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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Crown 8v0, price 6s.

PICTURES IN PROSE

OF

NATURE, WILD SPORT, AND
HUMBLE LIFE

BY
AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE, B.A.

F.L.S., F.Z.S., ETC.
MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION

*," This is a collection of sketches descriptive o7 sport
at home and in wild countries, original contributions t
the study of animals and plants, and observations
upon native life abroad and rural life in England.

LONDON AND NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

ICE-BOUND ON

KOLGUEV

A CHAPTER IN THE EXPLORATION
OF ARCTIC EUROPE TO WHICH
IS ADDED A RECORD OF THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ISLAND

BY

AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE

F.LS., F.Z.S., ETC.
MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY

J. T. NETTLESHIP, CHARLES WHYMPER

AND THE AUTHOR

AND THREE MAPS

Westminetler
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE
14 PARLIAMENT STREET, S.W.

1895
G

THIRD EDITION

Edinburgh: T. and A. ConsTaBtE, Printers to Her Majesty

TO THE PRESIDENT
OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION
LORD LILFORD, F.ZS.
THIS RECORD IS INSCRIBED

AS AN EARNEST OF LOYAL REGARD

Of gentle, strange, unlettered men,
Of Holy Hills, of frosty fen
And ice and island foam ;
Of flowers and of antlered herds
And all the nesting of the birds
He brings the story home.

Not his the crystal to divine
With those clear eyes the charméd page
Where Nature, in the inner shrine,
Enrols her children’s heritage.

Yet, when your roses welcome June,
This tale of far-off errantry

May serve to cheat a languid noon
With breezes of the Northern Sea.

PREFACE

Many like to read of travels in new or curious places
who are little interested in scientific results. So it has
seemed wise to relegate these to a separate part. For the
rest, this is a journal, for the greater part put historically,
where the various sides of the life of our island fall into
the place where we knew them as part of any day.

To Colonel H. W. Feilden—Arctic Naturalist and
unfailing friend to every beginner in the same field—
belongs my first thought of going to Kolguev. I feel that
I can never be grateful enough to him for lessons out of
his great experience and wide research, so generously
and untiringly given.

I want also sincerely to thank many other kind friends
and distinguished men for that ungrudged advice and
help which is so real an encouragement.

Especially my thanks are due to Clements R. Markham,
C.B., F.R.S., Professor Alfred Newton, F.R.S., Mr. P. L.
Sclater, F.R.S., Dr. Albert Giinther, F.R.S., Dr. Edward
B. Tylor, F.R.S., Mr. William Carruthers, F.R.S., Dr.
Bowdler Sharpe, Mr. Lamont, Mr. Raymond Tucker,
Mr. Howard Saunders, Mr. Henry Seebohm, Mr.
Harvie-Brown, and Mr. Edmund Meade-Waldo.

x ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The companionship of my friend Mr. Mervyn Powys
made the voyage to Kolguev a pleasant one for me.
To him is due very much of the success of the venture,
for upon his hands fell the preliminary work connected
with the sailing. I was as sorry for his sake that
Kolguev proved so disappointing a sporting ground as
I was delighted to find he had met with some success
during his adventurous visit to the wilds of Novaya
Zemblya. Credit is also due to him for his subsequent
attempts to reach the island. It was not surprising that
he failed. The ice borne down with the tide, the con-
stant fog, the treacherous sand-banks, the shallow sea,
were odds too great. They would have been serious
difficulties even had he possessed—as he could not
possess—an intimate knowledge of the dangerous entry
to our harbour; a harbour which, because of the bar at
its mouth, could never have admitted the Saxon.

Later on two ladies, Mrs. Leybourne Popham and
Mrs. Ponsonby, started from Vardé in the steam yacht
Blencathra to our relief, but were driven back by storms.
They could never have landed, but I thank them much.
I am glad, none the less, that the gallant intention and
kind thought were never realised ; for ‘Rescue by Ladies’
in the morning papers would, I think, have been harder
to survive than even a winter upon Kolguev.

And one more word.

PREFACE a

When it seemed that we were in difficulties, Her
Majesty’s Foreign Office and the Russian authorities used
every effort possible in our behalf. The Royal Geogra-
phical Society opened a subscription list, and more friends
than I knew I had responded with wonderful kindness.
The Committee of the Savage Club were active in making
our position known in the proper quarters. The Press,
too, most generously gave much room to our case. And
in this connection I should like to thank my brother, who,
from pleasant country pursuits, was called back to London
and plunged into a merciless correspondence on my
behalf. Fortunately the event proved these measures
unnecessary. But I put these efforts on record not only
because I am grateful, but because it is right that I should
do so. There is much happiness in the fact that the
idea of an Englishman abroad in danger is itself a
claim sufficient upon the practical sympathies of all
Englishmen at home. Mr. Henry Arthur Cooke,
British Vice-Consul, who has proved himself often
before a kind friend to any who visits the remote town
in which he lives, not only undertook a voyage in the
hope of relieving us, but showed us constant kindness
during the whole of our stay in Archangel. I cannot
thank him sufficiently.

One of the great charms of travelling in Russia is the

kindness of the Russian officials. From the highest

xii ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

authority down to the police-master of the railway
station, every official with whom I have been brought
into relationship has done far more in my interests than
I had any right to expect. Particularly I would offer
my sincere thanks to’ his Excellency the Russian Am-
bassador to London, his Excellency the Governor of
the Province of Archangel, to both of whom I owed the
papers which carried me through; the Ispravnik of
Ust Tsilma, who went even to the length of advancing me
a considerable sum of money without further assurance
than my word that he would get it back. (Which of us,
I wonder, would do this for an unknown foreigner ?)

If I have said anything that may seem a little hard
of my honest and faithful companion on Kolguev,
Thomas Hyland, I beg he will take it in good part. It
is not said in an unkind spirit. To take a quiet and inex-
perienced country man away from his simple occupations
to the wild life of an Arctic island is necessarily an ex-
periment of doubtful event. But I trust the experience
is not found an unpleasant one now that he comes to
look back on it from the quiet of his home.

Searching through old records is always arduous work ;
and in this connection I cannot but acknowledge the
kindness of Mr. J. Scott Keltie, Assistant Secretary to
the Royal Geographical Society, and the courteous

assistance of every official related to that body.

PREFACE xiii

I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Montefiore, the Secretary
of the Jackson- Harmsworth Expedition, for one important
reference. Travellers owe much to those who, like Mr.
Montefiore, generously give them the benefit of their
greater opportunities for literary research.

It would be ungracious for me to close this preface
without some reference to the illustrations in this book.

Mr. J. T. Nettleship’s beautiful work needs no words
from me. Nor does that of Mr. Charles Whymper,
unless indeed on this ground, namely, that he has been
obliged to limit his artistic power to the simple expression
of facts as they were. Also I am under obligations to
Mr. Edward Thornton for several careful pen-and-ink
drawings from my pencilled or coloured sketches.

About the pictures which have been transferred
straight from my sketch-book I need only say that
they are correct in detail, as they were done on the spot.
For this reason J am sure my critics will forgive an
amateur for work that is amateurish.

Often on Kolguev the means of living were found for
us by one whom it is difficult to thank ; for I refer to old
Sailor, the spaniel, one of the most faithful and accom-

plished dogs who ever followed the gun.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . ‘ ‘ : ‘ ‘ 5 xix
KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS . : é é : » Xxiil

Part I... : ; : : ‘ . ‘ 3 : I
Shows how we sailed for Kolguev—Tells of the conditions of the ice of

Barents Sea in 1894—How we at length defeated the ice and reached

Kolguev—Of our various landings on that island—Of what it looked

like and what we found there, and of how at last, being short of coal

and the ice threatening to overwhelm us, the Saxon was obliged to
hurry away, leaving myself and Thomas Hyland on the lonely isle.

Part II. - . . : a . z : - 67
Shows our life in our first solitary camp—How we followed vain hopes—
Of foolish wanderings—A seal hunts for ducks—How we walked right
across the island—Our interests by the way—Of snow gullies—Of icy
rivers—Of the birds and animals—The geology and natural features—

And of how, finally, we fell in with the Samoyeds.

Part III. : . ; F E . : ‘ + 133
Shows how we re-crossed the island with sleighs and many reindeer—Of

the wonders these animals performed—Of the manner of life of the
Samoyeds—The choom, the sleeping, etc.—How we met On Tipa, the
rich man—Of the wolf-like dogs, of knives and boats—Of the crossing
of a river, with other matters domestic and not so— And finally, of how
we travelled to Scharok harbour to wait for the Saxo, which yet could

not come for the ice.

Part IV. j ‘ i . . ‘ F , . 187
Which treats of our solitary life at Scharok harbour—With how we

explored the district—How we sounded the harbour—Of ‘the waiter’
and his ways, and of new faces—A baby is described somewhat particu-
larly, and a Samoyed Saga is given—The reader will learn with other
matters how we met the father of the island—How we took the wild
geese—And finally, how through want of bread we were compelled to

return to life with the Samoyeds.

xvi ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Part V. ‘ ‘ F : ‘ C

Peaceably and with little event our life with the natives goes on—Rein-
deer are killed and wild swans are shot—We have a visitor from the
mainland of Arctic Russia.

