forward so slowly that it was not
until the 17th November that we could anchor in the harbour of
Labuan.

The largest of the islands belonging to the colony has, with a
pretty considerable breadth, a length of 10' from N.E. to S.W. It
is inhabited by some thousands (3,300 in 1863) of Chinese and
Malays, together with a few Englishmen, who are either crown
officials or employed at the coal mine. The north part of the island
has a height of 140 metres above the sea, but towards the south the
land sinks to an extensive sandy plain, closely overgrown with bushy
thickets and traversed by low marshes. Most of the inhabitants live
along the shore of the harbour which bears the now, or perhaps only
for the present, indispensable name for English colonies (which on
that account conveys little information) of Victoria. The Governor's
fine residence lies at a little distance from the harbour town in
the interior of the island, the coal mine on its north side. At the
time of our visit the coal company had recently gone into
liquidation, and work had therefore been stopped at the mine, but it
was hoped that it would soon be resumed. The sandy plain is of
little fertility in comparison with the neighbouring tropical lands.
It had recently been burned, and was therefore for the most part
covered only with bushes, among which stems of high, dried-up,
half-burned trees raised themselves, giving to the landscape a
resemblance to a northern forest devastated by an accidental fire.
In consequence of the fire which had thus passed over the island the
plain which, when looked at from a distance appeared to be
completely even, was seen everywhere to be studded with
crater-formed depressions in the sand, quite similar to the
_os_-pits in the _osar_ of Scandinavia.[387] On the north side there
was sandstone rock rising from the sea with a steep slope six to
fifteen metres high. Here tropical nature appeared in all its
luxuriance, principally in the valleys which the small streams had
excavated in the sandstone strata.

The coal mine is sunk on coal-seams, which come to the surface on
the north side of the island. The seams, according to the
information I received on the spot, are four in number, with a
thickness of 3.3, 0.9, 0.4 and 1.0 metre. They dip at an angle of 30°
towards the horizon, and are separated from each other by
strata of clay and hard sandstone, which together have a thickness
of about fifty metres. Above the uppermost coal-seam there are
besides very thick strata of black clay-slate, white hard sandstone
with bands of clay, loose sandstone, sandstone mixed with coal, and
finally considerable layers of clay-slate and sandstone, which
contain fossil marine crustacea, resembling those of the present
time. The strata which lie between or in the immediate neighbourhood
of the coal seams do not contain any other fossils than those
vegetable remains, which are to be described farther on. Thirty
kilometres south of the mine a nearly vertical coal-seam comes to
the surface near the harbour, probably belonging to a much older
period than that referred to above; and out in the sea, eighteen
kilometres from the shore north of the harbour, petroleum rises from
the sea-bottom. The manager of the mine supposed from this that the
coal-seams came to the surface again at this place. The coal-seams
of Labuan are besides, notwithstanding their position in the middle
of an enormous, circular, volcanic chain, remarkably free from
faults, which shows that the region, during the immense time which
has elapsed since these strata have been deposited, has been
protected from earthquakes. Even now, according to Wallace,
earthquakes are scarcely known in this part of Borneo.

From what has been stated above we may conclude that the coal, sand,
and clay strata were deposited in a valley-depression occupied by
luxuriant marshy grounds, cut off from the sea, in the extensive
land which formerly occupied considerable spaces of the sea between
the Australian Islands and the continent of Asia. A similar state of
things must besides have prevailed over a considerable portion of
Borneo. On that island there are coal-seams under approximately
similar circumstances to those on Labuan. So far as I know, however,
they have not hitherto been closely examined with respect to
vegetable palæontology.

At Labuan fossil plants are found, though very sparingly, imbedded
in balls of clay ironstone from strata above the two lowermost
coal-seams. The upper coal-seams are besides exceedingly rich in
resin, which crosses the coal in large veins. From the thickness and
conversion into a hard sandstone of the layers of sand lying between
and above the coal-seams we may conclude that a very long time,
probably hundreds of thousands or millions of years have passed
since these coal-seams were formed. They also belong to a quite
recent period, during which the vegetation in these regions varied
perhaps only to a slight extent from that of the present time. It
is, however, too early to express one's self on this subject, before
the fossils which we brought home have been examined by Dr.
Nathorst.

Coal mining was stopped for the time, but orders were expected by
every post to resume work. The road between the mine and the harbour
town was at all events pretty well kept, and Mr. COOKE, one of the
directors of the company, still lived at the place. He showed me all
possible hospitality during the time I remained on the north side of
the island for the purpose of collecting fossils. The rest of the
time I was the guest of the acting Governor, Mr. TREACHER, a young
and amiable man, who showed me several collections in natural
history from Labuan and the neighbouring parts of Borneo, and after
our return to Europe sent me a collection of leaves and fruit of the
kinds of trees which now grow on the island. I expect that this
collection will be very instructive in the study of the fossil
plants we brought home with us.

At the steep shore banks on the north coast very fine sections of
the sandstone strata, which lie under and above the coal, are
visible. While I went along the shore in order to examine these, I
visited some Malay huts built on poles. They were surrounded at
flood tide by water, at ebb by the dry beach, bare of all
vegetation. In order to get inside these huts one must climb a
ladder two to two and a half metres high, standing towards the sea.
The houses have the same appearance as a warehouse by the seaside at
home, and are built very slightly. The floor consisted of a few
rattling bamboo splints lying loose, and so thin that I feared they
would give way when I stepped upon them. The household articles
consisted only of some mats and a pair of cooking vessels. I saw no
fireplace; probably fire was lighted on the beach. I could see no
reason why this place should be chosen as a dwelling in preference
to the neighbouring shore with its luxuriant vegetation, which at
the same time was not at all swampy, unless it was for the coolness
which arises from the any situation on the beach, and the protection
which the poles give from the thousands of crawling animals which
swarm in the grassy meadows of tropical regions. It is probable also
that the mosquitos are less troublesome along the sea-shore than
farther into the interior of the country.

Some of my companions saw similar huts during an excursion, which
they undertook in the steam launch, to the mouth of a large river
debouching on the neighbouring coast of Borneo. Regarding this
exclusion Dr. Stuxberg gives the following report:

    "On the 19th November Palander, Bove, and I, together with
    two men, undertook an excursion in the steam launch of the
    _Vega_ to the river Kalias debouching right opposite to
    Labuan. We started at dawn, a little after six o'clock. The
    course was shaped first north of Pappan Island, then
    between the many shoals that lie between it and the
    considerably larger Daat Island, and finally south of the
    latter island.

    "Pappan Island is a small beautiful island, clothed down to
    high-water mark with a dark green primeval forest. On Daat
    Island, on the contrary, the primeval forest on the east
    side has been cut down, and has given place to a new
    plantation of cocoa-nut trees, the work of a former
    physician on Labuan, which yields its present owner a
    considerable revenue.

    "We had no little difficulty in finding a way over the
    sandy bar, which is deposited in front of the river mouth
    at a distance of a nautical mile and a half to three miles
    from the coast of Borneo. After several attempts in the
    course of an hour we at last succeeded in finding the deep
    channel which leads to the river. It runs close to the
    mainland on the north side, from Kalias Point to the river
    mouth proper. At the bar the depth was only a metre, in the
    deep channel, it varied between 3.5 and 7 metres, in the
    river mouth it was fourteen to eighteen metres and
    sometimes more.

    "On the south side of the tongue of land, which projects
    north of the mouth of the Kalias, were found two Malay
    villages, whose inhabitants appeared to view our passage up
    the river with curious glances. A crowd of half or wholly
    naked children began a race along the shore, as soon as
    they set eyes upon the fast steam launch, probably in order
    to keep us in sight as long as possible. We now had deep
    water and steamed up the river without delay. The
    longed-for visit to some of the Malay villages we thus
    reserved till our return.

    "We steamed about ten or twelve English miles up one of the
    many winding river arms, when the limited depth compelled
    us to turn. The vegetation on the mainland, as on the
    shores of the islands lying near the river-mouth, was
    everywhere so close that it was nearly impossible to find a
    place where we could land; everywhere there was the
    impenetrable primeval forest. Next the mouth of the river
    this consisted of tall, shady broad-leaved trees, which all
    had dark green, lustrous, large leaves. Some were in
    flower, others bore fruit. The greater number consisted of
    fig trees, whose numerous air-roots twining close on each
    other formed an impenetrable fence at the river bank. These
    air-root-bearing trees play an important _rôle_ in
    increasing the area of the land and diminishing that of the
    water. They send their strong air-roots from the branches
    and stem far out into the water, and when the roots have
    reached the bottom, and pushed their way into the mud, they
    make, by the close basket-work they form, an excellent
    binding medium for all the new mud which the river carries
    with it from the higher ground in the interior. It has
    struck me that the air-root-bearing trees form one of the
    most important means for the rapid increase of the alluvial
    land on Borneo. Farther up the river there commenced large
    stretches of a species of palm, which with its somewhat
    lighter green and its long sheath-formed leaves was sharply
    distinguished from the rest of the forest. Sometimes the
    banks on one side were covered with palms only, on the
    other with fig-trees only. The palm jungles were not so
    impenetrable as the fig-tree thickets, the latter preferred
    the more swampy hollows, while the palms on the other hand
    grew on the more sandy and less marshy places. Of herbs and
    underwood there was nowhere any trace.

    "During the river voyage we saw now and then single
    green-coloured kingfishers flying about, and a honeysucker
    or two, but they were not nearly so numerous as might have
    been expected in this purely tropical zone. We saw some
    apes leaping in pairs among the trees, and Palander
    succeeded in shooting a male. Alligators from one to one
    and a half metre in length, frightened by the noise of the
    propeller, throw themselves suddenly into the water. Small
    land lizards with web-feet jumped forward with surprising
    rapidity on the water near the banks. This was all we saw
    of the higher animals.

    "After a run of two hours, during which we examined the
    banks carefully in order to find a landing place, we lay to
    at the best possible place for seeing what the lower fauna
    had to offer. It was no easy matter to get to land. The
    ground was so muddy that we sank to the knees, and could
    make our way through the wood only by walking on an
    intermediate layer of palm leaves and fallen branches. The
    search for evertebrates did not yield very much. A
    half-score mollusca, among them a very remarkable naked
    leech of quite the same colour-marking and raggedness as
    the bark of tree on which it lived, was all that we could
    find here. It struck me as very peculiar not to find a
    single insect group represented. The remarkable poverty in
    animals must be ascribed, I believe, to the complete
    absence of herbs and underwood. Animal life was as poor as
    vegetation was luxuriant and various in different places.
    Over the landscape a peculiar quietness and stillness
    rested.

    "During our return we visited one of the two Malay villages
    mentioned above. It consisted of ten different houses,
    which were built on tall and stout poles out in the water
    at the mouth of the river, about six to ten metres from the
    shore. All the houses were built on a common large platform
    of thick bamboo, which was about a man's height above the
    water. At right angles to the beach there floated long
    beams, one end being connected with the land, while the
    other was anchored close to the platform. From this
    anchored end a plank rose at a steep angle to the platform.
    Communication with land was kept up in this way. The houses
    were nearly all quadrangular, and contained a single room,
    had raised, not flat roofs, and were provided at one of the
    shorter sides, near one corner, with a high rectangular
    door opening, which certainly was not intended to be
    closed, and on one of the long sides with a square
    window-opening. The building material was bamboo, from
    eight to eleven centimetres in thickness, mostly whole, but
    sometimes cleft. The roof had a thin layer of palm leaves
    upon it to keep out the rain. The house in its entirety
    resembled a cage of spills to which the least puff of wind
    had always free entrance. The floor bent and yielded much,
    and at the same time was so weak that one could not walk
    upon it without being afraid of falling through. One half,
    right opposite the door opening, was overlaid with a thin
    mat of some plant; it was evidently the sleeping place of
    the family. Some pieces of cloth was all the clothing we
    could discover. Of household articles there was scarcely
    any trace. Nor were there any weapons, arrows, or bows. The
    fireplace was in one corner of the room; it consisted of an
    immense ash-heap on some low stones. Beside it stood a
    rather dirty iron pot. All refuse from meals, bones and
    mollusc-shells, had been thrown into the water under the
    floor; there lay now a regular culture-layer, a couple of
    feet higher than the surrounding sea-bottom, consisting for
    the most part of mussel shells. The floor of the room was
    very dirty and black; it looked as if it had never been in
    contact with a drop of water. The interior of the whole
    house struck one as being as poor and wretched as that of a
    Chukch tent. Its inhabitants appeared scarcely to own more
    than they stood or walked in, _i.e._ for every person a
    large piece of cloth round the waist. Small boats lay
    moored to the platform. They were nothing else than
    tree-stems hollowed out, without any separate planks at the
    sides, at most two to two and a half metres long, and
    capable of carrying only two men. We had met such a boat a
    little way up the river, rowed by two youths, and laden
    with palm-leaves, it was not more than five to eight
    centimetres above the water, and appeared as if it would
    capsize with the least indiscreet movement on the part of
    the boatmen. Some dogs of middle size went about loose on
    the platform; they were at first shy and suspicious of us,
    and growled a little, but soon allowed themselves to be
    caressed.

    "Of the natives, the Malays, unfortunately we saw at close
    quarters only some middle-aged men. When we approached the
    long floating beams which led to the platform, the women
    and children fled precipitately out of the nearest houses,
    and by the time we got to the platform, they had fortified
    themselves in a distant house, where they sat motionless
    and cast curious glances at us through a hole. The children
    showed their fear of us by loud crying, kept up the whole
    time. When we attempted to approach the fugitives, they
    hastened farther away. We won their favour with some
    cigarettes, which Palander distributed among them, and with
    which they were evidently delighted. They had a serious,
    reserved, perhaps rather indifferent appearance. A
    physiognomist would perhaps have had difficulty in saying
    whether their countenances expressed ferocity,
    determination, or indifference. It appeared as if it would
    not be easy to bring forth a look of mirth or gladness on
    their faces.

    "At the Malay villages which we visited, some Chinese had a
    sago plantation. With some Malays as workmen in their
    service, they were now employed in loading a vessel of
    light draught with sago meal, of which they appeared to
    have a large quantity in store. Another vessel had just
    taken on board its cargo and was starting. The Chinese here
    made the same favourable impression on me as their
    countrymen, whom I had seen before in Japan and Hong Kong,
    and whom I was afterwards to see at Singapore--the
    impression of an exceedingly industrious, thriving,
    contented, and cleanly race."

Labuan strikes me as a very suitable starting-point for a naturalist
who may wish to explore Borneo. Surrounded by Europeans, but
undisturbed by the distractions of a large city, he would have an
opportunity of accustoming himself to the climate, which, though
rather warm for a dweller in the North, is by no means unhealthy, to
get acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, to
acquire a knowledge of the commonest forms of the luxuriant nature,
which would otherwise be apt to overwhelm the northern naturalist,
in a word, to make such preparations for the journey as are
necessary to secure its success. This region of Borneo appears to be
one of the least known parts of the Indian Archipelago, and one need
not go far from the coast to come to places which are never visited
by Europeans. Labuan itself and its immediate neighbourhood have
much that is interesting to offer to the observer, and from thence
short excursions may be made with ease and without excessive cost to
the territory of the Sultan of Bruni, who is favourable to
foreigners, and to the mountain Kini Balu, near the northern
extremity of Borneo, which is 4,175 metres high, and visible from
Labuan. When, before our arrival at Japan, I arranged the plan of
our voyage home, I included in it a visit to this mountain, at whose
summit a comparatively severe climate must prevail, and whose flora
and fauna, therefore, notwithstanding its equatorial position, must
offer many points of comparison with those of the lands of the
north. But when I was told that the excursion would require weeks, I
had to give it up.

On the 12th November, the _Vega_ again weighed anchor to continue
her voyage by Singapore to Point de Galle in Ceylon. Between Labuan
and Singapore our progress was but slow, in consequence of the calm
which, as might have been foreseen, prevailed in the sea west of
Borneo.

Singapore is situated exactly halfway, when a vessel, starting from
Sweden, circumnavigates Asia and Europe. We staid here from the 28th
November to the 4th December, very hospitably received by the
citizens of the town, both European and Asiatic, who seemed to vie
with the inhabitants of Hong Kong in enthusiasm for the voyage of
the _Vega_. A Babel-like confusion of speech prevails in the town
from the men of so many different nationalities who live here:
Chinese, Malays, Klings, Bengalees, Parsees, Singhalese, Negroes,
Arabs, &c. But our stay was all too short for independent studies of
the customs and mode of life of these different races, or of the
rich vegetable and animal worlds in the neighbourhood of the town. I
must refer those who are interested in these subjects to previous
descriptions of that region, and to the abundant contributions to a
knowledge of it which have been published by the Straits Branch of
the Asiatic Society, which was founded here on the 4th November,
1877.

We arrived at Galle on the 15th December, having during our passage
from Singapore had a pretty steady and favourable monsoon. While
sailing through the Straits of Malacca strong ball-lightning was
often seen a little after sunset. The electrical discharges appeared
to go on principally from the mountain heights on both sides of the
Straits.

I allowed the _Vega_ to remain in the harbour of Point de Galle,
partly to wait for the mail, partly to give Dr. Almquist an
opportunity of collecting lichens on some of the high mountain
summits in the interior of the island, and Dr. Kjellman of examining
its algæ, while I myself would have time to visit the famous
gem-diggings of Ceylon. The return was as good as could have been
expected considering our short stay at the place. Dr. Almquist's
collection of lichens from the highest mountain of Ceylon,
Pedrotalagalla, 2,500 metres high, was very large, Kjellman, by the
help of a diver, made a not inconsiderable collection of algæ from
the neighbourhood of the harbour, and from an exclusion which I
undertook in company with Mr. ALEXANDER C. DIXON, of Colombo, to
Ratnapoora, the town of gems, where we were received with special
kindness by Mr. COLIN MURRAY, assistant government agent, I brought
home a fine collection of the minerals of Ceylon.

Precious stones occur in Ceylon mainly in sand beds, especially at
places where streams of water have flowed which have rolled,
crumbled down, and washed away a large part of the softer
constituents of the sand, so that a gravel has been left remaining
which contains considerably more of the harder precious stone layer
than the original sandy strata, or the rock from which they
originated. Where this natural washing ends, the gem collector
begins. He searches for a suitable valley, digs down a greater or
less depth from the surface to the layer of clay mixed with coarse
sand resting on the rock, which experience has taught him to contain
gems[388]. At the washings which I saw, the clayey gravel was taken
out of this layer and laid by the side of the hole until three or
four cubic metres of it were collected. It was then carried, in
shallow, bowl-formed baskets from half a metre to a metre in
diameter, to a neighbouring river, where it was washed until all the
clay was carried away from the sand. The gems were then picked out,
a person with a glance of the eye examining the wet surface of the
sand and collecting whatever had more or less appearance of a
precious stone. He then skimmed away with the palm of the hand the
upper stratum of sand, and went on in the same way with that below
it until the whole mass was examined. The certainty with which he
judged in a moment whether there was anything of value among the
many thousand grains of sand was wonderful. I endeavoured in a very
considerable heap of the gravel thus hastily examined, to find a
single small piece of precious stone which had escaped the glance of
the examiner, but without success.

The yield is very variable, sometimes abundant, sometimes very
small, and though precious stones found in Ceylon are yearly sold
for large sums, the industry on the whole is unprofitable, although
now and then a favourite of fortune has been enriched by it. The
English authorities, therefore, with full justification, consider it
demoralising and unfavourable to the development of the otherwise
abundant natural resources of the region. For the numerous loose
population devotes itself rather to the easy search for precious
stones, which is as exciting as play, than to the severer but surer
labours of agriculture, and when at any time a rich _find_ is made,
it is speedily squandered, without a thought of saving for the times
when the yield is little or nothing. A large number of the precious
stones are polished at special polishing places at Ratnapoora, but
the work is very bad, so that the stones which come into the market
are often irregular, and have uneven, curved, ill-polished surfaces.
Most of them perhaps are sold in the Eastern and Western Indian
peninsulas and other parts of Asia, but many are also exported to
Europe. The precious stones which are principally found at
Ratnapoora, consist of sapphires, commonly blue, but sometimes
yellow or violet, sometimes even completely colourless. In the last
case they have a lustre resembling that of the diamond[389]. Rubies
I saw here only in limited numbers.

[Illustration: GEM DIGGINGS AT RATNAPOORA. ]

The precious stones occur in nearly every river valley which runs
from the mountain heights in the interior of the island down to the
low land. According to a statement by Mr. Tennent (i. p. 33), the
river-sand at many places contains so much of the harder minerals
that it may be used directly for the polishing of other stones. The
same writer, or more correctly Dr. GYGAX, who appears to have
written the rather scanty mineralogical contributions to Tennent's
famous work, states that a more abundant yield ought to be obtained
by working in the solid rock than by the usual method. This idea is
completely opposed to the experience of mineralogy. The finest gems,
the largest gold nuggets, as is well known, are never, or almost
never, found in solid rock, but in loose earthy layers. In such
layers in Ceylon the abundance of precious stones, that is to say,
of minerals which are _hard, translucent, and strongly lustrous_, is
very great, and enormous sums would be obtained if we could add up
the value of the mass of precious stones which have been found here
for thousands of years back. Already Marco Polo says of Ceylon: "In
ista insula nascuntur boni et nobiles rubini et non nascuntur in
aliquo loco plus. Et hic nascuntur zafiri et topazii, ametisti, et
aliquæ aliæ petræ pretiosæ, et rex istius insulæ habet pulcriorem
rubinum de mundo".

But some one perhaps will ask, where is the mother-rock of all these
treasures in the soil of Ceylon? The question is easily answered.
All these minerals have once been imbedded in the granitic gneiss,
which is the principal rock of the region.

In speaking of granite or gneiss in southern lands, or at least in
the southern lands we now visited, I must, in the first place, point
out that these rocks next the surface of the earth in the south have
a much greater resemblance to strata of sand, gravel, and clay than
to our granite or gneiss rocks, the type of what is lasting, hard,
and unchangeable. The high coast hills, which surround the Inland
Sea of Japan, resemble, when seen from the sea, ridges of sand
(_osar_) with sides partly clothed with wood, partly sandy slopes of
a light yellow colour, covered by no vegetation. On a closer
examination, however, we find that the supposed sandy ridges consist
of weathered granitic rocks, in which all possible intermediate
stages may be seen between the solid rock and the loose sand. The
sand is not stratified, and contains large, loose, rounded blocks
_in situ_, completely resembling the erratic blocks in Sweden,
although with a more rugged surface. The boundary between the
unweathered granite and that which has been converted into sand is
often so sharp that a stroke of the hammer separates the crust of
granitic sand from the granite blocks. They have an almost fresh
surface, and a couple of millimetres within the boundary the rock is
quite unaltered. No formation of clay takes place, and the
alteration to which the rocks are subjected therefore consists in a
crumbling or formation of sand, and not, or at least only to a very
small extent, in a chemical change. Even at Hong Kong the principal
rock consisted of granite. Here too the surface of the granite rock
was quite altered to a very considerable depth, not however to sand,
but to a fine, often reddish, clay, thus in quite a different way
from that on the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan. Here too one
could at many places follow completely the change of the hard
granite mass to a clay which still lay _in situ_, but without its
being possible to draw so sharp a boundary between the primitive
rock and the newly-formed loose earthy layers as at the first-named
place. We had opportunities of observing a similar crumbling down of
the hard granite at every road-section between Galle, Colombo, and
Ratnapoora, with the difference that the granite and gneiss here
crumbled down to a coarse sand, which was again bound together by
newly-formed hydrated peroxide of iron to a peculiar porous
sandstone, called by the natives _cabook_. This sandstone forms the
layer lying next the rock in nearly all the hills on that part of
the island which we visited. It evidently belongs to an earlier
geological period than the Quaternary, for it is older than the
recent formation of valleys and rivers. The _cabook_ often contains
large, rounded, unweathered granite blocks, quite resembling the
rolled-stone blocks in Sweden. In this way there arise at places
where the _cabook_ stratum has again been broken up and washed away
by currents of water, formations which are so bewilderingly like the
ridges (_osar_) and hills with erratic blocks in Sweden and Finland
that I was astonished when I saw them. I was compelled to resort to
the evidence of the palms to convince myself that it was not an
illusion which unrolled before me the well-known contours from the
downs of my native land. An accurate study of the sandy hills on the
Inland Sea of Japan, of the clay cliffs of Hong Kong, and the
_cabook_ of Ceylon would certainly yield very unexpected contributions
to an explanation of the way in which the sand and rolled-stone _osar_
of Scandinavia have first arisen. It would show that much which the
Swedish geologists still consider to be glacial gravel transported
by water and ice, is only the product of a process of weathering or,
more correctly, falling asunder, which has gone on in Sweden also on
an enormous scale. Even a portion of our Quaternary clays have
perhaps had a similar origin, and we find here a simple explanation
of the important circumstance, which is not sufficiently attended to
by our geologists, that often all the erratic blocks at a place are
of the same kind, and resemble in their nature the underlying or
neighbouring rocks.

It is this weathering process which has originated the gem sand of
Ceylon. Precious stones have been found disseminated in limited
numbers in the granite converted into _cabook_. In weathering, the
difficultly decomposable precious stones have not been attacked, or
attacked only to a limited extent. They have therefore retained
their original form and hardness. When in the course of thousands of
years streams of water have flowed over the layers of _cabook_,
their soft, already half-weathered constituents have been for the
most part changed into a fine mud, and as such washed away, while
the hard gems have only been inconsiderably rounded and little
diminished in size. The current of water therefore has not been able
to wash them far away from the place where they were originally
imbedded in the rock, and we now find them collected in the
gravel-bed, resting for the most part on the fundamental rock which
the stream has left behind, and which afterwards, when the water has
changed its course, has been again covered by new layers of mud,
clay, and sand. It is this gravel-bed which the natives call
_nellan_, and from which they chiefly get their treasures of
precious stones.

Of all the kinds of stones which are used as ornaments there are
both noble and common varieties, without there being any perceptible
difference in their chemical composition. The most skilful chemist
would thus have difficulty in finding in their chemical composition
the least difference between corundum and sapphire or ruby, between
common beryl and emerald, between the precious and the common topaz,
between the hyacinth and the common zircon, between precious and
common spinel; and every mineralogist knows that there are
innumerable intermediate stages between these minerals which are so
dissimilar though absolutely identical in composition. This gave the
old naturalists occasion to speak of ripe and unripe precious
stones. They said that in order to ripen precious stones the heat of
the south was required. This transference of well-known
circumstances from the vegetable to the mineral kingdom is certainly
without justification. It points however to a remarkable and
hitherto unexplained circumstance, namely, that the occurrence of
precious stones is, with few exceptions, confined to southern
regions[390]. Diamonds are found in noteworthy number only in India,
Borneo, Brazil, and the Transvaal. Tropical America is the home-land
of the emerald, Brazil of the topaz, Ceylon of the sapphire and the
hyacinth, Pegu of the ruby, and Persia of the turquoise. With the
exception of the diamond the same stones are found also in the
north, but in a common form. Thus common sapphire (corundum) is
found in Gellivare iron ore so plentifully that the ore from certain
openings is difficult to smelt. Common topaz is found in masses by
the hundredweight in the neighbourhood of Falun; common emerald is
found in thick crystals several feet in length in felspar quarries,
in Roslagen, and in Tammela and Kisko parishes in Finland; common
spinel occurs abundantly in Åker limestone quarry; common zircon at
Brevig in Norway, and turquoise-like but badly coloured stones at
Vestanå in Skane. True precious stones, on the other hand, are not
found at any of these places. Another remarkable fact in connection
with precious stones is that most of those that come into the market
are not found in the solid rock, but as loose grains in sand-beds.
True jewel mines are few, unproductive, and easily exhausted. From
this one would be inclined to suppose that precious stones actually
undergo an ennobling process in the warm soil of the south.

During the excursion I undertook from Galle to Ratnapoora, I visited
a number of temples in order to procure Pali, Singhalese, and
Sanscrit manuscripts; and I put myself in communication with various
natives who were supposed to possess such manuscripts. They are now
very difficult to get at, and the collection I made was not very
large. The books which the temples wished to dispose of have long
ago been eagerly brought up by private collectors or handed over to
public museums, for example, to the Ceylon Government Oriental
Library established at Colombo[391]. The collector who remains a
considerable time in the region, may however be able to reap a rich
after-harvest, less of the classical works preserved in the temples
than of the smaller popular writings in the hands of private
persons.

We see in Ceylon innumerable descendants of the races who repeatedly
subdued larger or smaller portions of the island, or carried on
traffic there, as Moormen (Arabs), Hindoos, Jews, Portuguese,
Dutchmen, Englishmen, &c., but the main body of the people at all
events varies very little, and still consists of the two allied
races, Tamils and Singhalese, who for thousands of years back have
been settled here. The colour of their skin is very dark, almost
black, their hair is not woolly, their features are regular, and
their build is exceedingly fine. The children especially, who, while
they are small, often go completely naked, with their regular
features, their large eyes, and fresh plump bodies, are veritable
types of beauty, and the same holds true of most of the youths.
Instead of buying in one of the capitals of Europe the right to draw
models, often enough with forms which leave much to desire, and
which must be used without distinction for Greek or Northern
divinities, for heroes or _savants_ of the present or former times,
an artist ought to make tours of study to the lands of the south,
where man does not need to protect himself from the cold with
clothes, and where accordingly nakedness is the rule, at least among
the poorer classes. The dress which is worn here is commonly
convenient and tasteful. Among the Singhalese it consists of a piece
of cloth wound round the middle, which hangs down to the knees. The
men, who still prefer the convenient national dress to the European,
go with the upper part of the body bare. The long hair is held
together with a comb which goes right over the head, and among the
rich has a large four-cornered projection at the crown. The women
protect the upper part of the body with a thin cotton jacket. The
priests wear a yellow piece of cloth diagonally over one shoulder.
The naked children are ornamented with metal bracelets and with a
metal chain round the waist, from which a little plate hangs down
between the legs. This plate is often of silver or gold, and is
looked upon as an amulet.

The huts of the working men are in general very small, built of
earth or _cabook_-bricks, and are rather to be considered as sheds
for protection from the rain and sunshine than as houses in the
European sense. The richer Singhalese live in extensive "verandas"
which are almost open, and are divided into rooms by thin panels,
resembling in this respect the Japanese houses. The Japanese genius
for ornament, their excellent taste and skill in execution, are
however wanting here, but it must also be admitted that in these
respects the Japanese stand first among all the peoples of the
earth.

In the seaport towns the Singhalese are insufferable by their
begging, their loquacity, and the unpleasant custom they have of
asking up to ten times as much, while making a bargain, as they are
pleased to accept in the end. In the interior of the country the
state of things in this respect is much better.

Among the temples which I visited in order to procure Pali books was
the so-called "devil's" temple at Ratnapoora, the stateliest
idol-house I saw in Ceylon. Most of the temples were built of wood;
all were exceedingly unpretentious, and without the least trace of
style. The numerous priests and temple attendants lived in rather
squalid and disorderly dwellings in the neighbourhood of the temple.
They received me in a friendly way and showed me their books, of
which they occasionally sold some. The negotiation several times
ended by the priest presenting me with the book I wished to purchase
and positively refusing to receive compensation in any form. On one
occasion the priest stated that he himself was prevented by the
precepts of his religion from receiving the purchase-money agreed
upon, but said that I might hand it over to some of the persons
standing round. At two of the priests' houses there was a swarm of
school-children, who ran busily about with their palm-leaf writing
books and writing implements.

[Illustration: STATUES IN A TEMPLE IN CEYLON. ]

The temples were very different in their arrangements, probably on
account of the dissimilar usages of the various Buddhist sects to
which they belonged. A temple near Colombo contained a large number
of wooden images and paintings of gods, or men of more than human
size. Most of them stood upright like a guard round a sitting
Buddha. I could not observe any dislike on the part of the priests
to take the foreigner round their temples. The key, however, was
sometimes wanting to some repository, whose contents they were
perhaps unwilling to desecrate by showing them to the unbeliever.
This was, for instance, the case with the press which contained the
devil's bow and arrows, in the temple at Ratnapoora. The temple
vessels besides were exceedingly ugly, tasteless, and ill-kept. I
seldom saw anything that showed any sign of taste, art, and
orderliness. How different from Japan, where all the swords, lacquer
work, braziers, teacups, &c., kept in the better temples would
deserve a place in some of the art museums of Europe.

In the sketch of the first voyage from Novaya Zemlya to Ceylon, a
countryman of Lidner can scarcely avoid giving a picture of
"Ceylon's burned up vales." In this respect the following extract
from a letter from Dr. Almquist, sketching his journey to the
interior of the island may be instructive:--

    "Three hours after our arrival at Point de Galle I sat
    properly stowed away in the mail-coach _en route_ for
    Colombo. As travelling companions I had a European and two
    Singhalese. As it was already pretty dusk in the evening
    there was not much of the surrounding landscape visible. We
    went on the whole night through a forest of tall coco-nut
    trees whose dark tops were visible far up in the air
    against the somewhat lighter sky. It was peculiar to see
    the number of fire-flies flying in every direction, and at
    every wing-stroke emiting a bright flash. The night air had
    the warm moistness which is so agreeable in the tropics.
    Now and then the sound of the sea penetrated to our ears.
    For we followed the west coast in a northerly direction.
    More could not be observed in the course of the night, and
    all the passengers were soon sunk in deep sleep.

    "After seven hours' brisk trot we came to a railway station
    and continued our journey by rail to Colombo, the capital
    of Ceylon. As there was nothing special to see or do there,
    I went on without stopping by the railway, which here bends
    from the coast to Kandy and other places. The landscape now
    soon became grander and grander. We had indeed before seen
    tropical vegetation at several places, but of the
    luxuriance which here struck the eye we had no conception.
    The pity was that men had come hither, had cleared and
    planted.

    "In the lowlands I saw some cinnamon plantations. Ceylon
    cinnamon is very dear; in Europe cheaper and inferior sorts
    are used almost exclusively, and most of the plantations in
    Ceylon have been abandoned many years ago. Soon the train
    leaves the lowland and begins to ascend rapidly. The patch
    of coast country, where the coco-nut trees prevail, is
    exchanged for a very mountainous landscape; first hills
    with large open valleys between, then higher continuous
    mountains with narrow, deep, kettle-like valleys, or open
    hilly plateaus. In the valleys rice is principally
    cultivated. The hills and mountain sides were probably
    originally covered with the most luxuriant primitive
    forest, but now on all the slopes up to the mountain
    summits it is cut down, and they are covered with coffee
    plantations. The coffee-plant is indeed very pretty, but
    grows at such a distance apart that the ground is
    everywhere visible between, and this is a wretched covering
    for luxuriant Ceylon.

    "At two o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at the station,
    Perideniya, the nearest one to Kandy. The famous botanical
    garden lies in its neighbourhood, and there I had to visit
    the superintendent of the garden, Dr. THWAITES. This
    elderly, but still active and enthusiastic naturalist is
    exceedingly interested in botanical research, and very
    obliging to all who work in that department. He received me
    in a very friendly manner, and it was due to him that the
    programme of my visit there was so full.

    "A botanic garden in Ceylon must naturally be something
    extraordinary. Nowhere else can grander or more luxuriant
    vegetation be seen than here. The garden has been
    especially famous for the number of different varieties of
    trees of immense size which it can show. Besides, all
    possible better known plants are to be found here,
    cultivated in the finest specimens. Spices and drugs were
    specially well represented. Here long tendrils of the black
    pepper-plant wound themselves up the thick tree-stems, here
    the cardamon and the ginger flourished, here the pretty
    cinnamon, camphor, cinchona, nutmeg, and cocoa trees made a
    splendid show, here I saw a newly gathered harvest of
    vanilla. The abundance of things to be seen, learned, and
    enjoyed here was incredible. However, the next day I
    determined on the advice of Dr. Thwaites to make a tour up
    to the mountain localities proper, in order there to get a
    better sight of the lichen flora of Ceylon.

[Illustration: A COUNTRY PLACE IN CEYLON. ]

[Illustration: HIGHLAND VIEW IN THE INTERIOR OF CEYLON. Coffee
Plantations; Adam's Peak in the back-ground. ]

    "I now travelled south partly by rail, partly by coach,
    until in the evening I found myself lodged at a
    'rest-house' at Rambodde, a thousand metres above the sea,
    at about the same height accordingly as that at which trees
    cease to grow in southern Norway. This tropical mountain
    land reminds one a little, in respect of the contours of
    the landscape, of the fells of Norway. Here too are found
    league-long deep valleys, surrounded by high mountain
    summits and ranges with outlines sharply marked against the
    horizon. But here they were everywhere overgrown with
    coffee bushes, or possibly with cinchona plants. The
    mountain slopes were so laid bare from the bottom all the
    way up that scarce a tree was left in sight; everywhere so
    far as the eye could reach only coffee.

    "Next day, attended by a Singhalese, I went, or to speak
    more correctly, climbed farther up the steep coffee
    plantations. At a height of 1,300 metres above the sea
    coffee ceases to grow, and we now found some not very
    extensive tea plantations, and above these the primitive
    forest commences. At a height of 1,900 metres above the sea
    there is an extensive open plateau. Up here there is a not
    inconsiderable place, Novara Elliya, where the governor has
    a residence, and part of the troops are in barracks during
    the summer heat. One of the mountains which surround this
    plateau is Pedrotalagalla, the loftiest mountain of Ceylon,
    which reaches a height of 2,500 metres above the sea.