Part VI. - : : . é : : F

Tells of the Holy Hills and of household gods—Of Samoyed labour and

of traders’ ways—Of the lamp of St. Nicholas and the bringer of

storms—We leave Kolguev, and after much painful effort reach the
mainland, and finally home.

Part VII. : A A : : : : :

An Abstract from the Saxon’s log—Remarks on the Samoyeds of Kolguev

—Note on the Samoyed language—Note on the geology—Note cn the

flora of Kolguev—List of flowers—Note on the birds recorded—List of
birds—Note on the mammals—Remarks on the climatic conditions.

INDEX .

PAGE

271

317

377

449

FULL-PAGE

BRINGING UP THE HERD

THE S.Y. ‘SAXON’

IN VARDO HARBOUR

ICE OFF THE KANIN COAST

THE SWAN’S NEST

THE RIVAL WILLOW-GROUSE

A HUNTER OF DUCKS

USTYNIA “

THE PROPHET’S TEAM AT REST

IN LINE

REINDEER COWS AND CALVES TRAVELLING
THE WOMEN HARNESSING UP

A HALT

DRIVING THE GEESE

THROWING THE DI-ZHA

THE WOMEN CACHING THE BRENT GEESE

A REINDEER HELD WITH THE DI-ZHA

PLATES

A CORNER OF THE GOOSE CAMP ON THE PESANKA PLATEAU
between pp. 288 and 289

A SAMOYED VERSION OF ‘THE PROFLIGATE’

SWAN SHOOTING

NATIVE DRAWING, SAMOYED DRIVING AND HANDWRITING

HUNTING SCENES,

By 29

MEKOLKA’S CAPTIVE—‘ TCHUORNIA,’ THE RED FOX OF KOLGUEV

OUR QUARTERS AT SCHAROK

The Maps are at the end of the Volume.

b

Frontispiece

face page

Jace page

”

4
18
28
43
83
85

130
142
165
167
184
212
226
237
238
275
284

291
294
298
300
305
347

INTRODUCTION

As Kolguev Island lies but fifty miles off the coast of
Arctic Europe it may fairly be regarded as European.
A glance at the map will show that it is the only island
in that part of the Arctic Ocean known as Barents Sea.

It seemed time that something more certain should
be known about it than could be gathered from chance
references in the old books. Also, lying thus between
east and west, it held out to a naturalist promise of
interesting things.

In the autumn of 1893 I crossed in a trading vessel
from this country to the White Sea, with the object of
finding out something about Kolguev. I failed. |
asked the Governor of the Archangel Province. He
was kindness itself, but confessed himself uninformed
on the subject. ‘But,’ he added, ‘when my gun-boat
goes next year to Novaya Zemblya they might pos-
sibly be able to set you down.’ It was a kind offer,
but the gun-boat would be going altogether too late for
my purpose. I asked of the traders and fishermen, I
asked of the monks on Solovetsk—but with no result.

They knew nothing of Kolguev; only they were agreed

XX ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

that it was a nasty place. So I came back again to shoot
the pheasants, no wiser than before.

I knew that it would be useless to go from Archangel,
because the White Sea would be blocked till too late for
the first summer days. It therefore seemed best to
engage a Vardé walrus-sloop to take me over. That
was my plan.

In the meantime, however, my friend Mr. Mervyn
Powys, glad of the opportunity of sport in those regions,
determined to join me. This in every way improved
the chances of the enterprise. For he chartered the
steam-yacht Saxon, of Birkenhead.

She was manned with a crew of Scotch whaling-men
belonging to Peterhead, and from that port we sailed on
June 3rd. Also we took Thomas Hyland, a young man,
who, though he had but lately opened a small business
in this country, was glad to come and skin the birds. In
all, we were twelve on board.

The Saxon is 90 feet 6 inches in length, over all. Her
depth is 12 feet 2 inches, with a beam of 18 feet. She
is built of wood sheathed with copper. Her draught of
water is 12 feet. Her net registered tonnage is 48°58,
and by yacht measurement she is 117 tons. She is
schooner-rigged.

I do not think that Kolguev is yet exhausted. I

think that a naturalist who, fortunate enough to find

INTRODUCTION xxi

the conditions of ice more favourable than they were in
1894, would pitch his tent by Lake Promoince, and
stay there, might do good work.

Whether it is useful or not to have determined geo-
graphical points on Kolguev, it is certain that our
acquaintance with the Samoyeds is a gain.

Any one who in the future may be landed or wrecked
on Kolguev will know that there are natives there, and
that they remain there all the year. And he will know
exactly where to look for them. He will not make my
mistake of expecting to find them near the river mouth,
but will move up at once to the head waters of the
streams. Here on the Gobista, the Pugrinoy, or the
Pesanka for example, he will certainly fall in with the
chooms. If he should meet Uano he will be fortunate ;
if On Tipa, more fortunate still. These are the best men
on the island, but all are kind and any one of them
would be a friend.

I am often asked about the pronunciation of the word
Kolguev. I believe that strictly it is a word of three
syllables, but in pronunciation it comes to be a dis-
syllable, and might be phonetically written ‘ Kol-gwev.
I am aware that a strict transliteration from the Russian
would make it ‘Kolgueff,’ but the ‘v’ better conveys the
sound of the final syllable, and has also the sanction

of use.

Xxii ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The Russian name of the curious people who call
themselves ‘Nyanitz’ has been much discussed. That
the word is simply Samo-yedi, 2.e. self-eaters, is the
common view in Russia. The peasants and small
traders of Arctic Russia—men who have lived for
generations among the Samoyeds, and are well beyond
the reach of books and theories—gave me this explana-
tion as one which admitted of no question. They said
that the Russians had ‘always’ called the Samoyeds by
that name ‘because they used to be cannibals.’ And the
Samoyeds, when we asked them, always agreed. The
words of On Tipa the Samoyed, when we talked it over
in Alexander’s hut, were ‘Da, da-Pravdah. Tepair nieto,
nieto-Davno, davno!’ z.e. ‘ Yes, truly. But not now, no,
no, long, long ago!’ At the same time it would seem
not impossible that the idea may have originated from
their habit of eating raw flesh. The Russians of the
Petchora familiarly address these people as ‘Samodine.’
This I take to be a diminutive. When speaking of them
in the common colloquial way they say ‘Sam-yad,’
because, as Alexander explained, it is said ‘more quickly.’
My own imperfect knowledge of the subject does not
entitle me to an opinion; so with this I leave the word

to the ethnologist.

KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS

WiTH us the name of Kolguev had hitherto been familiar only to
students of old Arctic literature, where indeed it fills a very small place.
Nor is this strange. A harbourless island with a dangerous coast, it
was wisely avoided by any who had a more distant mission on those
seas.

1553. Willoughby's Land (?)—-Sir Hugh Willoughby this year sailed
from the Thames to try and find a passage by the North to the treasures
of the East (though afterwards he died on the Murman Coast) with
three ships, Bona Esperanza, Edward Bonaventure, and Bona Confi-
dentia. The Edward Bonaventure was commanded by Chancelor, and
Stephen Burrough was among the crew. This ship became separated
from her consorts, the other two, after being compelled to return west-
ward, sailing about and trying to make Vardéhuus. And then we read,
on August 14th, ‘ Early in the morning descried land, which land we bare
with all, hoising out our boat to discover what land it might be, but
the boat could not come to land, the water was so shoale, where was
very much ice also, but there was no similitude of habitation, and the
land lyeth from Seynam East and by North 160 leagues, being in latitude
72 degrees.’ 1

Where was this ‘ Willoughby’s Land’? -Later writers have thought it
was Novaya Zemblya, and geographers have put it there. Nordenskiold
believed it to be Kolguev, and this better agrees with the data given,
in spite of the difference of 2°. ;

1556.—And in this year Stephen Burrough, the future chief pilot of
England, sighted Kolguev as he went eastward on that eventful voyage
during which he discovered and passed the Kara gates.

The account is entitled, ‘The navigation and discoverie toward the

1 Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 236.

XXIV ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

river of Ob, made by Master Steven Burrough, master of the Pinnesse
called the Serchthriff, with divers things worth the noticing passed in
the yere 1556.’ In this we read on August 25th, ‘At a west north-west
sunne we sounded and had 29 fadoms blacke sandie oze, and then
we were north-east, five leagues from the north-east part of the island
Colgoieue.’ !

1580.—Pet and Jackman sailed this year under commission from the
Russian Company to go ‘eastwards to the countries and dominions of
the mightie prince, the Emperor of Cathay, and in the same unto the
cities of Cambalu and Quinsay, or to either of them.’ Neither of them
of course they reached, but on their return from Waigats they managed
to get their ships aground, on August zoth, on the sand-banks to the
south of Kolguev.

The account runs: ‘At twelve of the clocke we were upon the
suddaine in shoale water among great sands, and could find no way out.
By sounding and seeking about we came aground, and so did the
William ; but we had no hurt, for the wind was off the shore and the
same night it was calme. All night we did our best but we could not
have her aflote. These shoals doe lie off Colgoyeue; it is very flat a
great way off, and it doth not high aboue 2 or 3 foote water. It floweth
north-east and south-west.’ ?