    "I have ascended not so few mountains, but of none has the
    ascent been so easy as of this, for a broad footpath ran
    all the way to the top. Without this path the ascent had
    been impossible, for an hour's time would have been
    required for every foot made good through the jungle, so
    closely is the ground under the lofty trees covered to the
    top of the mountain with bushes, creepers, or the bamboo.
    In the evening I returned to my former night-quarters,
    where I slept well after a walk of thirty-six English
    miles.

    "As I felt myself altogether unable the following day to
    make any further excursion on foot, I travelled back to
    Peradeniya by mail-coach. During this journey I had as my
    travelling companion a Singhalese, whom it was a special
    pleasure to see at close quarters. One of his big toes was
    ornamented with a broad ring of silver, both his ears were
    pierced above, and provided with some pendulous ornament,
    and one side of the nose was likewise perforated, in order
    that at that place too might he adorn himself with a piece
    of grandeur. On his head he had, like all Singhalese, a
    comb by which the hair drawn right upwards is kept in
    position, as little girls at home are wont to have their
    hair arranged. As the man did not appear to know a word of
    English, it was impossible to enter into any closer
    acquaintance with him.

    "At noon on the following day I found myself compelled, by
    a quite unexpected occurrence, to return precipitately to
    the coast again. Dr. Thwaites and I had been invited to
    dinner by his Excellency the Governor. As I was still
    limping after my long excursion on foot, and besides had
    not had the forethought to take a dress-suit with me, I
    considered that, vexatious as it was to decline, I could
    not accept this gracious invitation, but instead went my
    way. Thus after six exceedingly pleasant days I came back
    to Point de Galle and the _Vega_".


[Footnote 385: Yet with one very laughable exception. I wished for
zoological purposes to get one of the common Chinese rats, and with
this object in view made inquiries through my interpreter at a shed
in the street, where rats were said to be cooked for Chinese
epicures. But scarcely had the question been put, when the old,
grave host broke out in a furious storm of abuse, especially against
the interpreter, who was overwhelmed with bitter reproaches for
helping a "foreign devil" to make a fool of his own countrymen. All
my protestations were in vain, and I had to go away with my object
unaccomplished. ]

[Footnote 386: See on this subject W.A. Pickering, "Chinese Secret
Societies" (_Journal of the Straits Branch of the R. Asiatic
Society_, 1878, No. 1, pp. 63-84) ]

[Footnote 387: Concerning their formation and origin see a paper by
K. Nordenskiöld in _Öfversigt af Vet.-akad Förh_ 1870, p 29. ]

[Footnote 388: Emerson Tennent says on the subject:--The gem
collectors penetrate through the recent strata of gravel to the
depth of from ten to twenty feet in order to reach a lower deposit,
distinguished by the name of _Nellan_, in which the objects of
their search are found. This is of so early a formation that it
underlies the present beds of rivers, and is generally separated
from them or from the superincumbent gravel by a hard crust (called
_Kadua_), a few inches in thickness, and so consolidated as to have
somewhat the appearance of laterite or sun-burnt brick. The nellan
is for the most part horizontal, but occasionally it is raised into
an incline as it approaches the base of the hills. It appears to
have been deposited previous to the eruption of the basalt, on which
in some places it reclines, and to have undergone some alteration
from the contact. It consists of water-worn pebbles firmly imbedded
in clay, and occasionally there occur large lumps of granite and
gneiss, in the hollows under which, as well as in "pockets" in the
clay (which from their shape the natives denominate "elephants'
footsteps "), gems are frequently found in groups, as if washed in
by the current. (E. Tennent, _Ceylon_ London, 1860, i. p. 34.) ]

[Footnote 389: Diamonds are wanting in Ceylon. And neither gold nor
platinum appears to occur in noteworthy quantity in the gem gravel. ]

[Footnote 390: The only considerable exceptions from this are two
localities for precious stones in Southern Siberia and the
occurrence of precious opal in Hungary. The latter, however, in
consequence of defective hardness and translucency, can scarcely be
reckoned among the true precious stones. ]

[Footnote 391: The Catalogue of Pali, Singhalese, and Sanscrit
Manuscripts in the Ceylon Government Oriental Library, Colombo,
1876, includes:--

 41 Buddhist canonical books
 71 Other religious writings
 25 Historical works, traditions
 29 Philological works
 16 Literary works
  6 Works on Medicine, Astronomy, &c.

According to Emerson Tennent (i. p. 515), the Rev. R. Spence Hardy
has in the _Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society_ for
1848 given the titles of 467 works in Pali, Sanskrit, and Elu,
collected by himself during his residence in Ceylon. Of these about
eighty are in Sanskrit, 150 in Elu or Singhalese, and the remainder
in Pali. ]



CHAPTER XX.

    The Voyage Home--Christmas, 1879--Aden--Suez--Cairo--
    Excursion to the Pyramids and the Mokattam Mountains--
    Petrified Tree-stems--The Suez Canal--Landing on Sicily
    by night--Naples--Rome--The Members of the Expedition
    separate--Lisbon--England--Paris--Copenhagen--Festive Entry
    into Stockholm--_Fêtes_ there--Conclusion


During our stay in Japan and our voyage thence to Ceylon I had
endeavoured at least in some degree to preserve the character of the
voyage of the _Vega_ as a scientific expedition, an attempt which,
considering the short time the _Vega_ remained at each place, could
not yield any very important results, and which besides was rendered
difficult, though in a way that was agreeable and flattering to us,
by I may almost say the tempestuous hospitality with which the
_Vega_ men were everywhere received during their visits to the ports
of Japan and East Asia. It was besides difficult to find any new
untouched field of research in regions which were the seat of
culture and civilisation long before the time when the forest began
to be cut down and seed to be sown in the Scandinavian North, and
which for centuries have formed the goal of exploratory expeditions
from all the countries of Europe. I hope however that the _Vega_
will leave lasting memorials even of this part of her voyage through
the contributions of Stuxberg, Nordquist, Kjellman, and Almquist to
the evertebrate fauna and the sea-weed and lichen flora of East
Asia, and by my collections of Japanese books, of fossil plants from
Mogi and Labuan, &c.

[Illustration: THE SCIENTIFIC MEN OF THE _"VEGA."_
 F.R. Kjellman.
 A. Stuxberg.
 E. Almquist
 O. Nordquist. ]

With the new overpowering impression which nature and people exerted
on those of us, who now for the first time visited Japan, China,
India, Borneo, and Ceylon, it was however specially difficult,
during a stay of a few days at each place, to preserve this side of
the _Vega_ expedition. I therefore determined after leaving Ceylon
to let it drop completely, that is, from that point merely to
_travel home_. Regarding this part of the voyage of the _Vega_ I
would thus have very little to say, were it not that an obligation
of gratitude compels me to express in a few words the thanks of the
_Vega_ men for all the honours bestowed upon them, and all the
goodwill they enjoyed during the last part of the voyage. For many
of my readers this sketch may perhaps be of interest as reminding
them of some happy days which they themselves have lived through,
and it may even happen that it will not be unwelcome to the friends
of geography in a future time to read this description of the way in
which the first circumnavigators of Asia and Europe were _fêted_ in
the ports and capitals of the civilised countries. In this sketch
however I am compelled to be as brief as possible, and I must
therefore sue for pardon if every instance of hospitality shown us
cannot be mentioned.

We started from Point de Galle on the 22nd December, and arrived at
Aden on the 7th January. The passage was tedious in consequence of
light winds or calms. Christmas Eve we did not celebrate on this
occasion, tired as we were of entertainments, in such a festive way
as at Pitlekaj, but only with a few Christmas-boxes and some extra
treating. On New Year's Eve, on the other hand, the officers in the
gunroom were surprised by a deputation from the forecastle clad in
_pesks_ as Chukches, who came, in good Swedish, mixed with a few
words of the Pitlekaj _lingua franca_ not yet forgotten, to bring us
a salutation from our friends among the ice of the north, thanks for
the past and good wishes for the coming year, mixed with Chukch
complaints of the great heat hereaway in the neighbourhood of the
equator, which for fur-clad men was said to be altogether
unendurable.

We remained at Aden only a couple of days, received in a friendly
manner by the then acting Swedish-Norwegian consul, who took us
round to the most remarkable points of the desolate environs of this
important haven, among others to the immense, but then and generally
empty water reservoirs which the English have made in the
neighbourhood of the town. No place in the high north, not the
granite cliffs of the Seven Islands, or the pebble rocks of Low
Island on Spitzbergen, not the mountain sides on the east coast of
Novaya Zemlya, or the figure-marked ground at Cape Chelyuskin is so
bare of vegetation as the environs of Aden and the parts of the east
coast of the Red Sea which we saw. Nor can there be any comparison
in respect of the abundance of animal life between the equatorial
countries and the Polar regions we have named. On the whole animal
life in the coast lands of the highest north, where the mountains
are high and surrounded by deep water, appears to be richer in
individuals than in the south, and this depends not only on the
populousness of the fowl-colonies and the number of large animals of
the chase that we find there, but also on the abundance of
evertebrates in the sea. At least the dredgings made from the _Vega_
during the voyage between Japan and Ceylon gave an exceedingly
scanty yield in comparison with our dredgings north of Cape
Chelyuskin.

Aden is now an important port of call for the vessels which pass
through the Suez Canal from European waters to the Indian Ocean, and
also one of the chief places for the export of the productions of
Yemen or Arabia Felix. In the latter respect the harbour was of
importance as far back as about four hundred years ago, when the
Italian, LUDOVICO DE VARTHEMA, was for a considerable time kept a
prisoner by the Arab tribes at the place.

In the harbour of Aden the _Vega_ was saluted by the firing of
twenty-one guns and the hoisting of the Swedish flag at the maintop
of an Italian war vessel, the despatch steamer _Esploratore_ under
the command of Captain AMEZAGA. The _Esploratore_ took part in an
expedition consisting of three war vessels, charged with founding an
Italian colony at Assab Bay, which cuts into the east coast of
Africa, north of Bab-el-Mandeb, on a tract of land purchased for the
purpose by Rubbattino, an Italian commercial company. On board was
Professor SAPETTO, an elderly man, who had concluded the bargain and
had lived at the place for forty years. It was settled that he
should be the administrator of the new colony. On board the
_Esploratore_ were also the _savants_ BECCARI and the Marquis DORIA,
famous for their extensive travels in the tropics and their valuable
scientific labours. The officers of the Italian vessel invited us to
a dinner which was one of the pleasantest and gayest of the many
entertainments we were present at during our homeward journey. When
at the close of it we parted from our hosts they lighted up the way
by which we rowed forward over the tranquil waves of the Bay of Aden
with blue lights, and the desert mountain sides of the Arabian coast
resounded with the hurrahs which were exchanged in the clear, calm
night between the representatives of the south and north of Europe.

The _Vega_ left Aden, or more correctly its port-town, Steamer
Point, on the 9th January, and sailed the following day through
Bab-el-Mandeb into the Red Sea. The passage of this sea, which is
narrow, but 2,200 kilometres long, was tedious, especially in its
northern part, where a strong head wind blew. This caused so great a
lowering of the temperature that a film of ice was formed on the
fresh-water pools in Cairo, and that we, Polar travellers as we
were, had again to put on winter clothes in Egypt itself.

The _Vega_ anchored on the 27th January at the now inconsiderable
port, Suez, situated at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal.
Most of the scientific men and officers of the _Vega_ expedition
made an excursion thence to Cairo and the Pyramids, and were
everywhere received in a very kind way. Among other things the
Egyptian Geographical Society sent a deputation to welcome us under
the leadership of the President of the Society, the American, STONE
PACHA. He had in his youth visited Sweden, and appeared to have a
very pleasant recollection of it. The Geographical Society gave a
stately banquet in honour of the _Vega_ expedition. An excursion was
made to the Great Pyramids, and, as far as the short time permitted,
to other remarkable places in and around the heap of ruins of all
kinds and from all periods, which forms the capital of the Egypt of
to-day. During our visit to the Pyramids the Swedish-Norwegian
consul-general, BÖDTKER, gave us a dinner in the European hotel
there, and the same evening a ball was given us by the Italian
consul-general, DE MARTINO. A day was besides devoted by some of us,
in company with M. GUISEPPE HAIMANN, to a short excursion to the
Mokattam Mountains, famous for the silicified tree-stems found
there. I hoped along with the petrified wood to find some strata of
clay-slate or schist with leaf-impressions. I was however
unsuccessful in this, but I loaded heavily a carriage drawn by a
pair of horses with large and small tree-stems converted into hard
flint. These he spread about in the desert in incredible masses,
partly broken up into small pieces, partly as long fallen stems,
without root or branches, but in a wonderfully good state of
preservation. Probably they had originally lain embedded in a layer
of sand above the present surface of the desert. This layer has
afterwards been carried away by storms, leaving the heavy masses of
stone as a peculiar stratum upon the desert sand, which is not
covered by any grassy sward. No root-stumps were found, and it thus
appeared as if the stems had been carried by currents of water to
the place where they were imbedded in the sandy layers and
silicified. In their exterior all these petrifactions resemble each
other, and by the microscopical examination which has hitherto been
made naturalists have only succeeded in distinguishing two species
belonging to the family Nicolia, and a palm, a pine, and a
leguminous plant, all now extinct. It is possible that among the
abundant materials I brought home with me some other types may be
discovered by polishing and microscopical examination. Such at least
was my expectation in bringing home this large quantity of stones,
the transport of which to the _Vega_ was attended with a heavy
expenditure.

From Cairo we returned, on the 2nd February, to Suez, and the
following day the _Vega_ weighed anchor to steam through the Suez
Canal into the Mediterranean. This gigantic work, created by the
genius and perseverance of LESSEPS, which is unsurpassed by the many
marvels of construction in the land of the Pharaohs, has not a very
striking appearance, for the famous canal runs, like a small river
with low banks, through the monotonously yellow plain of the desert.
There are no sluices. No bold rock-blastings stand as monuments of
difficulties overcome. But proud must every child of our century be
when he gazes on this proof that private enterprise can in our day
accomplish what world-empires in former times were unable to carry
into execution. We touched at Port Said for a few hours on the 5th
February, after which we continued our voyage to Naples, the first
European port we were to visit.

At Aden and in Egypt I had received several letters and telegrams
informing me that great preparations were being made at Naples for
our reception, and that repeated inquiries had been addressed to the
Swedish consul-general regarding the day of our arrival, questions
which naturally it was not so easy to answer, as our vessel, with
its weak steam-power, was very dependent on wind and weather. It was
hoped that the _Vega_ might be signalled from the Straits of
Messina, but we did not come to the entrance to the Straits until
after sunset. I therefore ordered the _Vega_ to lie to there for
some hours, while Lieut. Bove and I rowed ashore to send off
telegrams announcing our arrival in Europe to Sweden, Naples, Rome,
and other places. The shore, however, was farther off than we had
calculated, and it was quite dark before it was reached. It was not
without difficulty that in these circumstances we could get to land
through the breakers in the open road quite unknown to us, and then,
in coal-black darkness, find our way through thickets of prickly
bushes to the railway which here runs along the coast. We had then
to go along the railway for a considerable distance before we
reached a station from which our telegrams could be despatched.
Scarcely had we entered the station when we were surrounded by
suspicious railway and coast-guard men, and we considered ourselves
fortunate that they had not observed us on the way thither, for they
would certainly have taken us for smugglers, whom the coast-guard
have the right to salute with sharp shot. Even now we were
overwhelmed with questions in a loud and commanding tone, but when
they saw to what high personages our telegrams were addressed, and
were informed by their countryman Bove, who wore his uniform, to
what vessel we belonged, they became very obliging. One of them
accompanied us back to our boat, after providing us with excellent
torches which spread abundant light around our footsteps. They were
much needed, for we were now compelled to share the astonishment of
our guide that in the darkness we had succeeded in making our way
over the rugged hills covered with cactus plants and bushy thickets
between the railway and the coast, and along a railway viaduct which
we had passed on our way to the station without having any idea of
it. It was the last adventure of the voyage of the _Vega_, and my
first landing on the glorious soil of Italy.

On the 14th February, at 1 P.M., the _Vega_ arrived at Naples.
At Capri a flag-ornamented steamer from Sorrento met us; somewhat
later, another from Naples, both of which accompanied us to the
harbour. Here the Swedish expedition was saluted by an American
war-vessel, the _Wyoming_, with twenty-one guns. The harbour swarmed
with boats adorned with flags. Scarcely had the _Vega_ anchored--or
more correctly been moored to a buoy--when the envoy LINDSTRAND, the
Swedish-Norwegian consul CLAUSEN, Prince TEANO, president of the
Geographical Society, Commander MARTIN FRANKLIN, Commendatore NEGRI,
and others came on board. The last-named, who nearly two years
before had made a special journey to Sweden to be present at the
departure of the _Vega_, now came from Turin commissioned by the
Italian government, and deputed by the municipalities of Florence
and Venice, the Turin Academy of Sciences, and several Italian and
foreign geographical societies, to welcome the Expedition, which had
now brought its labours to a happy issue.

After Herr Lindstrand, as King Oscar's representative, had welcomed
the Expedition to Europe, and publicly conferred Swedish decorations
on Palander and me, and two adjutants of the Italian Ministry of
Marine had likewise distributed Italian orders to some of the _Vega_
men, some short speeches were exchanged, on which the members of the
Expedition, accompanied by the persons enumerated above, landed in
the Admiral's steam-launch under a salute of twenty-one guns from
the Italian guard-ship. On the landing-quay, where a large crowd of
the inhabitants of the city was assembled, the Swedish seafarers
were received by the Syndic of Naples, Count GIUSSO, accompanied by
a deputation from the municipality, &c. Here we were taken, between
rows of enthusiastic students, in the gala carriages of the
municipality, to the Hotel Royal des Étrangeres, where a handsome
suite of apartments, along with equipages and numerous attendants,
was placed at our disposal. We were there received by the committee
in charge of the festivities, Prince BELMONTE and Cavalier RICCIO,
who afterwards, during our stay in the city, in the kindest way
arranged everything to make our stay there festive and agreeable.

On Sunday the 15th several deputations were received, among them one
from the University. A beautifully-bound address was presented by
"Ateneo Benjammo Franklin," and a number of official visits were
made and received. We dined with the Swedish-Norwegian consul,
Clausen. On Monday the 16th an address was presented from "Scuola
d'Applicazione per gl'Ingenieri," and from "Neapolitana
Archæologiæ, Litterarum et Artium Academia," a song of welcome in
Latin, written by Professor ANTONIO MIRABELLI. Then followed a grand
dinner given by the municipality of the city in a hall of the hotel,
which was now inaugurated and was named the _Vega_ Hall, and was on
this occasion ornamented with the royal cipher, the Swedish and
Italian flags, &c. In the evening there was a gala representation at
San Carlo, where the members of the Expedition scattered among the
different boxes were saluted with repeated loud cries of
"Bravo!"--On Tuesday the 17th the Committee had arranged an
excursion to Lake Averno, the Temple of Serapis, and other places
famous in a geological and historical respect, situated to the
north-west of Naples. Prince URUSOV entertained some of the members
of the Expedition to dinner. There was an afternoon musical
entertainment at the "Società Filarmonica," where there was a
numerous attendance of persons moving in the first circles in the
city.--Wednesday the 18th, excursion along with the Committee to
Pompeii, where the Swedish guests were received by the famous
superintendent of the excavations, Director RUGGIERI. Breakfast was
eaten with merry jests and gay speeches in a splendid Roman bath,
still in good preservation, excavations were undertaken, &c. In the
afternoon there was a grand dinner, followed by a reception by the
admiral in command, and a festive representation at the Bellini
Theatre.--Thursday the 19th, Dr. FRANZ KÜHN, arrived from Vienna,
deputed by the Geographical Society there to welcome us. Excursion
in company with Professor PALMIERI and the Committee to Vesuvius,
which at the time of our visit was emitting thick columns of smoke,
was pouring out a stream of lava, and casting out masses of glowing
stone. We ascended the border of the crater, not without
inconvenience from the heat of the half-solidified lava streams over
which we walked, from the gases escaping from the crater, and from
the red-hot stones flung out of it. The new railway, not then ready,
was inspected, and the observatory visited. We dined with the
Committee at the hotel--Friday the 20th, journey to Rome, where the
members of the Expedition arrived at 2 P.M., and were, in the same
way as at Naples, received in a festive manner by the Syndic of the
city, Prince RUSPOLI, president and director of the Geographical
Society, by members of the University, the Scandinavian Union, &c.
Carriages met the Swedish guests, in which they were taken past the
Swedish-Norwegian minister's hotel, decked with innumerable flags,
to Albergo di Roma in the Corso, where a splendid suite of
apartments, along with equipages, was placed at the disposal of the
Expedition. In the evening we dined with the Swedish minister, and
were afterwards received by Prince PALLAVICINI at his magnificent
palace--Saturday the 21st, visit to the Chamber of Deputies, private
excursions, dinner given by the Duke NICOLAS of Leuchtenberg, to
Nordenskiöld and Nordquist.--Sunday the 22nd, public meeting of the
Geographical Society, at which its grand gold medal was presented to
Nordenskiöld. In the evening a grand dinner, given by the
Geographical Society, in the Continental Hotel. Among the toasts
which were drunk may be mentioned one to the King of Sweden and
Norway, proposed in a very warm and eloquent speech by the Premier,
CAIROLI; to Nordenskiöld, by Prince Teano; to Palander, by the
Minister of Marine, Admiral ACTON; to the other members of the
Expedition, to its munificent patrons, Oscar Dickson and Alexander
Sibiriakoff, to Bove, the Italian officer, who took part in it,
&c.--Monday the 23rd. Audience of the King. In the evening a grand
reception at the Palazzo Teano, where almost all that was
distinguished and splendid of Roman society appeared to be
assembled.--Tuesday the 24th. Dined at the Quirinal with King
Humbert. There were present, besides the King and his suite, the
Swedish minister, the members of the _Vega_ expedition, Prince
Teano, President of the Geographical Society; Commendatore Negri;
Cairoli, Premier; Acton, Minister of Marine; MALVANO, Secretary of
the Cabinet; Major BARATIERI, and the Italian naval officer, EUGENIO
PARENT, a member of the Swedish Polar expedition of 1872-3, and
others. In the evening, reception by the English minister, Sir A.B.
PAGET, and a beautifully arranged _fête_ at the Scandinavian Union,
at which a number of enthusiastic speeches were made, and flowers
and printed verses were distributed.--Wednesday the 25th. Farewell
visits. Some of the members of the Expedition travelled north by
rail. Captain Palander made an excursion to Spezzia to take part in
a cruise on the large ironclad _Duilio_. The others remained some
days longer in Rome in order to see its lions, undisturbed by
official _fêtes_.

While the _Vega_ lay in the harbour of Naples she was literally
exposed to storming by visitors. The crew were on several occasions
invited to the theatres there by the managers. Excursions to Pompeii
had besides been arranged for them by the consul for the united
kingdoms, Clausen, who spared no pains to make the stay of the
expedition at Naples honouring to the mother-country and as pleasant
as possible to the guests, as well as in arranging the more formal
details of the visit. We had besides the joy of meeting in Italy our
comrade from the severe wintering of 1872-3, Eugenio Parent, who
soon after had the misfortune to be in the tower of the ironclad
_Duilio_, when the large Armstrong cannon placed there burst, and
the wonderful good fortune to escape with life and without being
seriously hurt from this dreadful accident. The only mishap on board
the _Vega_ during the latter part of her long voyage home occurred
besides in the harbour of Naples, one of the sailors who was keeping
back an enthusiastic crowd of people who stormed the _Vega_, being
thrown down from the bulwarks with the result that he broke an
arm.[392]

On the 29th February the _Vega_ left the harbour of Naples, but no
longer with her staff complete. Doctors Kjellman, Almquist, and
Stuxberg, and Lieut. Nordquist had preferred the land route from
Italy to Stockholm to the long _détour_ by sea, and Lieut. Bove was
obliged, by family circumstances, to leave the _Vega_ at Naples. We,
however, all met again at Stockholm. At our departure from Naples
the gunroom _personnel_ thus consisted only of me, Captain Palander,
and Lieuts. Brusewitz and Hovgaard.

Through M.A. RABAUT, President of the young, but already so well
known Geographical Society of Marseilles, I had received repeated
invitations to visit along with my companions the birthplace of
Pytheas, the first Polar explorer and the discoverer of the
Scandinavian Peninsula. With great reluctance I was compelled to
decline this invitation. We had to hasten home, and I wished to save
some days for a visit to the fatherland of HENRY the Navigator and
VASCO DA GAMA.

We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 9th March, and
anchored in the harbour of Lisbon on the 11th March at 2 P.M. The
following day we made an excursion to the beautiful palace of Cintra,
situated about five Portuguese miles from the capital. On Saturday we
were received in audience by the King, Dom Luiz, of Portugal, who, a
seaman himself, appeared to take a great interest in the voyage of the
_Vega_. Later in the day the Swedish minister in Lisbon gave a dinner,
to which were invited the President of the Portuguese Council, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, the members of the Diplomatic Corps, and
others, ending in the evening with a grand reception. On Monday the 15th
we were present by special invitation at a meeting of the Geographical
Society, at which the newly-returned African travellers, BRITO-CAPELLO
and IVEN, gave addresses. Here I had besides the great pleasure of
meeting the famous African traveller, Major SERPA PINTO. The King at the
same time honoured us with decorations, and at its meeting on the 10th
March the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies resolved, on the motion of the
Deputies ENNES and ALFREDO, to express its welcome and good wishes in a
congratulatory address to the _Vega_ men.

We weighed anchor again on the 15th March. We were favoured at first
with a fresh breeze and made rapid progress, but at the entrance to the
Channel we met with a steady head-wind, so that it was not until the
evening of the 25th March, considerably later than we had counted on,
that we could anchor in the harbour of Falmouth, not, as was first
intended, in that of Portsmouth. We thus missed some preparations which
had been made at the latter place to welcome us to the land which stands
first in the line of those that have sent out explorers to the Polar
Seas. We besides missed a banquet which the Royal Geographical Society
had arranged in honour of the _Vega_ expedition, at which the Prince of
Wales was to have presided, and which now, in the midst of the Easter
holidays and a keenly-contested parliamentary election, could not be
held.[393] Our stay in England, at all events, was exceedingly pleasant.
Palander and I travelled on the night before Good Friday to London,
where we were received at the railway station by the Swedish minister,
Count PIPER, and a large number of our countrymen living in London.
Count Piper carried me to my future host, the distinguished Secretary of
the Geographical Society and famous Arctician and geographical writer,
CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, who did everything to make my stay in London as
pleasant and instructive as possible. Saturday was spent in paying
visits. On Easter Sunday Consul-General RICHTER gave a lunch in the
Continental Hotel, to which a considerable number of Scandinavians and
Englishmen were invited. The same evening we dined with the famous
Arctic traveller, Sir ALLEN YOUNG. On Monday we were invited by the Earl
of NORTHBROOK, President of the Geographical Society,[394] to his
country seat, Stratton, near Winchester. Here we saw the way--an
exceedingly quiet one--in which an English parliamentary election goes
on. The same day we paid a visit to Mr. SPOTTISWOODE, the President of
the Royal Society, at his magnificent country seat, in the neighbourhood
of London. Here I saw several instructive experiments with very large
machines for the production of light by electric discharges in highly
rarified air. Wednesday the 31st, grand dinner at the Swedish
minister's, and in the evening of the same day a Scandinavian _fête_ in
the Freemasons' Hall, at which there were great rejoicings according to
old northern usages.

[Illustration: THE OFFICERS OF THE "VEGA."
 E. Bruzewitz.
 G. Bove.
 A. Hovgaard. ]

We started for Paris on the night before the 1st April. We went by
Boulogne-sur-Mer, whose Chamber of Commerce had invited us to a
_fête_ to celebrate the first landing of the _Vega_ men on the soil
of France after the North-east Passage was achieved. Several of the
authorities of the town and Dr. HAMY, a delegate from the
Geographical Society of Paris met us in the waiting-room at the
station. Here a breakfast had been arranged, in the course of which
we were presented to a number of eminent persons of the place, with
whom we afterwards passed the greater part of the day in the most
agreeable way. After making several excursions in the neighbourhood
of the town and paying the necessary official visits, we partook of
a festive dinner arranged by the municipality. From Boulogne we
travelled by night to Paris, arriving there on the 2nd April at
7 A.M.

Notwithstanding the early morning hour we were received here at the
station in a festive way by the Swedish-Norwegian minister and the
_personnel_ of the Legation, a deputation from the Geographical
Society of Paris, and a considerable number of the members of the
Scandinavian colony in the capital of France. The famous Madagascar
traveller, GRANDIDIER, President of the Geographical Society's
Central Committee, welcomed us, with lively expressions of assent
from the surrounding crowd. We were invited during our stay in the
city to live with our countryman, A. NOBEL, in a very comfortable
villa belonging to him, Rue Malakoff, No. 53, and I cannot
sufficiently commend the liberal way in which he here discharged the
duties of a host and assisted us during our stay in Paris, which,
though very agreeable and honouring to us, demanded an extraordinary
amount of exertion.

Our reception in Paris was magnificent, and it appeared as if the
metropolis of the world wished to show by the way in which she
honoured a feat of navigation that it is not without reason that she
bears on her shield a vessel surrounded by swelling billows. It is a
pleasant duty for me here to offer my thanks for all the goodwill
we, during those memorable days, enjoyed on the part of the
President of the Republic, of Admiral LA RONCIÈRE LE NOURY,
President of the Geographical Society, his colleague, M. HECHT, M.
MAUNOIR, the Secretary of the Society, M. QUATREFAGE, and M.
DAUBRÉE, members of the Institute, not to forget many other
Frenchmen and Scandinavians. Among the _fêtes_ of Paris I must
confine myself to an enumeration of the principal ones.

Friday, the 2nd April. Public _séance de réception_ by the Geographical
Society in the Cirque des Champs Elysée in the presence of a very large
and select audience. Admiral La Roncière delivered the speech on this
occasion, which I replied to by giving a pretty full account of the
Swedish Arctic expeditions, on which the President handed me the large
gold medal of the Society "as a proof of the interest which the public
and the geographers of France take in the voyage of the _Vega_." Dined
the same day with the Swedish-Norwegian minister, SIBBERN.--Saturday the
3rd. Invitation to a festive meeting of delegates from twenty-eight
learned societies in France in the amphitheatre of the Sorbonne.[395] We
were greeted by the Minister of Education in a masterly and eloquent
speech, after which he conferred upon us, on the part of the Republic,
Commander's and Officer's Insignia of the French Legion of Honour. "A
reward," as the Minister of the _Republic_ expressed himself, "for the
blood of the brave and the sleepless nights of the learned." After that
an official dinner and reception by M. Jules Ferry.--On Sunday the 4th,
an address was presented from the Scandinavian Union, under the
presidency of Herr Fortmeijer. In the evening a brilliant entertainment
on a large scale given by the Scandinavian Union in the Hotel
Continental. Among those present may be mentioned Prince OSCAR of
Sweden, the President of the _Fête_ Committee, Herr JENSEN, Fru KRISTINA
NILSON-ROUZEAUD the Danish minister, the Swedish embassy, members of the
Russian embassy, a large number of Scandinavian artists, many of the
principal representatives of the French and foreign press, and lastly,
what ought perhaps to have been mentioned first, a flower-garden of
ladies, of which every dweller in the north might feel proud.--Monday
the 5th. Meeting of the Institute in its well-known hall, with speeches
of welcome. Hence we were conducted to a grand festive reception,
arranged beforehand to the minutest details by the Municipal Council, in
"la Salle des États," situated in that part of the Tuileries where the
Geographical Congress was held in 1878. The hall and the ascent to it
were richly ornamented with French tri-colours and Swedish flags,
beautiful Gobelins, and living plants. A number of speeches were made,
after which the President of the Municipal Council, on the part of the
City of Paris, presented to me a large, artistically executed medal as a
memorial of the voyage of the _Vega_[396]. In the evening a grand dinner
was given by the Société de Géographie, with several eloquent speeches
for King Oscar (General Pittie), for President Grévy, for the prosperity
of France (Prince Oscar), for the _Vega_ expedition (M. Quatrefage),
and so on.--Tuesday the 6th. Dinner given by the President of the
Republic, M. Grévy, to Prince Oscar and the _Vega_ men then in
Paris.--Wednesday the 7th. Dinner given to a numerous and select company
of French _savants_ by the then President of the Geographical Society
and of the Institute, M.A. Daubrée.--Thursday the 8th. Dinner to a
small circle at Victor Hugo's house, where the elderly poet and
youthful-minded enthusiast in very warm, and I need not say eloquent,
words congratulated me on the accomplishment of my task. Reception there
the same evening.

Here ended our visit to the capital of France. Thoroughly exhausted,
but bringing with us memories which shall never pass away, we
travelled the following day to Vlissingen, whither the _Vega_ had
gone from Falmouth, under the command of Brusewitz. We had been
compelled to decline warm and hearty invitations to Holland and
Belgium from want of time and strength to take part in any more
festivities. The anchor was weighed immediately after we came on
board, and the course shaped for Copenhagen. At noon on the 15th we
passed Helsingborg, which was richly ornamented with flags for the
occasion. Already at Kullaberg we had been met by the steamer _H.P.
Prior_, with Lund students on board, and eight other steamers with
deputations of welcome and enthusiasts for the voyage of the _Vega_,
from Copenhagen, Malmö, Helsingborg, and Elsinore. The number of
passengers was stated to be 1,500, including a number of ladies.
Songs were sung, speeches made, fireworks let off, &c. At night we
lay at anchor in the outer road of Copenhagen, so that it was not
until the following forenoon that we steamed into the harbour,
saluting the fort with nine shots of our little cannon, and saluted
in turn by as many. While the _Vega_ was sailing into the harbour,
and after she had anchored, there came on board the Swedish
Minister, Baron BECK-FRIIS, the Swedish consul-general EVERLÖF, the
representatives of the University, of the merchants, and of the
Geographical Society under the presidency of the former President of
the Council, Count HOLSTEIN-HOLSTEINBORG, to bring us a welcome from
the corporations they represented, and accompany us to the Toldbod,
where we were received by the President-in-chief, the Presidents of
the Communal Authority, and the Bourse, and the Swedish Unions of
Copenhagen. We then drove through the festively ornamented city,
saluted by resounding hurrahs, from a countless throng of human
beings, to the Hôtel d'Angleterre, where apartments had been
prepared for us. On the 17th a _fête_ was given by the Geographical
Society in the Casino Hall, which was attended by the King, the
Crown Prince, and Prince John of Glücksborg, and nearly all the
distinguished men of Copenhagen in the fields of science, business,
and politics. The speech of the _fête_ was delivered by Professor
ERSLEV. Thereafter a gay and lively banquet was given, at which the
Crown Prince of Denmark presided.

The 18th April. Grand entertainment given by the King.--The 19th
April. Magnificent banquet given by the Society of Merchants to the
members of the _Vega_ expedition at the Bourse, the rooms being
richly ornamented with flowers and flags, and with busts and
paintings executed for the occasion by eminent artists. Councillor
of state MELCHIOR presided, and amongst those present, were observed
the Crown Prince, the ministers, the speakers and vice-speakers of
the _folke-_ and _lands-ting_, and a number of the principal
scientific and military men and officials. Speeches were delivered
by the Crown Prince, State-councillor TEITGEN, Manager of the Great
Northern Telegraph Company, Admiral BILLE, Professor MADVIG,
State-councillor Melchior, &c. At another place, an entertainment
was given at the same time to the crew. In the evening, _fête_ of
the Students' Union, the Swedish National Union, and the Norwegian
Union.

I was obliged to decline an invitation to Lund, because his Majesty,
King Oscar, had expressed the wish that we should first set foot on
Swedish ground at the Palace of Stockholm.

It was settled that our entry into Stockholm should take place in
the evening of the 24th April, but we started from Copenhagen as
early as the night before the 20th in order to be sure that we would
not, in consequence of head winds or other unforeseen hindrances,
arrive too late for the festivities in the capital of Sweden. In
consequence of this precaution we arrived at the archipelago of
Stockholm as early as the 23rd, so that we were compelled during the
night between the 23rd and 24th to lie still at Dalarö. Here we were
met by Commander LAGERCRANTZ, who by the King's orders brought our
families on the steamer _Sköldmön_ to meet us.

[Illustration: THE CREW OF THE "VEGA." After a photograph taken at
Naples. ]

On the 24th at 8 A.M. the _Vega_ again weighed anchor in order to
steam on slowly, past Vaxholm into Stockholm. We met innumerable
flag-decked steamers by the way, fully laden with friends, known and
unknown, who with shouts of rejoicing welcomed the _Vega_ men home.
The nearer we came to Stockholm, the greater became the number of
steamers, that, arranged in a double line and headed by the _Vega_,
slowly approached the harbour. Lanterns in variegated colours were
lighted on the vessels, fireworks were let off, and the roar of
cannon mingled with the loud hurrahs of thousands of spectators.
After being greeted at Kastelholmen with one salute more the _Vega_
anchored in the stream in Stockholm at 10 P.M.

The queen of the Mälar had clothed herself for the occasion in a
festive dress of incomparable splendour. The city was illuminated,
the buildings round the harbour being in the first rank. Specially
had the King done everything to make the reception of the _Vega_
expedition, which he had so warmly cherished from the first moment,
as magnificent as possible. The whole of the Royal Palace was
radiant with a sea of lights and flames, and was ornamented with
symbols and ciphers in which the name of the youngest sailor on the
_Vega_ was not omitted.