1594.—The famous Dutch explorer, William Barents, on his first
voyage ‘sayled til the 14th of August, five or six miles south-west,
sailing close by the land, which (as they gesse) was the island of
Colgoyeu.’ ?

1611.—Richard Finch, in a letter to Sir Thomas Smith, Governor of
the ‘Worshipfull Companie of English Merchants trading into Russia,’
wrote as follows:—‘The seventh of August, William and I with our
shallop went on shoare. This Colgoieue is a very long and broad
Iland with many vallies in it. On the same are many geese, which the
Russes use to take with nets in the time of the yere, before they be ouer
fledge. In this Iland seemeth to be store of Hawkes. Here William
Purchas his Pilgrimes, 1589-99 to 1601.

Hugh Smith in Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 508, ed. 1810.
’ G, de Veer in Hakluyt. Hakluyt Society’s edition, 1850, vol. xiii. p. 35.

1
2

KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS xxv

Gourdon and our cooper caught two hawkes, whereof one was spoyled
in the taking, the other remayneth aliue.’!

And William Gourdon himself writes in the same year that ‘the
third (August) at noone we had sight of Colgoieue Iland and took the
latitude, being on the north side of the island, which was 69 degrees
20 minutes: and at night I went on shoare to see the Land, which was
high clay ground: and I came where there was an airie of slight falcons,
but they did flie all away save one, which I tooke up, and brought
aboard. This Ile of Colgoieue is but thirtie leagues from the Barre
of Pechora.’?

It seems that such Russian coast-maps or charts of Kolguev as
existed at the beginning of this century were drawn by the small
traders, seamen of the opposite coast. No attempt to fix positions
seems to have been made until the years 1823, 1824, nearly three
hundred years after Willoughby’s death.

1823-24.—In those years Admiral Liitke, during his third and fourth
voyages to Novaya Zemblya, crossed to the coast of Kolguev and
determined the latitude and longitude of the north-western, and the
longitude of the western points, and took views of some points of the
north-west coast.?

1826.—A Russian expedition was equipped in this year for the
survey of the ocean east of the White Sea as far as the mouth of the
Petchora, and including Kolguev. This expedition, under the ‘ under-
pilot’ Berejnyeh, sailed right round the island in four days, and so
executed its commission.*

1841.—This year is memorable in the history of Kolguev as being
the first during which any landing or attempt at scientific examination
was made. Professor Saweljew, accompanied by Dr. Ruprecht (Con-
servator of the Botanical Museum of the Imperial Academy of Science),
paid two visits to the island in the months of July and August of this
year. Ina most interesting paper, in which Saweljew gives the results

1 Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iti. book 3, chap. ix.

2 [bid., chap. viii.

+ Of Liitke’s Journey to Novaya Zemblya, Erman’s Translation, vol. ii. p. 325.

4 Memoires (Sapiski) of the Hydrographical Dept., v. p. 18.

5 Archiv fur Wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, 1852, A. Erman, x. 313-
316.

XXVi ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

of their voyage, he says: ‘We first landed on its southern point at the
mouth of the river Waskina, whence Ruprecht made an excursion into
the interior with reindeer. After spending ten days here we deter-
mined to travel right round the island, and began sailing along the
west coast, landing at the small stream Gusina (N. lat. 69° 26’) and at
the Konkina ; however, when we had reached the northern end of the
island we were compelled by an unfavourable wind to turn and steer
for Swyatoi Nos, on the shore of Timan. In August we again visited
Kolgujew, and, since we wished to sail round the east coast, we repaired
to Stanavoi Scharok, where we stayed six days, which Ruprecht again
utilised for an excursion into the interior. It must, however, be
mentioned that our stay on Kolguev was made under the most un-
favourable conditions. Of the sixteen days which we passed at the
mouth of the Waskina and in Stanavoi Scharok, the weather on ten
was such that it was impossible to think of investigations and excursions
on the island. The violent storms did not allow us once to leave the
cabin.’

Thus Professor Saweljew. The work they did in the six days at
their disposal, excellent as it was, could obviously not be exhaustive,
and as I spent not six days, but three months, on the island, I was able
to add a great deal to it.

In our own day Kolguev has been sighted by the various Arctic
voyagers going east and north-east, but I can find no record of any
other visit but one.

1858.—In this year a priest, who does not give his name, but who,
I believe, was chief priest of Archangel, sailed to Kolguev in a fisher-
man’s boat—probably from Mezen, and has left a curious Russian
paper about it,! which, in the translation, is very quaint.

‘I intended to go to Kolguev,’ he said, ‘to preach Jesus Christ and
to baptize. Before starting there I sang Ze Deums during three
days. . . . The chief thing to be dreaded is the crossing of 150 versts
of the open sea.

‘. . . I do not desire to speak about all I had to endure during
this voyage. One cannot gain much lying on one’s back; if you use
knowledge and prudence in dealing with the sea you shall never be

1 Maximow’s Morskod Sbornik.

KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS xxvii

a loser. We coastmen know well how to sail: every child understands
how to manage an oar, and every woman—beings inferior to men in
every respect—would know how to direct a rudder.’ And, further on
in the same account :—

‘It is true that 130 years ago Barmine, a merchant in Archangel,
a Raskolnik,! settled in Kolguev at his own expense forty men and
forty women who desired to found a hermitage, and all but four died
during the first year of their settlement; but they were all old people,
and belonged to a very strict sect which allowed during some months
to take food only once a week.’ This version differs from Saweljew’s.

In view of my own experience at the goose-catching, this good priest’s
account is well worth quoting. He does not himself appear to have
witnessed it, but quotes an informant from Mezen.

‘It takes us two or three days to arrive to Kolguev ; and there birds
are come a great multitude and variety—and what a noise they make!
The goose gaggles, the eider-duck lets hear its voice, and the drake
does not remain behind, and the seagull.

‘We begin to shoot it, and during May and June shoot a great deal
of it. The dead bird lies in heaps and sometimes begins to stink—
but we do not mind it. In the beginning of July the barren geese
begins to lose their feather. On the 8th of July a laziness overcomes
them. The lazy goose cannot fly,—he has few feathers upon him, and
all his down is gone as if some one has plucked him. Such goose sits
like an insulted one; he is silent and sad as if hiding himself and
ashamed of his nakedness. Now as soon as these geese occupy the
small lake, leaving the big one to go there for food, we put our guns
aside and took to snares. We spread the snares on every passage from
the small lake into the large one for birds to enter in. At the gate we
arrange out of the swamp the entrance ; sloping towards the lake and
very steep in the centre that the goose might not go back after having
once gotten into the snare. Having finished this arrangement (which
scarcely takes us an hour), we let dogs loose and we ourselves begin to
make a noise and to bark in unison with the dogs, showing thus to the
geese that they must move from the small lake into the large one.

1 The Raskolniks or ‘ Old Believers’ seceded from the Greek Church in the days
of St. Philip of Solovetsk. They now live chiefly in the villages of the Petchora.

XXViii ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘Now we must be very careful to prevent the leading goose to direct
his steps towards the mountain instead of our snares. If he goes
there all will follow him, and in that case you will not catch him even
with the help of deer. They run very fast. From dogs and men they
run into water. We know this and go about carefully, not hurryingly
like children. If one goose gets into the gate all will follow him there,
and become an easy capture.’

‘And if they do not enter your gate, what then?’

‘Then we must make him enter; for this we are endowed with
reason. But it is also true there are geese and geese, and some of
them are exceedingly cunning. They like to hide themselves, and it
is not easy to find them out, and even then it is not easy to catch them.
Such geese we try to drive into the gate by going in boats to the middle
of the small lake, but it is not easy task to do. Geese know men to be
their enemies, and are careful. Though of course there are geese and
geese. Some are very stupid and easy to be caught, especially the
brent goose, who walks of its own accord into our huts. We export
from Kolguev about one hundred thousand birds, and could get even
more.’

It will be seen later on how excellently this agrees on the whole with
the goose-taking as done to-day by the Samoyeds.

This brings to an end all important references to Kolguev Island,
which I have been able so far to collect. Very possibly there is more
in the Russian, and possibly something still in our own libraries not
readily accessible. I shall be very grateful to any informant who may
be able to help in this respect.

PART I

Suows how we sailed for Kolguev—Tells
of the conditions of the ice of Barent’s Sea
in 1894—How we at length defeated the ice
and reached Kolguev—Of our various
landings on that island—Of what it
looked like and what we found there,
and of how at last, being short
of coal and the ice threatening
to overwhelm us, the Saxonu
was obliged to hurry away,
leaving myself and
Thomas Hyland
on the lonely
isle.

CHAPTIER I

PETERHEAD TO BERGEN

June 2nd.—Sometimes those whom chance has taken

to Peterhead have little enthusiasm to spare for it asa

bleak, uncompromising north Scotch town. But I like

it.