An estrade had been erected from Logaorden to the landing-place.
Here we were received by the town councillors, whose president, the
Governor, welcomed us in a short speech, we were then conducted to
the Palace, where, in the presence of her Majesty the Queen of
Sweden, the members of the Royal House, the highest officials of the
State and Court, &c., we were in the grandest manner welcomed in the
name of the fatherland by the King of Sweden, who at the same time
conferred upon us further marks of his favour and goodwill[397]. It
was also at the Royal Palace that the series of festivities
commenced with a grand gala dinner, on the 25th of April, at which
the King in a few magnanimous words praised the exploit of the
_Vega_. Then _fête_ followed _fête_ for several weeks.

On the 26th the Swedish Yacht Club gave an entertainment in the
Grand Hotel under the presidency of Admiral Lagercrantz. Among those
who were present may be mentioned his Majesty the King, the Crown
Prince, Prince Oscar, Oscar Dickson, and Baron von Otter, Minister
of Marine. On the evening of the same day there was a torchlight
procession by pupils of the Technical High School. On the 27th there
was a gala-play, to which all the _Vega_ men were invited. On the
28th at a festive meeting of the Academy of the Sciences, a medal
struck on account of the _Vega_ expedition was distributed, the
meeting being followed by a dinner given at the Hotel Phoenix by the
Academy under the presidency of the Crown Prince. On the 30th April
and 5th May banquets were given by the Publicist Club, and by the
Idun Society, by the Naval Officers' Society to the officers of the
_Vega_, and by the Stockholm Workman's Union to the crew. On the 7th
and 8th May there were festivities at Upsala, the principal
attraction of which consisted of gay, lively, and ingenious carnival
representations, in which we received jocular addresses and homage
from fantastically dressed representatives of the peoples of
different countries and periods.

[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE OF THE "VEGA" INTO STOCKHOLM ON THE 24TH
APRIL, 1880. ]

During this time there were daily received deputations addresses,
and telegrams of welcome, among others from the _riksdag_ of Sweden,
the _storting_ of Norway, and the principal towns of Norway and
Finland, from the student corps at Upsala and Helsingborg, from the
St. Petersburg Geographical Society, from women in Northern Russia
(the address accompanied by a laurel wreath in silver), &c. In a
word, the Stockholm _fêtes_ formed the climax of the remarkable
triumphal procession from Japan to Stockholm, which stands unique in
the history of festivities. Even after the Expedition was broken up
in Stockholm, and the _Vega_ had sailed on the 9th May for
Karlskrona and Gothenburg, where she was again taken over by the
whaling company that previously owned her, the _fêtes_ were repeated
at these towns. They commenced anew when the _Vega_ exhibition was
opened with appropriate solemnities by His Majesty the King in one
of the wings of the Royal Palace, and when some months after I
visited Berlin, St. Petersburg, and my old dear fatherland, Finland.

But I may not weary my reader with more notes of festivities. It is
my wish yet once again to offer my comrades' and my own thanks for
all the honours conferred upon us both in foreign lands and in the
Scandinavian North. And in conclusion I wish to express the hope
that the way in which the accounts of the successful voyage of the
_Vega_ have been received in all countries will give encouragement
to new campaigns in the service of research, until the natural
history of the Siberian Polar Sea be completely investigated and
till the veil that still conceals the enormous areas of land and sea
at the north and south poles be completely removed, until man at
last knows at least the main features of the whole of the planet
which has been assigned him as a dwelling-place in the depths of the
universe.

Hearty thanks last of all to my companions during the voyage of the
_Vega_; to her distinguished commander Louis Palander, her
scientific men and officers, her petty officers and crew. Without
their courage and the devotion they showed to the task that lay
before us, the problem of the North-East Passage would perhaps still
be waiting for its solution.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Map of the North Coast of the Old World from Norway to
  Behring's Straits, with the track of the _Vega_, constructed
  from old and recent sources, and from observations made during the
  Voyage of the _Vega_, by N. Selander, Captain in the General Staff. ]


ABSTRACT OF THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA

                                                Distance traversed
                                                         English
                                           1878     geographical miles
 Karlskrona--Copenhagen                      June 22--24        144
 Copenhagen--Gothenburg                        ,, 26, 27        134
 Gothenburg--Tromsoe                         July  4--17      1,040
 Tromsoe--Chabarova                            ,, 21--30        930
 Chabarova--Port Dickson                      Aug  1--6         580
 Port Dickson--Cape Chelyuskin                 ,, 10--19        510
 Cape Chelyuskin--Preobraschenie Island        ,, 20--24        385
 Preobraschenie Island--the Mouth of the Lena  ,, 24--27        380
 The Mouth of the Lena--Irkaipij             Aug 27--Sept 12  1,260
 Irkaipij--Pitlekaj                          Sept 18--28        235
 _The Wintering_                             Sept 28, 1878--
                                            July 18, 1879

                                           1879
 Pitlekaj--St. Lawrence Bay                  July 18--20        190
 St. Lawrence Bay--Port Clarence              ,,  21, 22        120
 Port Clarence--Konyam Bay                    ,,  26--28        160
 Konyam Bay--St. Lawrence Island              ,,  30, 31         90
 St. Lawrence Island--Behring Island         Aug  2--14         900
 Behring Island--Yokohama                    Aug. 19--Sept 2  1,715
 Yokohama--Kobe                              Oct. 11--13        360
 Kobe--Nagasaki                               ,,  18--21        410
 Nagasaki--Hong Kong                          Oct. 27--Nov 2  1,080
 Hong Kong--Labuan                            Nov.  9--17     1,040
 Labuan--Singapore                            ,,  21--28        750
 Singapore--Point de Galle                    Dec.  4--15     1,510
 Point de Galle--Aden                  Dec. 22--Jan. 7, 1880  2,200

                                            1880
 Aden--Suez                                   Jan. 9--27      1,320
 Suez--Naples                                 Feb. 3--14      1,200
 Naples--Lisbon                            Feb. 29--March 11  1,420
 Lisbon--Falmouth                           March 16--25        745
 Falmouth--Vlissingen                       April  5--8         345
 Vlissingen--Copenhagen                       ,,  10--16        632
 Copenhagen--Stockholm                        ,,  20--24        404
                                                          ---------
                                                  Total      22,189


[Footnote 392: An accident also happened during the first half of
the expedition, the steersman, in backing among drift-ice, having
been thrown over the wheel and hurt very seriously. ]

[Footnote 393: Further particulars on this point are given in the
Annual Address on the Progress of Geography by the Right Hon. the
Earl of Northbrook (_Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_,
1880, p. 401). ]

[Footnote 394: During our visit to London we had no opportunity of
taking part in any of the meetings of the Society, but some time
after the Society gave Palander the Founders Gold Medal (I had in
1869 obtained the same distinction) and elected me an Honorary
Corresponding Member. ]

[Footnote 395: These are enumerated in the _Bulletin de la Société
de Géographie_, Mai, 1880, p. 463. In the same part (p. 450) there
is also a report of the speeches made at the _séance de réception_. ]

[Footnote 396: The medal was accompanied by an "extrait du registre
de procès-verbaux du conseil municipal de la ville de Paris," a
caligraphic masterpiece illuminated in various colours and gold. The
_Conseil municipal_ also ordered a detailed description of the
_fête_ to be printed, with the title _Relation officielle de le
réception de M. le Professeur Nordenskiöld par le conseil municipal
de Paris le lundi 5 Avril_ 1880. ]

[Footnote 397: Among others to all who took part in the Expedition a
_Vega_ medal, specially struck, to be worn on a blue-yellow riband
on the breast. It may perhaps be of interest for numismatists to
know that the medals distributed on account of the _Vega_ expedition
are to be found delineated in the eighth and ninth parts of the
Swedish Family Journal for 1880. To those that are there delineated
there have since been added a medal struck by the Finnish Society of
Sciences, and the Anthropological-Geographical Society's medal. ]



INDEX.


INDEX.

(_n_ after the number of a page signifies note)

A

Aagaard, Aage, i. 302_n_

_Acanthostephia Malmgreni_, ii. 49

Actinia Bay, i. 331

Acton, Admiral, ii. 446

Adam's mammoth _find_, i. 408

Adam's Peak, ii. 431

Adam's wood, ii. 209

Aden, ii. 437

Ahlquist, A.E., i. 103

Aino race, the, ii. 199

Aitanga, Chukch woman, ii. 57; portrait, ii. 8

Akja, Lapp sledge, i. 83

Alasej, the river, discovered, ii. 161;
  mammoth _find_ at, i. 408
Alaska, ii. 196

Alaska Commercial Company, ii. 257

_Alauda alpestris_, i. 129_n_

Albertus Magnus, i. 159

Alecto, _see_ Antedon

Aleutian Islands, the, i. 161_n_, ii. 274_n_, 275_n_;
  discovered, ii. 196

Alexejev, Feodot, ii. 162, 164, 167

Alfred the Great, i. 46, 47, 215

Algæ, on the inland-ice of Greenland, i. 178;
  in the Kara Sea, i. 185;
  at Behring Island, ii. 292

Alibert's graphite quarry, ii. 235

Alkhornet, i. 112

Almquist, E., i. 4, 37, 38, 93, 187, 208, 319, 320, 340, 436, 444,
465, 478, 504, 505;
  ii. 32, 242, 414, 434;
  excursion to Beli Ostrov, i. 200;
  report on a dead man laid out on the tundra, ii. 89;
  on the colour-sense of the Chukches, ii. 135;
  excursion in Ceylon, ii. 427;
  portrait, ii. 435.

Alophus (beetle), ii. 55

Altaic races, i. 103

Amber in China, ii. 399

America, the north-west coast of, first visited by Europeans,
  ii. 210_n_;
  Russian voyages to, ii, 196.

American whaler, near the _Vega's_ winter-quarters, i. 467;
  voyages in the Siberian Polar sea, i. 27;
  accounts of the state of the ice north of Behring's Straits, i. 459

Amezaga, Captain, ii. 439

Ammonites with gold lustre, i. 273

Amossov, Feodot, ii. 170, 171

Amoretti, Carlo, ii. 215

Amulets, Chukch, i. 503, ii. 126, 134;
  Eskimo, ii. 239

Anadyr, the river, i. 22; ii. 75, 76, 164, 165, 167, 195;
  is discovered, ii. 162

Anadyrsk, ii. 165, 172

Anauls, ii. 166

Andersen, the photographer, ii. 304

Andrejev Land, ii. 202

Andrejev, Sergeant, ii. 202, 203

Androphagi, i. 77_n_; ii. 157_n_

Angara river, the, i. 374

Anian Sound, the, ii. 215.

Anika, Russian peasant, ii. 158

Anjou, Peter Feodorovitsch, i. 23;
  journey, ii. 209;
  portrait, ii. 207

Anjui river, market at the, ii. 14, 118

Ankudinov, Gerasim, i. 22; ii. 163, 167_n_

_Anser bernicla_, i. 118, 119, 247_n_;
  seen during the expedition, i. 321, 334, 343

---- _brachyrhynchus_, i. 126

---- _hyperboreus_, ii. 42

---- _leucopsis_, i. 126

---- _pictus_, ii. 42

---- _segetum_, i. 126

_Antedon Eschrichtii_, i. 324, 325

Anziphorov, the Cossack, ii. 174

Arachnids on Novaya Zemlya, i. 148

Archangel, i 167

Arimaspi, Herodotus' statement regarding, i. 407; ii. 150

Arnell, Dr., i. 383

_Arvicola obscurus_, ii. 44

Arzina, the situation of, i. 66

Asamayama, ascent of, ii. 349;
 descent of, ii. 351

Asia, views regarding its geography in the beginning of the
18th century, ii. 177

Astronomical determinations of position, the first in Siberia, ii. 178_n_

Atlassov, Volodimir, ii. 72, 167, 172

Aurora, the, at the _Vega's_ winter quarters, ii. 35

Austrian Arctic Expedition, i. 266, 300

Avatscha Bay, ii. 181, 196

Avril, Ph., i. 400


B

BACHOFF, Ivan, ii. 200

Baer, K.E. von, i. 158; ii. 183, 276;
 voyage to Novaya Zemlya, i. 282

Baikal Lake, i. 374

_Balæna Mysticetus_, i. 151, 169

_Balænoptera Sibbaldii_, i. 170

Baratieri, Major, ii. 446

Barents, i. 101, 108_n_, 422, 423;
  voyages, i. 232;
  wintering, i. 249;
  death, i. 253;
  discovery of relics from his wintering, i. 300

Barjatinsky, Ivan Petrovitsch, ii. 169

Barnacle Goose, see _Anser bernicla_

Barrington, D., i. 265

Barrow, J., i. 230; ii. 215

Bartlett, W., i. 467

Bassendine, James, i. 229

Baths in Japan, ii. 345

Baumhauer, ii. 36

Bavier, Consul, ii. 312, 326, 327

Bay-ice, i. 424

Beaker sponges, i. 426, 427

Bear Island, i. 12, 108, 115, 152;
 discovery of, i. 247

Bear Islands, the, ii. 171_n_, 195, 201, 202;
 the _Vega_ arrives at, i. 421;
 geological formation, i. 428

Bear, land, ii. 45; _see_ Polar bear

Beccari, ii. 439

Beck Friis, Baron, ii. 455

Beechey, F.W., i. 28; ii. 228_n_

Behemoth, i. 400

Behring, Vitus, i. 25, 28; ii. 183_n_, 193, 265;
  first voyage, ii. 179;
  second voyage, ii. 196;
  stay on Behring Island, ii. 265;
  death, ii. 265

Behring the younger, Captain, ii. 211

Behring Island, ii. 257;
  discovered, ii. 197, 262

Behring's Straits, ii. 218;
  its hydrography, ii. 242;
  is discovered, ii. 180, 181

Beli, Ostrov, i. 187;
  excursion to, i. 200;
  description of, i. 201;
  former visit to, i. 205;
  mapping of, ii. 185

Bellot, J.R., ii. 57

Belmonte, Prince, ii. 444

Bell Sound, i. 112, 122, 125, 129, 137, 183

Beluga, _see_ White whale

Beluga Bay, i. 361

Bennet, Stephen, i. 152, 158, 291

Bentinck, Swedish officer, ii. 76_n_

Beormas, i. 48, 51

Beresov, ii. 184

Berggren, Sven, i. 176

Beryl, ii. 422

Berzelius, ii. 325

Besimannaja Bay, i. 73, 112, 344

Busk, i. 373

Bille, Admiral, ii. 456

Billings, J., ii. 78, 203, 254_n_

Biwa Lake, ii. 370

Bjelkov, hunter, ii. 204, 206

Black-lead pencil first mentioned, ii. 235_n_

Blischni Island, _see_ Ljachoff's Island

Bludnaya river, the, ii. 191

Bödtker, Consul-general, ii. 440

Bog iron ore formations in the Kara Sea, i. 185, 186

Bolschaja Reka, ii. 196, 199

Bolschoj, Kamen, i. 173

Bolvan worship, Samoyed, i. 79, 87, 95

_Bona Confidentia_ (vessel), i. 59;
  its fate, i. 225

_Bona Esperanza_,(vessel), i. 59;
 its fate, i. 225

Books, purchase of Japanese, ii. 364

Börgen, Dr., i. 143

Borgmästareport, i. 115

Borneo, ii. 407, 413;
  excursion to the interior of, ii. 409

Borrowdale, graphite deposit at, ii. 235

Bosman, Cornelis, i. 257

Boulogne-sur-mer, arrival at, ii. 451

Bove, G., i. 4, 39, 190, 318, 502; ii. 2, 47, 242, 409, 447;
  excursion to Najtskaj, ii. 20;
  to the interior of the Chukch Peninsula, ii. 28;
  portrait, ii. 449

Bragin, Dmitri, ii. 275

Brandt, J.F., ii. 275, 276

Brandt, W., i. 279

Brandy, i. 440; ii. 116, 118

Brandywine Bay, i. 108

Briochov Islands, i. 210, 359, 381

Brown, Richard, i. 229_n_

Bruin, Cornelis de, ii. 72

Brun, Captain, i. 360

Brunel, Oliver, i. 234

Bruzewitz, E., i. 4, 39, 339, 353; ii. 18, 44, 447, 455;
  his measurements of the thickness of the ice, i. 465;
  excursion to Najtskaj, ii. 7;
  portrait, ii. 449

Buache, ii. 171

Buckland, John, i. 225

Buckland, William, ii. 228_n_

Buddhism in Japan, ii. 378

Buldakov, Timofej, ii. 163

Bulun, i. 362, 368

Burgomaster, i. 114;
  met with during the voyage, i. 191, 352; ii. 42

Burney, James, ii. 178

Burrough, Stephen, i. 60, 100, 169;
  his voyage, i. 217

Busa, Elisej, ii. 160

Busch, Henry, ii. 175

Buys, N., ii. 243

Bychov mouth of the Lena, the, i. 367; ii. 194


C

CABOOK, ii. 420, 421

Cabot, Sebastian, i. 56, 58, 217;
  portrait, i. 59

Cadamosto, ii. 73_n_

Cairo, stay in, ii. 443

Cairoli, premier, ii. 445, 446

Cannibals in the North, i. 77_n_; ii. 157_n_
Canton, ii. 398

Cape Baranov, i. 25, 428; ii. 195, 206

Cape Borchaja, ii. 194

Cape Chelyuskin, i. 13, 19;
  arrival at, i. 336
  reindeer there, i. 344, ii. 192_n_;
  flora, i. 340;
  is discovered, i. 17, 20; ii. 193

Cape Deschnev, ii. 68, 181

Cape Kammennoj, ii. 206

Cape Mattesol, ii. 186

Cape Medinski Savorot, ii. 223_n_

Cape Nassau, ii. 234

Cape North, i. 442; ii. 210

Cape Olenek, i. 363

Cape Onman, i. 456

Cape Prince of Wales, ii. 226

Cape Ruski Savorot, i. 223

Cape Schaitanskoj, i. 381

Cape Schelagskoj, i. 426, 447; ii. 201, 202

Cape St. John, i. 221, 222

Cape Thaddeus, i. 20; ii. 190

Cape Voronov, i. 219_n_

Cape Yakan, i. 27, 447

Capello, Brito, ii. 453

_Carabus truncaticollis_, ii. 55

Carlsen, Elling, ii. 294, 300

Carska Bay, i. 172

Carthaginians' traffic with African races, ii. 73

Caspian Sea, former views regarding, ii. 151

Castrén's Island, i. 133

Ceylon, stay at, ii. 414;
  natives, ii. 424

Chabarova, i. 75;
  church of, i. 76

Chacke, Martin, ii. 214

Chamisso, A. von, ii. 235_n_

Chancelor, Richard, i. 13, 60;
  his voyage, i. 67;
  his death, i. 226_n_

Chatanga Bay, i. 20; ii. 189, 190

Chatanga river, the, i. 354; ii. 188, 192

Cheltinga, midshipman, ii. 198

Chenizyn, ii. 206, 209

China, stay in, ii. 396;
  communication with Europe, i. 373;
  its future, ii. 403

Chinese in Japan, ii. 363
  at Hong Kong, their treatment, ii. 402;
  in Borneo, ii. 412

_Chionoecetes opilio_, ii. 63, 242

Cholodilov, ii. 270_n_

Chukches, the, compared with other Polar races, i. 92, 146;
  first meeting with, i. 430;
  at Cape Yakan, i. 433;
  barter with the, i. 439;
  at Irkaipij, i. 449;
  visit the _Vega_, i. 486, 513;
  at Cape Deschnev, ii. 220;
  at Konyam Bay, ii. 221, 245, 246;
  on the American side of Behring's Straits, ii. 81, 232;
  divided into reindeer and coast Chukches, ii. 81;
  number of, ii. 81;
  removals, ii. 93;
  carry on traffic between America and Siberia, ii. 14, 118;
  language, i. 489; ii. 82;
  diseases, ii. 87;
  position of the women, ii. 138;
  their history, _physique_, disposition, and manners, ii. 70

Chukotskojnos, i. 22; ii. 79, 164, 212

Chvoinoff, landmeasurer, i. 418; ii. 204

Chydenius, Carl, i. 142

Clarke, Charles, ii. 211

Clausen, Consul, ii. 443, 444, 446

Clothing, i. 37;
  of the _Vega_ men, i. 476

Cloudberries, a powerful antiscorbutic, i. 42, 44

Cochrane, John Dundas, ii. 178

Coffee plantations, ii. 432

Coleoptera in Novaya Zemlya, i. 148;
  in North Siberia, i. 321;
  at Port Clarence, ii. 242

Collie, Dr., ii. 228_n_

Colmogro, i, 225; ii. 156

Colombo (Ceylon), ii. 427

Colour-blindness, ii. 135

Colours, Chukch, ii. 135

Commander's Islands, ii. 257

Cook, James, i. 13, 25, 28, 442, 445_n_; ii. 210

Cooke, Mr, ii. 408

Copenhagen, the _Vega_ calls at, i. 4;
  reception at, ii. 455

Copper Island, ii. 257, 261, 270, 275

Corea, whales with European harpoons caught at, i. 264;
  Japanese campaign to, ii. 380

Coregonus caught by the Chukches, i. 494; ii. 18, 19

Corpse found in Chukch Land, i. 505; ii. 89

Corundum, ii. 400, 423

Cosmic dust, i. 329

Coughtrie, J.B., ii. 401

Coxe, J.H., ii. 211

Croyère, L'Isle de la, ii. 196, 198, 200

Crustacea, phosphorescent, ii. 55, 56

Cruys Eiland, i. 234

Crystals found on the ice, i. 327

Currents in the Siberian Polar Sea, i. 18

_Cyqnus Bewickii_, i. 127

_Cystophora cristata_, i. 165


D

Daat Island, i. 409

Dahl, Captain, i. 314

Daibutsu statues, ii. 379

Dale, Fr. de la, i. 237, 243

Dall, W.H. i. 459; ii. 213, 228_n_

_Dallia delicatissima_, ii. 59, 242

Dallmann, Captain, i. 313, 360, 459

Daubrée, A., ii. 454

David, Russian ambassador, i. 54

_Dawn_ (vessel), the, i. 317

Day-reckoning on board the _Vega_, i. 453_n_

Delisle, i. 171

De Long, Captain, i. 489

Dementiev, ii. 198

Deschnev Simeon, i. 20, 21, 25; ii. 181, 194;
  voyages of, ii. 164

Devil's Temple at Ratnapoora, ii. 427

Diamonds, ii. 416,422

_Diastylis Rathkei_, i. 198, 199

Diatoms, fresh-water, on sea ice, i. 189

Dickson Island, i. 191

Dietary of the expedition, i. 478

Diomede Island, ii. 218

Disco Island, i. 147_n_

Dittmar, C. von, ii. 79, 118

Dixon, Alexander C., ii. 414

Dog-fish, ii. 59

Dogs, Samoyed, i. 83;
  tow boats on the Yenisej, i. 385;
  Chukch, i. 501; ii. 94;
  sacrificed, ii. 255

Dolgans, i. 373

Dolgoi Island, i. 223, 236; ii. 184

Donis, Nic, i. 51; ii. 152

Doria, Marquis, ii. 439

Dörma, hunter, i. 300

_Draba alpina_, i. 340, 341; ii. 224

Dredgings, zoological, i. 174, 198, 324, 345, 350, 420, 426, 432,
  451, 455;
  ii. 47, 68, 242, 362, 438

Driftwood, at Port Dickson, i. 198;
  at Beli Ostrov. i. 201

Drums, Shaman, ii. 24, 129

Dsungaria, i. 374

Dudino, i. 359; ii 192;
  thanksgiving service at, i. 369

Du Halde J.B., ii. 180_n_

Durfoorth, Cornelius, i. 60

Dutch, first voyage of the, i. 231;
  second voyage, i. 243;
  third voyage, i. 245

Dwina, the river, i. 54, 56, 67; ii. 157

Dyaks, ii. 323

Dybovski, Benedikt, ii. 294


E

Earth, changes of the surface of the,
  in the arctic regions, i. 438

East Cape, ii. 63,181

Edge, Thomas, i. 62_n_

Edward VI. of England, i. 58

_Edward Bonaventure(_vessel) i. 60, 66, 218;
  its fate i. 225_n_

Egypt, stay in, ii. 432

Ehlertz, Russian official, i. 360

Eider, i. 123, 191, 208;
  import of down, i. 125_n_

Eisen, G., i. 148

Elfving N.A., i. 460

Elliott, H.W., i. 162; ii. 258, 281_n_, 282

_Elpidia glacialis_, i. 184, 186

_Emberiza lapponica_, i. 129_n_; ii. 62

_Emberiza nivalis_, i. 129_n_, 191, 320, 334; ii. 41

Emeralds, ii. 422

England, stay in, ii. 448;
  development of its navigation, i. 58,
  north-east voyages from, i. 60, 215

_Enhydris lutris_, ii. 266, 271

Enontekis, the climate of, i. 45

Enoshima, excursion to, ii. 315

Ensamheten (island), i. 175, 335

Envall, A., i. 11

Erik the Red, ii. 146

Eschscholz Bay, ii. 212, 228

Eskimo in North America, i. 90, ii. 78_n_, 145

Eskimo at Port Clarence, banter with, ii. 228, 236;
  dress, ii. 232;
  implements ii. 229,233;
  boats, ii. 228;
  carvings, ii. 237, 240, 241;
  artistic skill, ii. 134;
  graves, ii. 239, 240;
  religion, ii. 239_n_

Eskimo in Asia, ii. 221

Eskimo on St. Lawrence Island, ii. 250

_Eumetopias Stelleri_, i. 446_n_; ii. 272, 274, 290

Europæus, E.D., i. 203

_Eurynorhynchus pygmæus_, ii. 43

Everlöf, Consul-general, ii. 455

Evertebrates living by turns in fresh and salt water, i. 198

Exhibitions, Japanese, ii. 311, 390

Exiles, Siberian, i. 387

_Express_ (ship), i. 9, 74, 174, 189, 200;
  voyage of, i. 357


F

Faddeyev Island, ii. 204, 206

Falcons on Yalmal i. 208

Falmouth, arrival at, ii. 448

Feodor, the Cossack, i. 195, 358

Ferry, Jules, i. 453

Figurin, the surgeon, ii. 209

Finmark, the settlement of, i. 51

Fins carry on navigation in the Murman Sea, i. 219, 239

Finsch, Richard, i. 76_n_, 172

Finsch, O., i. 205

Fire-drill, Chukch, ii. 121

Fixed dwellings, i. 193_n_

Flawes, Captain, i. 260

Fletcher, Giles, i. 101

Föhn wind, the, i. 276; ii. 35

Fomin, the Yakut, i. 17

Food-plants, Chukch, ii. 110

Ford, Charles, ii. 401

Foreland Sound, the, i. 137

Fossil plants at Mogi, ii. 392;
  at Labaan, ii. 407;
  in Egypt, ii. 440

Foal Bay, i. 106, 180

Fox, the Arctic (or mountain), i. 146; ii. 44, 269, 270;
 common _ib._

Föyn, Svend, i. 170

Fra Mauro's map, ii. 155

Franklin, Martin, ii. 443

Franz Josef Land, i. 182_n_, 266, 302, 422

_Fraser_ (steamer), i. 9, 74, 174, 187, 189, 318;
  voyage, i. 357

Fretum Nassovicum (Yugor Schar), i. 14, 172, 242

Frost-bite, i. 474; ii. 87

Frost-formation, the Siberian, ii. 60

Frozen ground in Finland, ii. 60_n_

Fruholm, the climate of, i. 45_n_

_Fuligula glacialis_, i. 126, 208;
  found during the expedition, i. 334; ii. 46

---- _Stelleri_, ii. 46

Fusiyama, ii. 299, 370

_Fusus deformis_, ii. 243


G

_Gadus navaga_, i. 481

Gagarin, Prince, ii. 175

Gama, Vasco da, ii. 153

Gardiner, Charles, i. 301

Geertz, Dr., ii. 326, 364

Gefferson, William, i. 60

Gessner, Conrad, ii. 235_n_

Gillissy (Yenisej), i. 243, 244

Giusso, Count, ii. 443

Glacier-iceblocks in the Polar seas, ii. 422;
  burst asunder, i. 424

Glaciers, various kinds of, i. 181;
  formerly in North-Eastern Asia, ii. 227, 246

Gmelin, ii. 199

Gold lustre, stones with, on Novaya Zemlya, i. 273, 277

Gold diggings, Siberian, i. 393

Golovin, second mate, ii. 184

Golovin, Captain, ii. 329

Goltschicha, i. 193, 194, 313

Gooseland, i. 72, 126

Goreloj, Andrej, ii. 168

_Gorm_ (larva of _Oestrus tarandi_), i. 137;
  ii. 129, 143

Gosho, palace in Kioto, ii. 374

Gothenburg, i. 34

Goulden, Captain, i. 264

Gourdon, William, i. 256

_Graculus bicristatus_, i. 453

Grandidier, ii. 452

Granite, weathered, ii. 419

Grant, U.S., General, ii. 333

Graphite, ii. 235

Graves, Siberian, i. 393;
  Chukch, i. 437; ii. 89, 225;
  Eskimo, ii. 238

Grebnitski, ii. 291_n_, 294

Greeks, geographical ideas of the, ii. 148

Green Harbour, i. 136

Greenland said to be continuous with Norway, i. 51;
 Inland-ice, i. 176

Greenland seal, i. 164, 165

Greenlander's dress, i. 41;
 compared with other Polar races, i. 90; ii. 144;
 are descended from Norse colonists, ii. 145

Grévy, President, ii. 452, 454

"Grip-claws" found in Siberia, ii. 408

Gubin, mate, i. 274

Gundersen, captain of the _Express_, i. 9

Gundersen, M., i. 301

Gusinnaya Semlya, _see_ Gooseland

Gustaf Vasa's plan of a north-east passage, i. 57

Guturov, Peter, ii. 174

Gvosdarev, mate, i. 279

Gvosdev, Michael, ii. 74, 210_n_

Gyda Bay surveyed, ii. 186

Gygax, Dr, ii. 419


H

Haga dust, the, i. 330

Haimann, Guiseppe, ii. 440

Hakluyt, Richard, i. 60_n_

Hall, Captain, ii. 211

Halos, i. 246, 518

Hamy, Dr., ii. 452

Hardy, R. Spence, ii. 404

Hares, i. 507; ii. 44;
  snow-blind, i. 508.

Hartman, Hendrik, i. 243

Haven, P. von, ii. 186_n_

Health, state of, during the wintering, i. 478

Hecht, ii. 452

Hedenström, i. 23, 143, 408;
  travels, ii. 205;
  life, ii. 203_n_

Heemskerk, i. 254

Hellant, A., ii. 6_n_

Hennessy, Pope, ii. 401, 403

Hens, Jacob, ii. 74

Herald Island, ii. 212

Herbertsten, Sigismund von, i. 54; ii. 156

Herdebol, ore-tester, ii. 74

Herodotus on the geography of Asia, ii. 149, 154;
on Androphagi, i. 77_n_; ii. 157_n_

Heuglin, Baron von, i. 302_n_

Hideyoshi, Taiko, ii. 380

Hinloopen Strait, i. 110, 112, 137

Hirosami, ii. 387

_Histriophoca fasciata_, ii. 219, 224, 254

Holland, development of its navigation, i. 231

Holmgren, A.E., i. 148

Holmgren, Fr., ii. 135

Holstein-Holsteinborg, Count, ii. 455

Homer, ii. 148

Hong Kong, ii. 398;
 rocks at, ii. 420

Hooper, ii. 79, 128, 220_n_, 222, 235_n_, 245, 249

Hoorn, Jan Cornelisz van, i. 257

Hope Island, i. 165

Horn Sound, i. 109, 110, 124, 137, 291

Hovgaard, A., i. 4, 39, 93, 187, 200, 202, 208, 457, 497;
 ii. 45, 112, 115, 327, 447;
 Excursion to Menka's home, i. 500;
 portrait, ii. 449

Hudson, Henry, i. 255

Hugo, Victor, ii. 454

Humbert, King, ii. 446

Hyacinth (precious stone), ii. 423


I

Ice, different kinds of, in the Polar Seas, i. 422;
 action on the sea-bottom, i. 188;
 thickness during the wintering, i. 465

Icebergs, i. 182;
 size of, i. 422

Ice Fjord, i. 112, 137, 344

Icing up, i. 451

Ides, Evert Yssbrants, i. 404

Idlidlja (island), ii. 27

_Idothea entomon_, i. 198, 415, 416, 420

---- _Sabinei_, i. 198, 415, 417

Ignatiev, ii. 163

Ikaho, ii. 334

Ilgin, mate, ii. 209

Illusions caused by mist, i. 347; ii. 32

Indians, driven, i. 52

Indigirka, ii. 195

Ingön, i. 42

Inland-ice, i. 176, 182; ii. 246

Inland Sea, of Japan, ii. 384, 421

Inn, Japanese, ii. 313, 316

Insects, i. 147, 202, 343; ii. 54, 242;
 frozen stiff, i. 148; ii. 54;
 in a bird's nest, i. 118

Insula Tazata, ii. 155

Irbit, i. 179

Irgunnuk, i. 485; ii. 21

Irkaipij, i. 441; ii. 210

Irtisch, i. 373, 374; ii. 159

Islands in the Siberian Sea, accounts of, i. 22; ii. 169, 170, 171_n_
Isleif, i. 144

Istoma, Gregory, i. 54; ii. 157

Italy, ii. 442

Ito-Keske, ii. 324

Ivanov, mate, i. 279

Ivanov, Rodivan, i. 269

Ivens, ii. 448

Ivory coat of mail, ii. 104


J

Jackman's voyages, i. 227, 229_n_

Jakovlev, Peter, ii. 275

Jauszoon, Harman, i. 243

Japan, ii. 395

Japanese, ii. 173, 174, 181

Japanese voyage round the world, i. 161_n_

_Jeanette_, the expedition of the, i. 448

Jinrikisha, ii. 317

Johannes de Plano Carpini, i. 102_n_

Johannesen, Chr., i. 9, 300, 353, 358, 365, 366

Johannesen, Edward, i. 185, 295

Johannesen, Sören, i. 300

Jovius, Paulus, i. 57_n_

Jugaria, i. 172

Juschkov, i. 273


K

Kalias river, the, ii. 409

Kamakura, ii. 315

Kamchatka discovered, ii. 172;
 subjugated, ii. 167;
 first voyage to, ii. 176;
 its extent towards the south in old maps, ii. 181

Kamchatka river, the, ii. 172

Kamenni Ostrova, i. 318

Kämpfer, E., ii. 325

Kanin-nos, i. 222

Karaginsk Island, ii. 256

Kara port, the, i. 14;
 Pet sails through it, i. 229

Kara river, wintering at the, ii. 184

Kara Sea, the, voyage across, i. 187;
 its name, i. 172;
 its boundaries, i. 175,
 depth, i. 15, 184, 187;
 temperature of the water, i. 185;
 salinity, i. 185, 189;
 fauna, i. 184;
 algæ, 185;
 icebergs uncommon in, i. 182,
 "ice-house," i. 182;
 navigated for the first time by West-Europeans, i. 227;
 voyages to, i. 286

Kargauts, i. 448

Karlskrona, i. 34

Karmakul Bay, i. 125, 255

Kascholong, ii. 238_n_

Kawamura, Admiral, ii. 301, 309, 369;
  portrait of, ii. 302

Kay, E.C. Lister, i. 360

Kegor, i. 243

Kellett, i. 448; ii. 212

Kellett Land, ii. 212

Keswick, ii. 401

Keulen's Atlas, ii. 72

Kilduin, i. 237

Killingworth, George, i. 66

Kindäkov, ii. 195

King's Bay, i. 137

Kini Balu mountain, ii. 413

Kioto, ii. 366, 372,375

Kirilov, secretary, ii. 183

Kita-Shira-Kava, ii. 305, 308

Kittiwake, see _Larus tridactylus_

Kittlitz, ii. 245

Kjellman, F.R., i. 3, 33, 38, 185, 189, 196, 201_n_, 202_n_, 319, 320,
 327, 333, 340, 354, 437, 451, 468, 504, 523;
 ii. 15, 225, 240, 245, 254, 291, 292, 414, 434, 447;
 sketch of a day during the wintering, i. 513;
 portrait, ii. 435

Klapmyts, i. 165

Klingstedt, i. 271, 272

Klokov, i. 279

Knoop, Baron, i. 360

Koba-Yoschi, ii. 370, 383

Kobe, stay at, ii. 364

Koch, i. 148

Kola, i. 218, 253, 254

Kolesoff, I.P., i. 362, 364

Kolgujev Island, i. 62_n_, 229

Kolmogor, i. 226; ii. 156

Kolmogorzov, i. 22

Kolyma river, the, i. 427; ii. 162, 165, 166, 195, 201;
 discovered, ii. 163

Kolyutschin Bay, ii. 227, 246;
 _Vega_ comes to, i, 456;
 its extent, ii. 31, 32, 76