I like the fine whaling men who hang about the

harbour, with their
queer old memories
of Davis Straits. I
like the whalers them-
selves, or what is left
of them, with the
crow’s nest and the
whaling gear and the
quaint figure - heads.
I like to lie low and
take in all the jang-
ling picture at the fish
sales on the quay when
the boats come in with
the cod. The bay too

ESKIMO FIGURE-HEAD OF THE WHALER
‘ENDEAVOUR’

is pleasant to sail in, with the sea as clear as diamond

3

4 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

over the barnacled rocks, and the silver sea-trout leaping
in the tide.

Also the stupendous steam crane of the new break-
water is wonderful to watch, playing with cubes of tens
of tons as though with pebbles; and that other machine
—tragically exact—formed of human thews and sinews,
and working to the utmost stretch of human capability,
as perhaps only convict labour can.

We had time enough for some of this in the intervals
of getting the Saxonx ready for her cruise, though there
was necessarily a good deal to be done. But by ten in
the morning of this Saturday, June 2nd, all was ready
and stowed. With that we weighed anchor and stood
out of the harbour, dropping our pilot off the Head.

The wind was light, and this was well; for it was all
against us, blowing from the east. None the less the
log at sunset showed nearly an average of nine knots
and ahalf. At midnight the wind freshened and went
a point or so more northerly, so that we set the sails and
made good way.

We found the Savozx a remarkably handy little boat
which rode the waters like a cork. She was not a
comfortable craft just by reason of her very quickness,
but this we could forgive.

I had had out the tow-net during the day, but, as it took
nothing, I hauled it in again when the water grew rough.

June 3rd.—At ten o'clock on this morning a pair of

SAXON

Sols

THE

face page 4

PETERHEAD TO BERGEN 5

curlews flying low came circling round the boat. They
seemed very reluctant to leave us; several times they
Stooped at us as if they wanted to settle; they would no
doubt have rested on the water, but it was now much
broken under a heavy breeze.

Bommel Mountain—or so we made it out—came into
view ata quarter past two that afternoon ; and two hours
later, about ten miles off the Selb lighthouse, we took a
pilot on board. At this time the wind was strong, and
there was quite a heavy sea; but the little pilot cutter
ran round us like a fish, and the way her two men
handled her was a treat to see.

Our pilot told me that they had been out since last
Friday, that the Bergen pilots were having a poor time,
and that the Saxoz, whose small size fairly seemed to
beat him, was the first yacht over this year.

And so we ran up the big Selbé Fjord, and lay that
night at Bergen.

CHAPTER II
BERGEN TO TROMSO

June 4th.—lf I touch very lightly on these early days
of our venture, it is only because so many who read this
book will already know all about the coast of Norway—
will know its towns and fjords. Why therefore should I
tire them by descriptions of places and scenes familiar
from the deck of the excursion steamer ?

But Bergen was new to me; and as the University
Museum was closed for repairs, I crossed the old fish-
market bridge and found the little Hanseatic Museum.
This relic of the German occupation under the Hansa
League is charmingly quaint, and as a revelation of the
life and doings of a master merchant at that time, it has
a very distinct interest. Dear, dear, what sly old fellows
they were! And so complete is this restoration that
you want but little fancy to see it all: the traffic in
commodities—bought with one set of scales but sold
with another (a gain to the merchant either way) ;—the
settlements at the office counter; the lapses into revel
when business was over; the poor ’prentices, kept hard
at it till late, winking at each other and peeping under

their eyebrows as the red-heeled shoes go up the stairs.
6

BERGEN TO TROMSO Vi

There was a good deal to be done in Bergen, for I
had purposely left over several things which could be
better had in that port. But at half past four in the
afternoon we took on our pilot, one Knutsen (and an
excellent man, if you should want one), and headed up
the fjords.

June 5th.—The next day we had, to begin with, a
very pleasant time; for the wind, though northerly,
was light, and the day was very clear. We had the
tow-net out for a long while, but these waters were
strangely unprolific, yielding but a single capture—a
polychcete worm.

We unintentionally lost a little way ; for Knutsen the
pilot took us up the Royde and Vartdals fjords under
the impression, as he explained, that we were tourists
come to see the sights. So that at noon we found
ourselves off Hioring Point, and had to stand out again,
passing north-west by Quite Ness, and up the long Harr
Fjord. Here we met a strong head wind, the Saxox
pitching badly and shipping so much water that we had
to batten down.

On this evening the sun set at 9.38, but it was light
enough all night for reading on deck.

To-day, besides the kittiwakes, lesser blackbacks and
common terns, which had been our principal attendants,
we came well among the common eiders. On an island

off Stadtland (famous for seals) there were a great

8 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

number of these birds. A very large proportion of
them were males, for of course their ducks were sitting.
Among them were a few changing plumage, but most

were still white on the rump.

June 6th,—Early on the following morning we were
passing Hitteren Island, where the red deer are. And
—skipping a good deal about lights, positions, and
entrances, which would not interest every one—it may be
enough to say that in rather more than half-an-hour from
the Varnsen Fjord, which we had crossed at 3.40, we
came to Roérvik on the Vigtens, which the tourists know.

Knutsen said this was a capital place for salmon; and
indeed we saw many nets set and setting—the eiders
swimming like tame ducks all about among the people at
work. So we slowed the engines while I spun in the
current where it set off the rocks. But nothing would
tempt them—neither a spoon, nor a fish, nor a spinning-
devil. We were obliged to keep the screw just going,
and this, though very slow and gentle, possibly scared
the fish. I think a salmon is not like a pike in this way ;
he thinks before he commits himself.

And here besides the eiders, which, as evening came,
strung out into long lines and made away, there were
many Arctic terns.

I hardly went to sleep that night—it was all so pretty.
I sat and sketched it.

Just below Rérvik is that curious lump of rock called

BERGEN TO TROMSO 9

Torghatten. Right through its middle runs a slanting
hole which lets the daylight through, as you can see in
passing. And beyond, in the distance, were the moun-
tains called the Seven Sisters, and, if you know the
legend, you know why. On their eastern faces they
were white, but on the west, where the low sunbeams
touched them, pink, and purple in the hollows of the

A SUMMER NIGHT ON THE FJORDS

snow. Purple on the left hand also were the long low
lines of rock that met the yellow sand. And across the
front of this picture came and went the red-sailed
Namsos fishing boats, flashing roads of crimson from
the rudder to the sun.

At Rorvik itself is the narrowest passage on all the
fjords ; so narrow that in it two boats of the Saxon’s size

10 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

could not have passed at once. And here, in spite of a
racing tide, three great timber hulks were being towed,
each by a boat with four men for crew. These boats—
keks they are called—look, with their high sterns and
sternpieces, like little Viking ships. Possibly their shape
is a survival ; at any rate I liked to think of it as such.

June 7th.—And now we crossed the Arctic Circle, and
yet recorded our highest temperature, for it was 70° F. in
the sun at 3 P.M.

All day long we were off Norrland, sighting the
Lofotens about two o'clock, with puffins on the wing
by thousands, and wheeling in the air like rooks. Also
twice to-day we saw the great northern diver and several
glaucous gulls. We met a large school of grampus, and
saw one whale. The men declared it a bottle-nose.

June 8th.—When I came on deck this morning the
Vaag’s Fjord (68° 40’ N.) was all like glass, and the
sunlight was quite dazzling. A great northern diver
was flying backwards and forwards from the middle of
the fjord to the shore. I saw it do this four times,
but could not make out why, for I have never seen
a diver catch any fish that it could not eat easily in the
water. The bird by its movements should have been
nesting, but divers do not nest so early in the year.
There was also a large herd of some kind of dolphin
feeding round the fjord. Over them hung very many

BERGEN TO TROMSO II

gulls, which seemed (and I watched them very carefully
through the glass) to take bits of fish from the creatures’
mouths. They would hang above the animal’s track,
following with keen eyes its course under water, and as
soon as ever it neared the surface came down upon its
head in a fighting, screaming cloud. The different
species of Delphinidz are always very puzzling to me.
I fancy only years of watching in these waters can make
you sure. James Smith at the wheel said he knew very
well that these were ‘ Herring Puffers,’ and when I asked
him how he knew, he answered, ‘Because they were
smaller than “Herring Hogs,”’ and seeing me look
doubtful, he smiled pityingly—the conclusion was so
clear.

There were also many red-throated divers in this
fjord, as in all the rest.

Where the whirlpool is beneath Mount Bentsiortenden,
nine miles below Tromsé, we saw our first herd of
reindeer coming down across the fjells. Knutsen said
that they cross about here, returning in September,
though the water is two and a half miles wide, and the
current so formidable that, catching the Saxon under full
steam, it half swung her round.

Just as we were dropping anchor under Tromsé,
which we reached at 2.30 ¥.M. (788 miles in two hours
short of four days), I noticed among a lot of common
eiders, right across the water, one that somehow seemed
distinct from the rest. Presently all these birds rose,

12 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

and came right along till they crossed the bows of our
boat. The odd bird was a grand and lovely drake king
eider.

Many of my readers will know Tromsé and its sur-
roundings far better than J, and can skip this next bit,
which I simply take straight out of my journal as it
stands.

‘Tromsé, very differently from all the miserable snow
pictures I have seen of it, is now very bright and pretty
and smothered in bunting. This year it celebrates its
hundredth anniversary. The houses are of wood, the
more important with red painted roofs, the smaller roofed
with turf, overlying a sheeting of birch-bark. This
turf bears a flourishing crop of grasses. The roads
are very good, with flagged and well-laid pavements.
All along the water-front are warehouses built on piles.
To the west of the island of the town rise birch-covered
hills. Cross currents here run very strongly; Saxon
swinging into a new position about every half hour.

‘Powys and I crossed with Hyland and the two dogs
to the east side, and landed by a stone jetty where is the
holding of a most intelligent fisher-farmer, who, as he tells
me, has decided to stay at home this summer, after twenty
consecutive visits to Spitzbergen.

‘We climbed a rocky hill (1400 feet according to a
native) covered on its lower slopes with birch, alder and
willow, and higher with another species, as it seemed, of

willow with very broad leaves. In a bare rock many

BERGEN TO TROMSO 13

pairs of ravens had nested, and were now feeding their
young,

‘We sat for a while at the edge of a plateau which
forms the summit of this rock, and then made our way to
a cairn on rather higher ground to the east. A golden
plover whistled and flew off. Then I noticed about sixty
yards off two birds on the ground, which I knew at once
to be Richardson’s skua, of which I had seen one flying
over the mountain a few moments before. Lying down
I watched them through the glass. They both belonged
to the dark variety, the shade of the back of the neck
only a little lighter than the top of the head. One bird
was sitting ; the other, standing at first, presently settled
itself down as if on eggs. They allowed us to approach
within fifteen yards before they flew off. I could find on
coming up no sign whatever of nest or eggs.

‘We walked a bit farther, but beyond tracks of rein-
deer in the snow, saw nothing of interest till we descended
the hill. About half-way down Powys found a titlark’s
nest with four eggs. Crossing several patches of snow
we reached the foot. The dogs put up a pair of rypa,
and two others came flying down from above.

‘Powys: then returned to the yacht. I hunted the
lower slopes with Hyland. We found a brambling’s
nest in the fork of an alder, just as high as I could reach.
This nest—made of grasses, goat’s hair,” wool, feathers of
rypa and others (among them the pin feather of a snipe),

1 Probably reindeer hair.

14 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

a bit or two of birch bark (but very little), and covered
outside with moss and lichen, and lined with willow-down
—contained seven eggs.

‘Now we entered a colony of fieldfares. The nests
(low down in birch trees), of which I examined several,
were in each case entirely composed of grasses and twigs
kneaded in with mud; the lining entirely of soft grasses.
They were deeper than those of the mistle thrush, and
rather less untidy outside. I took clutches of six, five,
and four eggs. The birds were shy; none of them
mobbed us in the least. On the whole they kept away,
only now and then a bird would come and scream, peer-
ing through the bushes from about fifteen yards off. Of
redwings we saw none.

‘On the shore near two houses were the remains of a
stranded whale. It was thoroughly well used up. The
pelvis formed a seat, the ribs served as rollers for the
boat, and the vertebral centra as tackle-blocks.

‘Of the many flowers we saw I identified only
Geranium sylvaticum, a yellow viola (V. b¢flora); dog
violet; cloudberry; a ranunculus (Rk. acris), Caltha
palustris ; yellow trollius and a potentilla (P. verna).

‘Trout and salmon, as they seemed to be, were rising
everywhere as we rowed back, and when I turned in at
1 a.M. a band was playing, gaily dressed girls were
rowing themselves about, people were fishing every-

where, and there was a picnic party across the
fjord.’

BERGEN TO TROMSO 15

June oth.—The morning after this I paid another visit
to the base of the hill and took several specimens of the
the only butterfly I saw. This butterfly? as it flies looks
much like our meadow-brown, but the ‘under side of
lower wings are grey, like the under side of a sallow
leaf.’

I was again ‘struck by the fact I noticed last night.
Under a considerable proportion of the trees which held
a fieldfare’s new nest (under the majority | thought) was
lying a last year's nest; as if to suggest that the birds
return to the same tree and pull the old nest out. For
fieldfares’ nests are set so deeply and firmly in the fork,
that either they could not be blown out in an entire
state, or if blown out would surely be carried farther
away. I asked our friend the farmer whether boys ever
touched the nests, and he said, “N ever—why should a
boy touch a nest?”

‘His little boy Christian brought out a baby hare,
apparently about three weeks old, which he had picked
up on the mountain side, and was keeping as a pet.
This little creature had black-tipped ears, and its coat
was pepper and salt. As I held it in my hand it made
a squeaking noise.’

While we were at Troms6 we interviewed one Jansen,
a walrus hunter, and the only man there, they said, who
had ever been on Kolguev. He had landed there once,
he told us, five years ago, and he pointed out the spot

l Erebia Manto Schiff.

16 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

on the chart. It corresponded with the Stanavoi Scharok

of Saweljew. Indeed he confirmed several points in

Saweljew’s paper. He spoke, for example, of the abund-

ance of the drift-wood, and said that he found Samoyeds

who lived there all round the year, and Russian traders.

He knew of no other entry, nor anything of the big gulf.
That evening we left Tromsé.

CHAPTER IIL!

TROMSO TO VARDO

June 1oth.—We did not run into Hammerfest, but saw
it in the distance as we passed ; for we went close by the
islands Hielmen and Haaien which are its gates. We
determined on taking the outside passage as the weather
was calm.

Thousands of razor-bills, kittiwakes, and puffins filled
the air as we blew our steam whistle off Hielsostauren,
and at half-past five in the evening we passed North
Cape, and the Nord Kyn at half-past ten. The North
Cape, by the way, is actually not quite the ‘most northerly
point of Europe,’ as the books say, for its position is barely
over 71° 10 N., while Knifscher near it is 71° 11’ N.

No doubt it can be very nasty round about this point ;
but on two former passages I had found it quiet, and this

day the sea was almost as still as a duck pond.

June 11th.—At three in the morning we passed a
whaling vessel towing a big finner alongside, and six
hours later entered the Os¢ Vaagen, as the south harbour
of Vardé is wrongly called.

We were all struck by the life and activity of this
B

18 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

harbour. Boats and steamers crowded the place, ponies
were being hoisted on to decks, fish cut up and packed,
and over all wheeled kittiwakes, herring gulls and lesser
black-backs in hundreds.

They do not up here use the words ‘keks,’ but name
their boats by the number of oars they carry; as
fembéring (5-oared), ottring (8-oared, though now they
have but four oars), sekring, and so on. The boats are
of the same light and graceful cut as those lower down.
The gunwale stroke—splayed out so as to act as a bilge
chock—is always painted some bright colour, red, yellow,
blue or green, the gunwale itself being invariably
white. The rest of the boat is of simple varnished pine.
The fembGring are the largest boats, and carry besides
the ‘raaseil’ (square sail) a fore and aft sail, the ‘ sne-seil,’
and have in the stern a cabin roofed with pine or birch
bark. At the present time there are a thousand of these
boats in Vardo.

Vardé also has one hundred and twenty boats of a
larger size called ‘ Kobrumsbots’—boats containing tanks
for ‘kobs’ or seals.

An incredible number of codfish are taken in these
waters. Indeed, Vardo is chiefly a huge codfish drying
ground. There are miles of split fish drying on rails.
The current price this summer of a fresh cod, without
head or liver, was 10 Gre, z.¢. one penny. A year or two
ago it was worth twice as much.

Mr. Carl Holmboe, the British Vice-Consul, very

IN VARDO HARBOUR

Face page 18

TROMSO TO VARDO 19

kindly introduced us to the merchant who has the rights
over the Island of Horné, and he rowed us over to
See it.

This small island rises suddenly from the water, and is
formed of mountain limestone seamed with quartz, on
the ledges of which the sea-birds nest.

Large numbers of eiders were swimming, flying, diving,
and sitting on the rocks. After watching these birds for
a long time in their awkward scrambling over the weed-
covered rocks, one wondered how it came about that
their feet and general build were not better adapted to
their habits, for they slipped and tumbled about in the
clumsiest manner.

In vain I looked for the beautiful king eider. Whether
they breed here or not I cannot say. Mr. Holmboe told
me he did not know the bird.

How wonderfully close the common eider sits. I
photographed a duck at the distance of two paces.
There were evidences, in scattered down and broken
eggs, of a good deal of robbery on the part of the gulls.
Of course an eider, when of her own accord she leaves
her nest, covers up her eggs from sight. And this
practice seems sufficient to defeat the gulls; though why
a keen-eyed gull should not notice that which is patent
to every one else is hard to understand. But, if a sitting
duck is startled, away she goes without more ado, often
scattering an egg or two over the edge of the nest. And

this is the robber’s chance.

20 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Kittiwakes we found by far the commonest birds of
Horns. They were nesting in colonies of many hundreds.
A few had already hatched, and I picked up a little one
dead.