Kolyutschin Island, i. 456, 485

Kompakova river, the, ii. 176

Konungs skuggjá on the walrus, i. 159

Konyam Bay, ii. 221, 227;
 _Vega_ comes to, ii. 245

Kopai, a Schelag, ii. 171

Korepovskoj, i. 315, 358

Korovin, hunter, ii. 274, 276_n_

Koryäks, ii. 82, 167, 172

Koscheleff, ii. 125_n_

Koschelev, ii. 186

Koschevin, ii. 205

Kosirevskoj, Ivan, ii. 174

Kosmin, mate, ii. 209

Kostin Schar, i. 236

Kotelnoj Island, i. 24; ii. 204, 206, 207

Kotsches, i. 22_n_; ii. 160_n_
Kotschuga, i. 374

Kotzebue, i. 28; ii. 212, 228_n_;
  stay at St. Lawrence Island, ii. 254

Krascheninnikov, ii. 80, 167_n_, 173_n_

Krassilinikoff, ii. 274

Krestovski Island, ii. 162

Krestovskoj, i. 193, 194

Krestovskoj arm, the, ii. 190

Kroma river, the, ii. 168

Krotov, Lieut., i. 279

Krusenstern, M. von, i. 161_n_; ii. 125_n_

Krusenstern, Paul von, the elder, i. 284

Krusenstern, Paul von, the younger, i. 287;
  his portrait, i. 285

Küber, Dr., ii. 209

Kühn, Franz, ii. 445

Kung Karl's Land, i. 137, 301_n_

Kurbski, S.T., ii. 157

Kuro-Sivo, ii. 295

Kusakov, ii. 170

Kusatsu, stay at, ii. 343;
  the healing power of the baths, ii. 345

Kutschum Khan, ii. 159

Kythay lacus, ii. 157


L

Labuan, ii. 405

Lagomys, ii. 222

Lagercrantz, ii. 456, 460

Lagoon formations, i. 433

_Lagopus hyperboreus_, i. 129, 191, 214, 334, 508

_Lagopus subalpinus_, ii. 46

La Madelene, ii. 216

La Martinière, i. 257;
  his map, i. 259

_Laminaria solidungula_, i. 452

Lamps, Chukch, ii. 23

Landmarks, i. 228

Land worms, i. 148

Languet, Hubert, i. 57

Lapland, the Dutch navigation to, i. 227_n_

Lapps, the, dress, i. 40;
 spoken of by Othere, i. 48_n_, 51;
 compared with other Polar races, i. 90;
 skilful hunters, i. 224_n_

Lapp sparrow, see _Emberiza lapponica_

Laptev, Chariton, i. 20, 21, 367_n_;
  voyages, ii. 190

Laptev, Dimitri, i. 24;
  first voyage, ii. 193;
  second voyage, ii. 195

La Roncière le Noury, ii. 452

_Larus eburneus_, i. 117, 118; ii. 137;
 met with during expedition, i. 343; ii. 42

---- _glaucus_, i. 114;
   met with during expedition, i. 191, 321, 352; ii. 47

---- _Rossii_, i. 119, 120; ii. 48

---- _Sabinii_, i. 119, 120, 508

---- _tridactylus_, i. 117;
 seen during expedition, i. 334, 352; ii. 42

Lasarev, i. 277

Lassinius, i. 24; ii. 187_n_;
  voyage, ii. 193

Laxman, ii. 329

Lectures during the wintering, ii. 7

Lemming, the, i. 146;
  met with during the expedition, i. 191, 343, 437; ii. 44

Lena (river), the, ascent of, i. 367;
  river area, i. 372_n_;
  navigable, i. 374;
  its natural beauty, ii. 188_n_;
  discovered, ii 160;
  Russian voyages from, ii. 187, 198

_Lena_ (steamer), i. 7, 8, 9, 41, 75, 171, 187, 200;
  parting from _Vega_, i. 355;
  voyage up the river Lena, i. 367

Lena delta, the, i 367_n_

Leontiev, ii. 203

Leprosy in Japan ii. 345

Lesseps, ii. 441

_Lestris Buffonii_, i. 121, 334

---- _parasitica_, i. 121, 321, 334

---- _pomarina_, i. 121

Letters sent home, i. 496, 501; ii. 9

Lechtenberg, ii. 445

Lighthouse Island, i. 428

Lilljeborg, W, ii. 56

Limit of trees in the north of Europe and Asia, i. 42;
  at the Yenisej, i. 381,
  at the Lena, i. 43

Lindstrand, ii. 443

_Linnæa borealis_, ii. 240, 254

Linnæus, ii. 43

Linschoten, i. 236, 237

Lisbon, stay in, ii. 447

L'Isle de la Croyère, ii. 196, 198, 200

Little Auk, see _Mergulus alle_

Ljachoff, i. 418, 419; ii. 204

Ljachoff's Island, ii. 162, 201, 204;
  _Vega_ comes to, i. 415

Logan, J, i. 400

Lomme Bay, i. 112

London, stay at, ii. 451

Long, Captain, i. 26, ii. 212

Looms met with at Port Dickson, i. 191, 353

Loschkin, S., i. 273, 280

Loshak, i. 224

Lotterius, map by, ii. 77

_Louise_ (steamer), i. 314, 360

Ludlow, miner, i. 217

Luiz, King of Portugal, ii. 448

Lundström, A.N., i. 3, 193, 205, 206

Lussov, ii. 203

Lütké, von, i. 14, 279; ii. 78, 212, 245;
  portrait, i. 278


M

MacClintock, i. 119

Machimura Masinovo, ii. 382

Mack, F.E., 298

Madvig, J.N., ii. 456

Maelson, F., i. 232

Magnetical observations during the wintering, i. 509

Magnus, Johannes, i. 51_n_

Magnus, Olaus, i. 145, 159;
  map of the North, i. 53, 56;
  views regarding the North-east Passage, i. 53_n_

Mäklin, F.W., i. 148

Malacca, Straits of, ii. 414

Malays on Labuan and Borneo, ii. 408, 412

Maldonado, L.F., i. 214

Malgin, N., ii. 169

Malm, A.W., i. 523

Malmgren, A.J., i. 119, 153

Maloj Island, ii. 204, 205

Malvano, Secretary of the Italian Cabinet, ii. 446

Malygin, i. 203, 272; ii. 184

Mammoth, i. 23, 30, 398, 445_n_;
  in Europe, i. 399;
  in Chukch Land, ii. 66;
  at Eschscholz Bay, i. 228_n_;
  old accounts of, i. 404;
  legends regarding its mode of life, i. 405

Maosoe, stay at, i. 41, 71;
  climate, i. 45

Maps of the North, i. 51

Marco Polo, _see_ Polo

Markets in Siberia and Polar America, ii. 13, 118

Markham, Clements R., ii. 451

Markov, A., ii. 170

Marseilles, invitation to, ii. 447

Martino, Consul-general, ii 440

Massa, Isaak, ii. 249_n_;
  his map, i. 225_n_, 239_n_; ii. 158_n_

Massage in Japan, ii. 335

Matiuschin, midshipman, ii. 118_n_

Matotschkin Schar, i. 14, 70, 282;
  mountains in its neighbourhood, i. 173;
  stone ramparts on its shores, i. 188;
  surveyed, i. 282

Matveyev Island, i. 272

Maunoir, ii. 452

Maurice Island, i. 241

Maydell, G. von, i. 410; ii. 79

Medals in memory of the voyage of the _Vega_, ii. 306, 459_n_

Melchior, state councillor, ii. 456

Melguer, David, ii. 216

Melkaja Guba, i. 283

Menka, i. 495, 501; ii. 125;
  portrait, i. 495

_Mergulus alle_, i. 119

Mertens, ii. 245

Mesen, i. 51, 79; ii. 157

Mesenkin, i. 381;
  mammoth remains found at, i. 410

Messerschmidt, i. 405

Mestni Island, i. 174, 228, 241, 297

Meteorological observations, i. 481; ii. 33

_Metridia armata_, ii. 56

Metschigme Bay, ii. 29, 227

Meyenvaldt, mate, i. 213, 317

_Mieralymma Dicksoni_, i. 343

Middendorff, i. 17, 406_n_; ii. 246_n_

Migrating birds, ii. 41

Mikado, audience of, ii 305

Miller, i. 460

Mimisuka, the grave of the noses and ears, ii. 380

Minin, i. 16; ii. 186, 187

Minusinsk, i. 373

Mirabelli, A., ii. 444

Mogi, excursion to, ii. 390;
  fossil plants at, ii. 392

Mohn, i. 300

Moisture in the air, i. 484

Mokattam mountains, excursion to, ii. 440

Molin, A., ii. 175

Mollusca, land and fresh-water, at Port Clarence, ii. 242;
  at Konyam Bay, ii. 245;
  in Japan, ii. 362, 371;
  the northernmost, ii. 245

Mollusca, subfossil, in Siberia, i. 378

Moma, the river, ii. 168

Moore, Captain, ii. 79, 213, 245

Morgiovets, i. 223

_Mormon Arcticus_, i. 113

Morosko, L., ii. 172, 173

_Maskwa_ (steamer), i. 360

Mosquitoes in the Polar regions, i. 147_n_

Motora, Simeon, ii. 165

Moxon, Joseph, i. 263

Mucheron, B., i. 232

Müller, G.P., i. 16_n_, 21, 25; ii. 164_n_, 166, 167, 171, 172_n_,
183_n_, 199, 268_n_

Müller, J.B., i. 405

Münster, S., ii. 156_n_

Muravjev, Lieut., i. 272; ii. 183

Murman Sea, i. 14

Murray, Colin, ii. 415

Muscovy Company, i. 172, 217

Musk ox, discovery of the remains of, i. 411; ii. 228_n_;
  supposed occurrence of, on Wrangel Land, i. 449_n_

_Mustela vulgaris_, ii. 46

Mutnaja river, i. 268

Mutnoj Saliv, ii. 183

_Myodes obensis_, i. 146; ii. 44

_Myodes torquatus_, ii. 44


N

Nagasaki, arrival at, ii. 389

Nakasendo road, the, ii. 327, 352

Namollo, ii. 80, 221

Naples, stay at, ii. 443

Narainzay river, i. 225

Narborough, John, i. 260

Narwhal, i. 165, 418

Narontza river, i. 225_n_

Nathorst, A.G., ii. 332, 394, 408

Nay, C., i. 232

Nearchus, i. 169

Nedrevaag, A.O., i. 298

Negri, C., i. 34; ii. 443

Nephrite among the Eskimo, ii. 236;
  among the Chinese, ii. 236_n_, 399

Neremskoe, i. 172

Neumann, C. von, ii. 79, 118

New Siberian Islands, i. 23, 131_n_, 132, 413; ii. 171_n_;
  exploratory journeys to, i. 412;
  first visited by Europeans, ii. 204;
  journeys to, ii. 205

Nierop, i. 203

Nikul river, ii. 167

Nilson, K., ii. 453

Njaskaja, i. 370

Noah Elisej, ii. 50; portrait, ii. 51

Noah's Wood, i. 30, 207, 381; ii. 207_n_

Nobel, A., ii. 452

Nordenskiöld, K., i. 320; ii. 406_n_

_Nordenskiöld_ (steamer), ii. 298, 301

Nordquist, O.,
  i. 4, 37, 39, 187, 200, 202, 319, 321, 327, 444, 446_n_, 489;
  ii. 12, 44, 82, 115, 315, 362, 369, 371, 435, 447;
  excursion to Menka's home, i. 497;
  visit to Pidlin, i. 502;
  excursion to Nutschoitjin, ii. 18;
  on the animals wintering in Chukch Laud, ii. 44;
  portrait, ii. 435

Nordvik, ii. 190

Noril Mountains, i. 360

North-east Land, inland ice on, i. 176

North-east Passage, reasons of search for, i. 58, 231;
  prize for its discovery, i. 246

North Pole, said to have been reached, i. 263

Norways, the i. 109

Northbrook, Earl of, ii. 451

Notti, ii. 7, 19, 22, 129; portrait, ii. 8

Novara Elliya, ii. 432

Novaya Sibir, ii. 204, 205, 206

Novaya Zemlya, animal life there, i. 107;
  first known to West-Europeans, i. 215;
  its name, i. 216;
  Russian landmarks on, i. 228_n_;
  its northern extremity passed for the first time, i. 248;
  proposal to colonise it, i. 271_n_;
  supposed riches in metals, i. 277;
  Russian voyages to, i. 280;
  Norwegian voyages to, i. 293;
  curcumnavigation of, i. 297

Nummelin, G.A., i. 211, 314; portrait, i. 316

Nunamo, ii. 222

Nutschoitjin, excursion to, ii. 18


O

Ob, Gulf of, Owzyn's voyage on, ii. 185, 186;
  surveyed, ii. 186

Ob, river territory, i. 372_n_;
  navigable, i. 374;
  first mentioned, ii. 157;
  Russian navigation to in former times, i. 226, 244, 271;
  English vessel stranded at, i. 229_n_, 256;
  vessel stranded east of, i. 271;
  Russian expedition to, ii. 183;
  recent voyages to, i. 313

Obdorsk, i. 204, 290; ii. 185, 186

Observatory, magnetical, at Pitlekaj, i. 473, 509

Oiwaki, ii. 352

Okotsk, ii. 174

Okotsk, Sea of,
  bottom frozen, ii. 61_n_;
  navigation on, ii. 175, 176

Okuschi, ii. 364

Old Believers, Russian sect i. 179, 270_n_

Olenek river, i. 20, 26, ii. 160, 188, 190

Olutorsk river, ii. 165

Onkilon tribe, the ii. 80, 221;
  excavations on the sites of old dwellings i. 444,
  implements, i. 444;
  Wrangel's account of them, i. 446

Oom, L.G., i. 243

Oordt, Consul van, ii. 298

_Ophiacantha bidentata_, i. 345

_Ophioglypha nodosa_, ii. 49

Orange Island, i. 241

Orange Islands, i. 234, 248

_Orca gladiator_, i. 170

Orosius, Paulus, i. 47_n_

Osaka, ii. 364, 366

Oscar, Duke of Gotland, ii. 453, 454

Oscar, King, i. 2, 3; ii. 459, 460, 463

Osche, ii. 278

Oshima, ii. 297

_Osmerus eperlanus_, i. 494

Ostatiof, M., ii. 72

Ostyaks, i. 384

_Otaria Stelleri_, _see_ Sea lion

_Otaria ursina_, _see_ Sea-bear

Othere, i. 158;
  voyage, i. 47

Otter, F.W. von, i. 3; ii. 460

Owl, snowy, i. 131;
  observed during expedition, i. 343, 352

Owzyn, Lieut, i. 16; ii. 185, 186


P

Pachtussov, voyages of, i. 279;
  death of, i. 282

Paget, Sir A.B., ii. 446

Paj-Roj mountain, the, i. 74

Palander, L, i. 4, 9, 10_n_, 11, 36, 38, 137, 141, 172, 176, 190, 191,
  319, 348, 429, 456, 474, 478, 509;
  ii. 67, 131, 226, 256, 298, 401, 410, 412, 443, 445, 447, 451_n_, 463;
  excursion to a reindeer-chukch camp, ii. 15;
  portrait, ii. 68

Pallas, ii. 211, 275

Pallavicini, Prince, ii. 445

Palliser, John, i. 286

Palmieri, Prof., ii. 445

Panelapoetski, i. 262

Pansch, Dr., i. 140_n_

Pappan Island, ii. 409

Paradeniya, botanic garden at, ii. 428

Parent, E., ii. 446

Paris, _fêtes_ at, ii. 453

Parositi, Asiatic tribe, i. 103_n_

Parry Island, i. 113, 133

Parry, Sir Edward, ii. 144, 210

Paulov, Lieut, i. 272; i. 183

Paulutski, D., ii. 75, 221

Payer, i., 266, 422

Pedrotalagalla, ii. 414, 432

Pekarski, ii. 275

Pelikan, Consul, ii. 298

Penschina Bay, ii. 75

Penschina River, ii. 166

Permakov, J., ii. 169

Perry, Commodore, ii. 297

Pet, A., i. 60, 172;
  his voyages, i. 227

Petchora river, i. 55, 219, 224; ii. 157

Peter the Great, ii. 175, 179

Petermann, A., his belief that the Polar Sea is occasionally
navigable, i. 265

Petersen, C., i. 143, 423

Petropaulovsk, ii. 196, 268, 294

Pet's Straits, i. 172

Phalarope, i 128, 191, 320;
  observed during the expedition, i. 415, 437; ii. 42

_Philip and Mary_ (vessel), i. 226_n_

Phipps Island, i. 133

_Phoca barbata_, i. 159_n_, 162, 334

_Phoca Groenlandica_, i. 165;
  young of the, 164

_Phoca hispida_, i. 165, 343

Pidlin, i. 485;
  excursion to, i. 502

Pinto, Major, ii. 448

Piper, Count, ii. 451

Pitlekaj, i. 485;
  flora at, i. 468;
  appearance of, ii. 60

Pjäsina River, i. 193; ii. 187;
  is discovered, ii. 160

Plancius, Dutch geographer, i. 232

_Pleuropogon Sabini_, i. 332

Pliny the elder, ii. 153, 157_n_

Plover expedition, ii. 79, 245

Podurids, Novaya Zemlya, i. 148

Poetry, Japanese, ii. 382

Pogytscha, River, ii. 162

Point de Galle, arrival at, ii. 414;
  departure from, ii. 437

Polar bear seen during the expedition, i. 190, 339, 353; ii. 46;
  account of, i. 137

Polar Sea hunting, i. 291

Pole of cold, i. 474

Police in Japan, ii. 331

Polo, Marco, i. 58, 144; ii. 154, 157_n_;
  his life, ii. 153

Polynias, i. 466

Pompeii, excursion to, ii. 444

Pontchartrin, Count de, ii. 216

Poole, J., i. 291

Popov, ii. 78

Porcelain manufacture in Japan, ii. 381

Port Clarence, ii. 226

Port Dickson, i. 18;
  stay at, i. 189;
  its discovery, i. 311

Porthan, i. 47

Portugal, stay in, ii. 447

Pospjelov, i. 277

Postels, ii. 245

Postnik, ii. 161

Potatoes, antiscorbutic, i. 11

Preobraschenie Island, i. 353

Pribylov, ii. 212

Pribylov Islands, ii. 258

Priluschnoj, i. 195

_Procellaria galcialis_, i. 108

_Promontorium Scythicum_, ii. 153

_Promontorium Tabin_, ii. 153

Prontschischev, i. 19; ii. 188, 189

Protodiakonoff, Z., i. 418

_Proeven_ (hunting sloop), i. 1, 292

Provision depôt on land, i. 473

Ptolemy, ii. 152

Purchas, i. 62_n_

Puschkarev, ii. 203

Pustosersk, i. 75

Putrefaction slow in the Polar regions, i. 167

Pyramids, the, visit to, ii. 440


Q

Quaen Sea, i. 215

Quaens, skilful harpooners, i. 224

Quale, P, i. 298

Quatrefages, ii. 453


R

Rabaut, A., ii. 447

Railway, Siberian, i. 375

Rambodde, ii. 432

Ratnapoora, ii. 416

_Recherché's_ wintering, ii. 36

Red ochre, ii. 235

Red Sea, ii. 439

Reindeer, tame, i. 78; wild, i. 132

Reindeer's skin used for clothing, i. 37

Reindeer's stomach, contents of, consumed by the Chukches, i. 435

Reitinacka, ii. 57, 58

Renoe, i. 43

_Rhinoceros antiquitatis_, i. 406

_Rhinoceros Merckii_, i. 411

Rhytina, ii. 272

Riccio, ii. 444

Richter, Consul-general, ii. 451

Rijp, i. 246

Riksdag, the, supports the expedition, i. 5

Rio-San, ii. 382

Rirajtinop, i. 485

Robeck, ii. 211

Rodgers, i. 26

Rokuriga-hara, ii. 348

Romanzov, ii. 204

Rondes (sable), i. 145

Rookery, ii. 282

Rossmuislov, i. 274

Rotgansen, i. 247

Rotschilten, ii. 16, 31

Roule, C., i. 216

Rubies, ii. 419

Ruggieri, Prof., ii. 444

Ruinlike rock formations, i. 428

Runeberg, R., i. 8

Ruspoli, Prince, ii. 445

Russians, at Chabarova, i. 79


S

_Sabinea septemcarinata_, ii. 48

Sachanich Bay, i. 236_n_

Sacrificial heights, i. 92

Saigo Kichinosuke ii. 303

Sajsan, Lake, i. 374

_Salix artica_, ii. 65

Samoyeds, i. 77;
  their idols, i. 85, 94;
  their dress, i. 89;
  Compared with other Polar races, i. 91;
  burying place, i. 97;
  their weapons, i. 99;
  old accounts of them, i. 100;
  their place in ethnography, i. 103