Next in number came, I thought, herring gulls and
razor-bills, though puffins ran these close. We counted
five nests of the common cormorant, and three of the shag
—and these had young, but the others only eggs.

Horné was a very good place for observing birds. We
came toa corner and peeped over, and there below us
was such a round of nursery goings-on. For we took
the cliff at an angle, so that the whole thing lay open
like a book.

In and out of the holes, not six feet from our faces, the
consequential big-nosed puffins ran; while herring gulls
and kittiwakes were there in plenty with guillemots
(both black and Briinnich’s) and razor-bills sitting up on
end. We were rather a careless party ; but could I have
crept up there by myself, I should have had a fine time
indeed. Nothing would have seen me except a soaring
gull straight overhead, for I would have lain as flat as a
puff-adder, my very nose hidden; only just two eyes
spying through a tuft of grass.

Upon Horné also I saw three pairs of white wag-
tails, an odd raven, the meadow, rock, and red-throated
pipits, and the snow-bunting. Very handsome the cock
snow-buntings looked in their black-and-white dress, and
they were singing sweetly. The island held several

TROMSO TO VARDO 21

pairs. We saw the first on the turf root of a hut by the
sea. In vain we hunted for the eggs, and | began to
feel it was no wonder that the old bushman had failed to
find them, though he knew the birds so well, at Quick-
jock on the fields.

Once Hyland called to me that he had found a nest,
and that the bird was on. But, putting his hand into a
deep hole in the bank, he took out, not a sitting bird,
but a very forward young one, who had been hiding
there. This was a revelation, and afterwards we found
two lots of strong-flying young birds among the shingle
by the sea.

June 12th.—The next day I visited the other island,
Reno, by myself. When I called on Captain Lonnevig
(the most northerly Commandant in Europe) he was
very kind about this. He is the lessee of René, which
belongs to the town, and gave me leave to go and see it.
I liked Captain Lonnevig very much, he was so frank
and genial; and I much appreciated the privilege of
being allowed to prowl about René; for he is quite alive
to the great interest of the island under his care. Indeed
we had much in common that way. Only I wished I
had been better up in the local flora, for he took the
greatest interest in the flowers of René, which he said
were curiously different from those of the mainland. By
the way, Captain Lonnevig assured me that the king

eider only came to Vardé in the autumn.

22 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

I landed by myself in René, in a little bay where is a
turfed hut of the keeper—the only person on the island.

René was more interesting to me by far than Horné,
because it includes a much greater variety of land. The
coast on the south side is most curiously scarped, rising
in a series of sloping limestone slabs or terraces. The
steps are really from ten to, say, twenty feet in height,
and full of crevices, nice convenient places for birds to
nest in. Beyond this is rolling grass.

In these crevices nested the black guillemots. |
found the sloping terraces slippery and difficult to walk
on. But the guillemots didn’t. Far from it. They
were so bold that they came and settled, and ran into
their nesting holes right under my nose, as I lay down and
looked over. And they surprised me with their activity ;
for they lit as lightly as any pigeon on the rocks and
ran as nimbly. You could never have guessed from
their movements that you were looking at web-footed
birds at all. Indeed they appeared to me remarkably
like pigeons with extra red legs and beaks. They
nested so low down that I could easily put my hand
into their nests.

I picked up a little lesser black-backed gull in the
down, and brought him home. He was running about
in the grass famously—head down and shoulders up, just
as a falcon runs.

Eiders were nesting everywhere, in every possible
place—the sides of the cliffs, the rocks by the sea, the

TROMSO TO VARDO 23

top of the uplands, and in the marigold bog, side by side
with the herring gulls.

For many herring gulls had taken to a bog of marsh
marigold, making their nests sometimes on tussocks of
grass, sometimes in the middle of a marigold plant.
The lesser black-backs, on the other hand, kept almost
entirely to the upland grass.

I saw on René four Alpine hares, one of them all but
white. Also I saw a raven most unmercifully mobbed
by the gulls.

The snow lay in deep drifts in all the sudden hollows,
and some small mammal had been driving its burrows
into the snow.

I wished I had had many hours more to spend upon
this charming little island, and I look forward greatly
to the day when | can visit René again. Not Rend,
however, but Kolguev was our destination, and, with the
nesting season already advanced, Kolguev would not
wait. So this evening, at 10.15 exactly, we weighed
anchor and steamed away for the Land of Hope.

CHAPTER IV
VARDO TO KOLGUEV

Tue Land of Hope was far indeed from being the Land
of Promise.

Only one person in all England knew as much about
Kolguev as ourselves, and he was now away in a boat
too big to take into those shallow seas.

And we knew little enough. The Russians had failed
me altogether.

I had been at the pains the year before to go for
information all the way to the White Sea coasts, only
to find that not a soul among the Pomors could tell me
anything at all.

How an ignorance so curious had come about I will
explain later in this book. But you can easily see how
all this would just give an added element of interest to
our venture.

Whether those were right who had maintained that
we should find it quite impossible to land at all; whether
if we did succeed in landing, we should discover a har-
bour where the Saxoz might be secure; what birds,
flowers, and mammals we should chance upon; whether

we should find people there, or only a desolate and barren
24

VARDO TO KOLGUEV 2e

land—in a word, the idea of the unknown, this it was
which really attracted me, as it has attracted many before.

I do not know that it had a charm as strong for all
on board. I think the whalers, when they discussed
things in their bunks, very likely condemned it as a
poor move which might probably lead to disaster, but
could not bring in a barrelful of fat. I think the skipper
and the mate both considered it a queer sort of game
for a pleasure trip, and very different from the gentle-
men’s yachting of which they had always heard.

However, I did my best to show them all what we
might expect, reading aloud in the cabin after meals
extracts from the only two accounts I had been able
to find by men who actually had been on Kolguev. I
do not know that either of these were very exhilarating.
But just see how different they were in those particulars
which we wanted most.

For Maximow’s priest says this :—‘ The rivers Krivaya
and Gusina are already known to the inhabitants of
Mezen as a good resting-place for vessels; and the bay,
which cuts deeply into the island, is a safe harbour for
the biggest vessels coming from the White Sea: for
boats and schooners.’

But this is Saweljew :—

‘In its whole circuit Kolguev does not afford a single
safe anchorage or road, and its coasts are extremely
dangerous on account of the slight depth of the sea
and the sandbanks or koski.’

26 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

June 13¢h.—This could not be considered an eventful
day. Not that any day is really uneventful at sea. At
any rate, what with taking temperatures, shaping courses,
entering the log, and duties of that kind, we found plenty
of occupation. But the entries for this day and the next
in my diary contain little more than the log. I give
them, none the less, in the hope that they may be useful

to some future voyager off this coast.

‘a.m. wind SE., strong. Clear, with chequered sky. Shipped a
good deal of water. Midnight, wind NE., hazy. Heavy sea
from SE.

‘Barometer at noon, 29’9, and rising.

‘Thermometer, 8 A.M., max. 50°, min. 40°. 8 P.M., max. 50°,
min. 42°.

‘Surface-water temperature, 8 a.M., 39°; 8 P.M., 40°.

‘Latitude at noon (by observation), 69° 32’ N. Longitude (by
chart), 33° 42’ E.

At 2.30 P.M. were going three-quarter speed, with Kigten Island
abeam.

‘ At 3.45 P.M., because of the heavy sea, we shifted our course from
SE. by E. to SE. by S., with Monastery Point abeam.

‘6 p.M., Cape Tereberskoi abeam.

‘11 P.M., off Voroni rocks ; distant three miles.

‘We have seen to-day as many pomatorrhine as Arctic skuas.

‘A common sandpiper flew round us twice to-day when ten miles
distant from land.’

NVote.—The most trustworthy harbours on this coast (SE. of Var-
anger) are—(i.) Novaya Zemblya (69° 42’ N., 32° 6’ E), at the
north-west end of the Gulf of Motovski. It is land-locked
from every wind, and there is a safe course in by mid-channel.
(ii.) The east end of Kildin Island—(its NW. point is 69° 24’
N., 34° 5’ E.). (iii) Inside Oleni Island—(its centre is 69°
4'N., 36° 24’ E.). (iv.) The Seven Islands, nearer the White

VARDO TO KOLGUEV 27

Sea. (The centre of Karlov, the most western, is 68° 49 N.,
37. 22' E.).

‘June 14th—Wind N., fresh. Clear, but with cloudy sky, and
appearance of snow falling on the hills at times.

‘Barometer at noon 30°1, and rising.

‘Thermometer, 8 a.M., max. 40°, min. 38°. At midnight 37°.

‘Surface-water, 8 a.M. 38°; 4 P.M. 37°. Midnight 36°.

‘Latitude at noon (by observation). Longitude (by chart).

‘At 4 A.M. were on an E. course with strong breeze from N., with
heavy sea. Then we changed course to E.S.E., and at 8 a.m.
were off Sviatoi Nos. By 8.15 p.m. had crossed the head
of the White Sea and had Cape Kanin abeam; distant four
miles. From this point we steered E. by S. Log at midnight
showed 337 miles.’