Samurai, ii. 376

Sandman, Captain, ii. 294

Sandpiper, _see_ Phalarope

Sankin Grigorej, ii. 170

Sannikov, i. 24

Sanyo Sanitomi, ii. 303

Saostrovskoj, i. 311

Sapetto, Prof., ii. 439

Sapphires, ii. 419

Sarytschev, ii. 408

Satow, E M, ii. 321

Sauer, Martin, i. 418

Savavatari, ii. 337

Savina river, i. 280

Schalaurov, ii. 200

Schelags, ii. 170

Schelechov, G, ii. 270_n_

Scheltinga, ii. 198

Schestakov, A, ii. 74

Schigansk, i. 369

Schmidt, F, i. 409

Schmidt, H, i. 360

Schrenck, L von, i. 410

Schtinnikov, A, ii. 182

Schwanenberg, D, i. 9_n_, 314

Scoresby, i. 143_n_

Scurvy, i. 45; ii. 295

Sea-bear, the, ii. 272

Sea-cow, ii. 272

Sea-lion, i. 446; ii. 267

Sea-otter, ii. 271

Sea-spider, i. 349

Seals, i. 162

Sealskin used as clothing, i. 37

_Searchthrift_ (vessel), i. 217

Seebohm, Mr., i. 315

Selenetz Islands, i. 228

Selenga, i. 374

Selennoe Lake, i. 269

Self-dead animals, i. 322

Selifontov, i. 204

Selivaninskoj, i. 387

Selivestrov, ii. 166_n_

Semenoffski Island, i. 414

Semipalitinsk, i. 373

Senjavin Sound, ii. 244

Senkiti-San, ii. 336

Serapoa Koska, i. 217

Serdze Kamen, i. 467

Seribrenikoff, S.J., i. 39

Seven Islands, i. 117

_Severnoe Sianie_, i. 211

Shamans, ii. 128

Shaman drums, ii. 24

Shimonoseki. ii. 387

Shintoism, ii. 378

Sibbern, ii. 453

Siberian Polar Sea, i. 14, 28

Siberian cattle plague, i. 78

Sibir, ii. 159

Sibiriakoff, A., i. 2, 3, 8, 24

Sibiriakoff Island, ii. 312

Sidoroff, M., i. 211

Sidoroff's graphite quarry, ii. 235

Siebold, P.H.F. von, ii. 326

Siebold, H. von, ii. 326

_Sieversia glacialis_, i. 197

Simonsen, i. 300

Simovies, i. 193

Simpson, John, ii. 118

Singapore, ii. 413

Singhalese, ii. 424

Sirovatskoj, ii. 204

Skoptzi in Siberia, i. 387

Skuratov, i. 204

Slaves among the Chukches, ii. 123

Sledges, i. 82, 83

Smitt, F.A., ii. 59

Snobberger, C.P., i. 259

Snow-blindness, i. 477; ii. 10

Snow-bunting, the, ii. 129

Snow-drifting, i. 483

Snow-shoes, ii. 102

Snow-spectacles, i. 477; ii. 10

Snow, the melting of the, ii. 34

Snups, M., ii. 157_n_

Sokolov, ii. 176

Solovets, ii. 157

_Somateria molissima_, i. 123

_Somateria spectabilis_, i. 123

_Somateria V.-nigrum_, ii. 42

Spangberg, Martin, ii. 179

Spinel, ii 423

Spirits, i. 440; ii. 13, 116, 118

Spitzbergen hunting, history of, i. 29

Spitzbergen, its discovery ascribed to Willoughby, i. 62_n_;
  discovered by Barents, i. 247;
  Russian voyages to, i. 291;
  Norwegian voyages to, i. 293

Spottiswoode, Mr., ii. 451

Springs, hot, ii. 343

St. James's Islands, i. 223

St. Laurens Bay, i. 236

St. Lawrence Bay, ii. 212, 218

St. Lawrence Island, i. 154; ii. 250

_Stegocephalus Kessleri_, ii. 48

Stellar, G.N., ii. 80, 187_n_, 200, 266;
  his death, ii. 268

Steppes, Siberian, i. 384

_Sterna macroura_, i. 123

Stockholm, arrival at, ii. 459

Stolbovoj Island, i. 414

Stone Pacha, ii. 440

Stone polishing works in Canton, ii. 399

Strabo, ii. 148, 151

Strahlenberg i. 405

_Strix nyctea_, i. 131

Stroganov, Russian commercial house, i. 235

Stuxberg, A., i. 3, 38, 151, 193, 194, 198, 311, 324, 438, 451;
  ii. 225, 291, 315, 434;
  portrait, ii. 435

Suez, arrival at, ii. 440

Suez Canal, the, ii. 441

Sujeff, student, i. 185_n_

Swan, Bewick's, i. 127

Swedish expedition of 1875, the, i. 12;
  visits Yalmal, i. 205;
  reaches the Yenisej, i. 311

Swedish prisoners of war in Siberia, ii. 175

Swell from falling pieces of ice dangerous to vessels, i. 183_n_

Sword-bearing in Japan, ii. 377

_Sylvia Ewersmanni_, ii. 43

Sylvius, Æneas, i. 52_n_


T

Tabin, Promontorium, i. 13, 241

Taffelbeiget, ii. 29

Tagil river, the, ii. 159

Taimur Island, i. 331

Taimur lake, ii. 192

Taimur Land, inhabited by Samoyeds, i. 244_n_
  position of its east coast, i. 352;
  Minin's travels along the coast, ii. 187

Taimur river, the, i. 409

Takasaki, ii. 325

Takasima coal mine, ii. 394

Tamils, ii. 424

Tanning reindeer hides hides, ii. 122

Tas-ary, i. 362, 368

Tas river, the, ii. 156, 159_n_

Tatarinov, Feodor, ii. 203

Tatariov, Cossack, ii. 206

Tattooing, Chukch, i. 499; ii. 99;
  Eskimo, at Port Clarence, ii. 232;
  Eskimo, at St. Lawrence island ii. 251, 252

_Tazata, Insula_, ii. 155

Teano, Prince, ii. 445, 446

Temples in Japan, ii. 375, 377;
  on Ceylon, ii. 425

Tennent, E, ii. 415_n_, 419, 424_n_

Terfins, i. 48_n_

Tetgales, B.Y., i. 232

_Thalassiophyllum Clathrus_, ii. 293

Théel, Hj, i. 3, 311

Theatres in Japan, ii. 356

Thorne, Robert, i. 57_n_

Thunberg, C.P., ii. 43, 326_n_

Thwaites, Dr., ii. 428

Tietgen, state councillor, ii. 456

Tigil River, the, ii. 167_n_, 176

Tintinyaranga, i. 509

Tjapka, Chukch village, ii. 20

Tjumen, ii. 159, 268

Tobacco, its use among the Chukches, ii. 116;
  in Japan, ii. 321

Tobiesen, S.K., i. 108, 141, 144, 152, 300;
  his voyage to Spitzbergen, i. 302;
  wintering on Bear Island, i. 303;
  his death, i. 305;
  his portrait, i. 303

Tobol river, the, ii. 159

Tobolsk, i. 344; ii. 185, 186

Tokaido road, the, ii. 315

Tokio, visit to, ii. 304;
  the Shoguns' graves at, ii. 309

Topaz, ii. 400, 419

Toporkoff Island, ii. 291

_Torosses_, i. 425, 463; ii. 2

Toxar Island, i. 239

Treacher, Governor, ii. 408

Trees, distribution of, in Siberia, i. 383

_Tringa maritima_, i. 128

Trofimov's mammoth, i. 409

Tromsoe, _Vega's_ stay at, i. 38;
  its climate, i. 45_n_

Tumat Island, i. 362

_Tundra_, appearance of the, i. 378

Tunguses, i. 384, 408; ii. 191


U

Umbellula in the Kara Sea, i. 184

Ural-Altaic race, i. 103

_Uria Brünnichii_, i. 110

---- _grylle_, i. 113

Urusov, Prince, ii. 445

Ustjansk, ii. 205, 206

Usui toge, ii. 352


V

Vardoe, i. 66, 68;
  climate of, i. 45

Varsina river, the, i. 66

Varthema, Luduvico de, ii. 438

Vasa Murrhina, ii. 236_n_

Vaygats Island, i. 77, 93;
  discovered, i. 215;
  visited by Pet, i. 228

Veer, Gerrit de, i. 101;
  his book, i. 245
  _Vega_, the, purchased, i. 8;
  description of, i. 9;
  equipment of, i. 11;
  position when frozen in, i. 468;
  action of cold on, i. 466;
  prepared for wintering, i. 469;
  repaired, ii. 396;
  sold, ii. 463

Vessels, Norse, i. 50; Russian, on the Polar sea, i. 219

Vlamingh, i. 258

Volcanic dust in Scandinavia, i. 330

Volcanoes, ii. 249

_Vulpes lagopus_, _see_ Fox, Arctic

---- _vulgaris_, _see_ Fox, common


W

Waern, C.F., i. 5

Waldburg-Zeil, Count, i. 205

Walden Island, i. 112

Walrus, i. 152

Walton, Lieut., ii. 198

Wax tree, the Japanese, ii. 389

Waxel, Lieut, ii. 197

Weasel, ii. 46

Werchojansk, i. 411

Werkon, the river, ii. 202

Weyprecht, i. 266

Whales, on the coast of Norway, i. 49;
  scarce at Novaya Zemlya, i, 168;
  fear of, in ancient times, i. 169;
  with European harpoons, found in the Pacific, i. 264

Whale bones on Spitzbergen, i. 168;
  sub-fossil at Pitlekaj, i. 520;
  used is building materials, ii. 223;
  at St. Lawrence Island, ii. 253

Whale-fishing, described by Albertus Magnus, i. 159_n_;
  at Spitzbergen, i. 168

Whale _mummy_ at Pitlekaj, i. 523

White-fronted goose, i. 124

White Island, _see_ Beli Ostrov

White Sea, the, i. 215

White whale, the, i. 79, 167

Widmark, H.A., ii. 35

Wiemut, Julian, ii. 294

Wiggins, J., i. 311, 312;
  portrait, i. 313

Wilkoffski, ii. 238

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, i. 13, 58;
  portrait, i. 59

Willoughby's, Land, i. 62

Wilui river, the, i. 406

Wood, Captain, i. 260

Wosnessenski, conservator, ii. 276

Wrangel, Ferdinand von, i. 23, 265, 446,
  journeys, ii. 209;
  portrait, ii. 208

Wrangel Land, i. 23, 26, 448; ii. 171_n_, 202, 209;
  landing on, i. 448

Wrestlers, Japanese, ii. 339

Wulfstan's travels, i. 50


Y

Yakovieva, i. 316

Yakuts, i. 384; ii. 161

Yakutsk, i. 19, 22, 26, 370, 371;
  ii. 187, 190, 193

Yalmal, exclusion to, i. 201;
  visited in 1875, i. 205;
  population i. 204;
  origin of the name, i. 203;
  old accounts of, i. 204;
  surveyed, ii. 185

Yana River, the, i. 418_n_

Yanimoto, ii. 366

Yefremov Kamen, i. 376

Yekargauls, i. 498

Yelmert, i. 203

Yelmert Land, i. 203

Yenisej, the, voyages of the _Fraser_ and
  the _Empress_, up, i. 357;
  ascent of, in 1875, i. 387;
  river territory, i. 372;
  navigable, i. 373;
  its banks, i. 377;
  vegetation on, i. 381;
  steamers on, i. 394;
  discovered, ii. 160;
  Russian navigation on, in former times, i. 243;
  Russian sea, expeditions to, ii. 185;
  Minin's voyages on, ii. 186;
  later voyages to, i. 311

Yenisej, mouth of the, map of, i. 192;
  formerly inhabited, i. 193;
  winter at, i. 209

Yettugin, ii. 29, 67, 125

Yii gate, the, ii. 399

Yinretlen, i. 485

_Ymer_ (steamer), i. 1, 9_n_, 312, 358

Yokohama, ii. 296;
  arrival at, ii. 295;
  departure from, ii. 364

Yokosuka, ii. 396

_Yoldia Artica_, i. 199

Young, Sir Allen, ii. 451

Yugor Schar, i. 14;
  expedition passes, i. 171;
  rules for sailing through, i. 172;
  harbours in, i. 174;
  origin of the name, i. 172;
  Pet did not sail through, i. 228;
  map of, i. 242

Yukagires, ii. 75

Yukagir dwellings, remains of, on the New Siberian Islands, ii. 209


Z

_Zaritza_ (steamer), i. 360

Zeno, i. 53

Ziegler's map of the north, i. 53

Zivolka, A.K., i. 282; portrait, i. 284

Zircon, ii. 423


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START OF TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

First a list of typographical errors, which have been corrected
in the etext. Followed by alternative spellings of words noticed,
the majority of which occur bewteen the index and the text,
these have been left unchanged. There are also two short ERRATA
for Volume I and Volume II in the printed edition.

Vol I page x "Cape Schelagskog" changed to "Cape Schelagskoj"
[ to match 4 other instances in text ]

Vol I page xiii "Sieveria" changed to "Sieweria"
[ as in the title "Neu-entdecktes Sieweria, worinnen die Zobeln
gefangen werden" confirmed on Internet, and one other instance
in the text ]

Vol I page xxv "Ida Fallander" changed to "Ida Falander"
[ to match 5 other instances in text ]

Vol I page xxvi "Yenissej" changed to "Yenisej"
[ to match many instances in text ]

Vol I page 22 "Staduschin" changed to "Staduschin"
[ to match 11 other instances in the text ]

Vol I page 43 "Middendorf" changed to "Middendorff"
[ to match 19 other instances in text ]

Vol I page 51 "Ptolemoei Cosmographia"
   changed to "Ptolemæi Cosmographia"
[ confirmed on internet as the correct spelling,
also correct in one other instance in the text ]

Vol I page 73 "Besimmanaja Bay" changed to "Besimannaja Bay"
[ to match 5 other instances in text ]

Vol I page 219 "Cape Woronov" changed to "Cape Voronov"
[ to match entry in index and confirmed on Internet ]

Vol I page 310 "Novya Zemlaya" changed to "Novaya Zemlya"
[ over 200+ instances of "Novaya Zemlya" ]

Vol I page 315 "Sewernoe Sianie" changed to "Severnoe Sianie"
[ to match 2 other instances in text ]

Vol I page 317 "Meywaldt" changed to "Meyenwaldt"
[ to match 2 other instances in text, note also spelt as
"Meyenvaldt" in the index ]

Vol I page 377 "YEKISEJ" changed to "YENISEJ"
[ to match many instances in text ]

Vol I page 397 "MIDDENDORF" changed to "MIDDENDORFF"
[ to match 19 other instances in text ]

Vol I page 451 "Redogörese" changed to "Redogörelse"
[ to match 4 other instances in the text ]

Vol II page xvi "Pribyloo" changed to "Pribylov"
[ to match 4 other instances in the text ]

Vol II page 140 "ocasionally" changed to "occasionally"

Vol II page 183 "Dolgoj Island" changed to "Dolgoi Island"
[ to match index and 2 other instances in text ]

Vol II page 249 "Hessal Gerritz" changed to "Hessel Gerritz"
[Internet book text search gives both variations of surname
see under differences of spelling below, but always "Hessel"
as the first name of the author ]

Vol II page 432 "Pedrotalegalla" changed to "Pedrotalagalla"
[ to match 2 other instances in text, also confirmed on Internet
as correct spelling for this mountain ]

Vol II page 447 "Nutschoitzin" changed "Nutschoitjin"
[ to match other index entry and 6 instances in the text ]

Vol II page 481 "Vlaming" changed to "Vlamingh"
[ to match 8 other instances in text ]

Differences noticed in spelling, these remain unchanged as it is
not obvious which is correct.

"Bruzewitz" In index and Illustration, but "Brusewitz" in text

"Engehardt's" or "Engelhardt's"

"Hessel Gerritsz" or "Hessel Gerritz"

"Gusinnaja Semlja" or "Gusinnyja Semlja"

"Gwosdarev" in text, but "Gvosdarev" in index

"Cape Kamennoj" in text, but "Cape Kammennoj" in index

"Kolmogorsov" in text, but "Kolmogorzov" in index

"Krassilnikoff's" in text, but "Krassilinikoff" in index

"Labuan" in text, but "Labaan" in index

"Matvejev" in text, but "Matveyev" in index

"Meyenwaldt" in text, but "Meyenvaldt" in index

"Morgiouets" in text, but "Morgiovets" in index

"Mutnoi" in text, but "Mutnoj" in index

"Oiwake" in text, but "Oiwaki" in index

"Rotschitlen" in text, but "Rotschilten" in index

"Sarytchev" or "Sarytschev"

"Semenoffskoj" in text, but "Semenoffski" in index

"Gusinnaja Semlja" in text, but "Gusinnaya Semlya" in index

"Serebrenikoff" in text, but "Seribrenikoff" in index

"skuggsjá" in text, but "skuggjá" in index

"Sumiyashi" In list of illustrations, but
"SUMIYOSHI" Caption on illustration

"Tajmur river" or "Taimur river"

"Volodomir" in text, but "Volodimir" in index

"Yekargaules" in text, but "Yekargauls" in index


END OF TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES





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