This steady fall in temperature seemed to indicate
pretty clearly the presence of ice. How far off it was
we could not tell: the men thought a long way. At
any rate we could see no sign of it at present,—no
ice-blink—nothing. And it seemed to me wiser to get
some sleep now while there was nothing much to be
done. So, telling the watch to be sure and call me if
anything happened, at a quarter after midnight I turned

in.

June 15¢h.—I had hoped that eight o'clock this morn-
ing would see us off the southern point of Kolguev.
Very vainly often does man, alas! propose.

I scarcely seemed to have been asleep when the slowing
of the engines woke up both Powys and myself. Rushing
up on deck he reported ice. The following, we heard,

had happened.

28 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

It had remained clear till 1 A.m.; then at 1.30 A.M. we
had run into a fog, and ten minutes later had met the ice
about longitude 45° E. with the Kanin coast distant ten
miles. The plan at the end of this book will explain far
better than any words exactly how the ice lay.

The skipper was below: it was the mate’s watch. At
first he stood in for a bit between the ice and the land,
hoping for a way through. But, finding that the ice was
packed hard against the land, he had been compelled to
beat a retreat; and the Saxoz, now under less than half
steam, was feeling her way north-west along the edge of
the pack.

Before I go any further, it may be as well to say
something about the nature of this ice; for after we had
once left it we saw nothing of exactly the same character
again.

This ice, then, taken as a whole, was flat—almost
tabular. There were of course odd pieces and aggrega-
tions which were considerably thicker, but the general
run of it was, say, some foot and a half higher than the
water. The colour varied from pure white to a peculiar
green, with here and there a darker dirty piece, which
had evidently grounded somewhere. The green colour
is very characteristic of White Sea ice, and I have little
doubt that this, the ice which first obstructed us, had
come from the White Sea.

There was a certain amount of movement noticeable
here and there away out over the pack, but on the whole,

ICE OFF THE KANIN COAST

Face page 28

VARDO TO KOLGUEV 29

far as one could see from the bridge, the blocks were
pretty much welded together.

But round the edge of the pack itself all was movement.
For the ice here was of course quite loose in character,
and the floating blocks were spinning round as they
struck one another, forming and re-forming little patches
of clear water which closed and opened ceaselessly.

Every Arctic seaman who has spoken to me of this
since, has remarked that the ice was unusually late in
those seas this year. And it certainly was rather a facer
to have met with it so soon.

A Hammerfest owner of walrus sloops had told me
the year before that I should have nothing whatever to
do with ice at this time of year. And of course our
little craft was in no way fitted for such an encounter.
Had it come to a choice of forcing a passage or of retreat
we must have turned tail. But fortunately it never came
to that.

When we first came up on deck we were steering
north-east, with the Kanin coast on our starboard quarter,
having just turned the most westerly point of this first
ice at 68° 34’ N., 44° 32’ E.

After this we had rather an in-and-out bit of work as
we followed the ice round. Sometimes it led us north-east,
sometimes due north, and then again we would have to
take a north-westerly course.

At length we reached (as near as we could make it)
latitude 68° 57’, and here we found a wide open bight,

30 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

running about east by north, up which we steamed for
some eleven miles. At 8 a.m. this lead came unfortunately
to an end, and we had to go north-west once more.

At one time indeed it looked very much as if, with all
our trouble gone for nothing, we should have to put
about and run back for our first entry. By good chance,
however, things turned out better than that.

After a while we found ourselves opposed only by a thin
line of very loose and open ice. This was the tail end—
so to say—of the big ice-field on our port side, which
draggled out as the main body went floating to the west.
How far north-west this pack extended we could not
even guess. But across the open water to the north of
us the ice-blink was steadily shining; so we knew that
not very far ahead the enemy would be found again.
But we were not fated to encounter it.

Among the links of loose ice there were many pieces
quite big enough to damage us very badly if we had met
them fair ; but by slowing down the engines until we had
but just enough pressure on to keep us creeping, we
were able to worm our way through—stopping the
engines altogether now and then, or reversing as it
became necessary either to try and negative the impact
of a block or to retreat from it altogether.

At noon it was glorious sunshine, and we were able to
get good sights. This north-westerly point of the eastern
pack which we had rounded was as near as possible in
69° 16'N.

VARDO TO KOLGUEV 31

Now we crept up along the edge of the ice, going
north-east and making from three to six knots. But at
last we were able to change our course to the east, and
then, going at eight or nine knots speed, we bore down
to the south-east.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when we first
sighted long low fog clouds, evidently lying above some
land. It could be no other than Kolguev Island. Then
I for one felt very happy; it seemed as if we were doing
pretty well.

The men, of course, as is always their way, kept saying
they could see cliffs, mountains, and so on. But I think
it was all but six o'clock before we really made out land
that we could swear to, and even then it was constantly
obscured, as the fog lay down about it.

And now ducks became more frequent. Flocks of
king eider were dotted about, and elegant long-tailed
ducks in large lots were incessantly diving close to the
boat. Few birds are more strikingly beautiful or more
graceful in the water than the long-tailed duck. The
drake when in full plumage has a white head and neck,
and long white shoulder feathers; but early in the
summer as it was, we saw out of many hundreds of these
birds only one or two drakes which still had their fine
colouring, though they kept their long tail feathers till
quite late on in the year. However, as I shall have
something to say of these and other birds later on, I will

keep now to the voyage itself.

32 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

I naturally felt very anxious about our first approach
to this island of ill-fame; knowing that the sea about
it was, for a very long way out, exceedingly shoal.
It might be that we should find the ice grounded and
lying all about the island; or possibly in the shallow sea
the surf might make it impossible for our small boats to
take us in.

The skipper was, I considered, an excellent navigator.
But he was perhaps not a thoroughly self-reliant man ;
and after I found that whenever things came to a pinch
he was in the habit of looking to me for advice, I never,
at these junctures, left the bridge. And after all, when
it really is a case of dealing with the unknown and with
conditions which are changing every minute, it all comes
to a question of alertness and common sense. In other
words, there is a good deal which is instinctive in this
kind of work.

Well, at any rate, by seven o'clock we were well with-
in sight of Kolguev; going very cautiously with the lead
constantly at work, in some thirty fathoms of water; and
so far meeting no sandbanks.

Drawing up in this way we arrived by 8 p.m. some
three miles off the coast, and had about seventeen
fathoms of water. Then we turned a bit and steamed
slowly down.

It was certainly about as miserable and uninviting a
coast as you can well imagine. Trees you cannot expect
to find in these latitudes, but often their absence is more

¥ARDO TO KOLGUEYV re

than made up for by beauty of scenery in other ways—in
splendour of glacier or strength of the bastion cliffs across

which the sea-birds go in myriads like driven snow.
Here we had not this.

We had only a long low line of level monotony; of
snow that hung in festoons from the edge of a cliff which
seemed not more than some thirty feet high ; or again of
snow that formed tracks down the cliff’s sides and across
the beach to meet the ice-fringe of the sea, or opened at
intervals to show a wall of sand or clay, washed into
darker streaks by meltings and slippings from above.
Such was Kolguev as we saw it first.

Now you will remember, from the earlier part of this
story, that we had but few data to guide us in our attempt
to find a harbour for the Savon. But before leaving
England we had quite settled that the Waskina river
must be our first objective, and so far had had no
reason to change our views. It must either be the
Waskina, we thought, or Stanavoi Scharok, z.e. Scharok
harbour, on the eastern side of the island.

You may very naturally wonder why we should have
pitched upon this particular point.

Well, in the first place, in the only days of which we
had any accounts, traffic with Kolguev was from Mezen
and Indiga. The point at which these traders would
naturally touch would be the Waskina, and if there were
an entry there much used, one might expect to find it

marked in some way by beacons. And the fact that the
Cc

34 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

only line of soundings shown on any chart was just here,
viz., from Indiga to the Waskina, pointed to the same
conclusion. Moreover, I remembered to have seen in
an old coast-line map of Kolguev the word ‘ Hutte’ on
the right bank of the river. I also believed that the big
lake Promoince was the scene of the goose hunts, and
therefore on the whole it really seemed that here we
might find either a harbour, or at least people who
would come off to us in boats.

As we steamed slowly down the coast, we saw now and
then a little heap, which the glasses showed to be drift-
wood piled. Once too we passed a burial ground, as it
seemed to us, with posts and Russian crosses.

I scanned all the coast most anxiously for any sign of
a big river, but saw none. Now and again we passed a
little river entrance, or what looked like it, but it was
always completely blocked with snow or ice.

At last, to the disgust and disappointment of us all, we
again met the ice.

It was ice of a totally different character from that
which we had left behind. It was hummocky.

That one fact expressed much. It meant that the ice
had not, like the other, been formed in these seas. It
meant that it was polar ice, come down from the east and
north, It meant—though this we did not know at the time
—that, driven in upon the shallows by wind and tide, it
would form a barrier round the island which none

might pass for many a day to come.

VARDO TO KOLGUEV 35

And under these agencies much of it was already
stranded and piled up on those very sand-banks which
we had hoped to round. We could not dare, with the
little Saxon, to go very close to the pack, for advanced
outposts, in the shape of floating masses, any two of
which could have sent us to the bottom cracked up like
a hazel nut, challenged our approach. There was nothing
for it but to turn tail and find an anchorage elsewhere.
But where? That was just the question.

We steamied slowly up with the coast about two and a
half miles distant. Here we had about seventeen fathoms
of water, though we occasionally passed over a bank
where it was reduced to twelve fathoms.

At this time we all thought that it was only a question
of patience and the ice would shift, allowing us to reach the
Waskina. ‘Where shall we anchor?’ asked the skipper.

Some distance to the north a headland seemed to
stand out. ‘We will anchor there,’ I said; ‘we shall
probably find deeper water, and shall be a bit protected
from the wind.’

The skipper was for drawing straight up to this posi-
tion, but I did not at all like the chances of sand-banks,
so preferred to take the boat out again, and then stand
straight in when abreast of the point. This we did, and
as we drew in very gradually, the men at the lead giving
us twenty fathoms, seventeen, fifteen, ten, we found our-
selves at about a mile and a half from the shore in five
fathoms of water. Here we anchored. For the Saxon

36 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

drew twelve feet of water, and we had to reckon ona
slack tide since the water was now at flood. So we had
out thirty fathom of chain, and presently the Saxon
was swinging with the tide.

While this was going on, there was some excitement
on deck owing to the sudden appearance of a seal. And,
looking over the bridge rail, I saw my companion come
out of the cabin with his little rifle all ready. He shot
admirably, but a seal doesn’t give you much of a chance
when it comes up in that way, for it shows only its head,
and it is very hard to judge distances effectively across
the water. It is much as if you were to try and hit a
floating plum-pudding as it rose and fell at an unknown
distance on the water.

That which had looked like an important headland
had gradually lessened in height as we approached, until
it now seemed scarcely a headland at all, but only a very
slight prominence in the cliff, which rose to a height of
not more than forty feet.

This was one of our first experiences of an illusion
which was to be a great source of distraction to us from
that moment—the mirage.

It was 11 p.m. ; we had had a pretty long and rather an
anxious day, and | think none of us were sorry to turn
in. But first of all we served grog to the crew all round
to celebrate our arrival. For we really had arrived.
Though disappointed about the Waskina, we had so far
done fairly well. Ice or no ice, at any rate we were at
anchor off Kolguev.

CHAPTER V
OUR FIRST LANDINGS

June 16th.—The weather was so still and quiet that
it seemed quite safe to leave the Saxox for a bit and see
something of the island, before going south again to
find whether the ice had moved.

So at 10.30 on this morning we got into the small
boat, Powys with Duchess his retriever, rifle and gun,
I with the old spaniel Sailor, my gun with various shot,
and four rounds of ball cartridge. We took with us in
the boat Thomas Hyland (our bird-skinner), the skipper,
the mate, and four men to pull.

We found the beach partly covered with a coating of ice,
formed no doubt by the washing of the waves. This ice
stretched away out over the sea, forming a solid platform
indented with little creeks and bays. Into one of these
we ran the boat, and jumped out at last on to the ice.

Powys took the mate and two of the men, while
Thomas Hyland came with me. The other two men
returned to the Saxon with the skipper to prosecute
soundings. It was of course arranged that if anything
should call for our sudden return the steam whistle

should be sounded.

37

38 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

We had landed just below a big stream, which from
our position could be no other than the Kriva River.
I was naturally anxious to have a good look at this, which
was one of the points visited by Saweljew. And there-
fore, while my companion went straight inland, I walked
up the coast. But the tide was out. We found only a
wide river-mouth all sand, not a rock and scarcely a stone
visible, with just a stream of water in the channel, three

CROSS JUST ABOVE THE KRIVA
(From a Photograph by M. W. Powys)

feet deep or so. On the river sand was the track of a
fox. Then we turned south, going gradually inland.

I had some hopes of reaching the big lake Promoince
indicated on the chart; which would be about nine miles
from our assumed position. But of course we travelled
very slowly as we were hunting about, and it was not
until 8 p.m. that we at last came in sight of a huge lake.

We saw it from a little rise, and it could be no other
than Promoince ; but what puzzled me was this :—east
of it by the chart should be a second large lake between
the sandhills and the sea. The position of this we could

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 30

see well enough. We could see the ice lying grounded
all round the outer bank, but inside it nothing but a wide
stretch of mud. I found out the reason of this later on.
At present I simply chronicle the fact.

We had not very long to look, for I felt the wind
change on my face and was afraid that it might drive
the ice up to the vessel. So we turned and hurried
back. After we had been going for some time we heard
the vessel’s steam whistle, and saw that she was coaling
up.

The tide had risen in the river, as I had feared, and
ill would it have fared with us had we been a quarter of
an hour later. We just did it and that was all; for the
hummocky ice was close at the Saxon’s screw ; pushing
her up, up, up, until now she was all but abreast of the
river. However, they just had time to fetch us off in
the sailing dinghy before the river-mouth was passed.
Doubtless we could have swum through the river at a
pinch, but no one cares to do this when water is almost
down to freezing point. This, then, was the end of our
first day on Kolguev.

But we ought not to be at the end as yet. It was the
big lake that led me into this trap. In order to describe
this day more particularly we must go back a bit. And
first I will try and give you aclear idea of the country
as we first saw it.

The cliffs, as I have said before, where we could see

them for the snow, showed north and south much the

40 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

same character. They were pretty uniform in height,
and of sand, or sandy clay. The beach was the same,
with ridges of larger stones of the size of cobbles, and
bigger, which, with the exception of a few quartz, seemed
to be of a slaty nature.

Those cliffs, under the action of frost and waves, were
everywhere falling in; splitting perpendicularly in great
rifts, which in many places might be traced away on the
flat above, twenty yards or more from the cliff’s edge.

On all this south-western part of the island we could
not find a single hill; the ground was either dead flat or
else inclined a few feet to a sandy or peaty rise, or
dropped to a moss or shallow lakelet.

But far away, on our left hand, we could see, immensely
magnified by the mirage, the faint risings of those hills
or mountains of which Bolvana Mountain forms one of
the most southern spurs.

From the Kriva’s mouth the whole way down the
coast until the land drops to the mudflats, runs a line of
hard dry yellow sand, which tails off to the east into bog,
moss, and grass.

About five miles down the coast and a mile and a half
inland we came upon a fair-sized lake, whose shallow
sides were full of last year’s dead vegetation. We
thought we might as well name it, as it was the first of
any size we had seen, so we called it Saxon Lake.

Saxon Lake was a wonderful centre of bird-life.

Little stints were chasing one another round and round

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 41

and all about in parties varying in number from a single
pair to perhaps nine or a dozen together. I shall devote
later on in this book a separate chapter to the birds of
Kolguev.

This book will doubtless fall into the hands of many a
better ornithologist than myself. But some of my
readers who have not had much time or inclination to
follow the birds, may like, I think, to have a tip or two,
which my ornithologist readers will skip, about each bird
as we come to it. This, I hope, will make the book
more generally interesting.

The great charm of Arctic natural history lies in its
alliances with our own. Go right away into the tropics
and you go to another world—wonderful, dazzling but
strange. Those birds are here in our aviaries, those
flowers we have under glass. But even high up in the
circumpolar area you have many of our own old friends
among the flowers, dwarfed maybe, stunted by the cold,
but still the same; or else just little cousins not very far
removed.

And so too in the Arctic, north of Europe, nearly all
are birds we call British. By this we mean only that
they have all been recorded here at some time or other.
Many, as the Tromsé fieldfare, stay with us all the
winter, and then go away to nest. Some only stop with
us a little while in spring and autumn—just in passing
through to higher lands.

And the little stint is one of these. You may see

42 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

them running about the tidal creeks till quite the begin-
ning of June and later, and then off they go, returning
with their young ones sometimes by the end of July.
Quick work that, when you consider where they have
been.

And not very long ago no one could tell you where
they nested. Mr. Seebohm and Mr. Harvie-Brown
found out first, and since that time their eggs have been
taken nearer home. But never in England. So
naturally I looked at this little bird with much in-
terest.

And we saw many dunlins. The dunlin is another
of our waders, but it nests with us. They were flying
up into the air and making a noise, as they slantingly
descended like big grasshoppers. This is one of their
courtship practices, and may be compared to the drum-
ming of snipe.

The turnstone, too, was here in his lovely nesting
plumage and his orange-red legs. We do not often
see him in such fine feathers in this country. A large
proportion of those we have here in late summer or early
autumn are young birds with more sober colouring, and
the old birds then are fading too. For the turnstone
does not nest with us. It just gives us a look in when
passing north in May, and then later on its return south.
This lovely bird has a far more elaborate song than that
of any other wader I know. You really may call it a
song—TI put it down at the time as ‘Chéwah, chéwah,

fb aang sony

LSON SNYMS FHL

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 43

chéwééki, ki-ki-ki kee kee’—and he sings it com amore,
from any little mound.

And we came on a fine playing place of the ruff. In
the Cromwell Road Museum is a glass case in which the
scene is capitally represented—for a drama of silent life.
I think it is really one of the most astonishing perform-
ances, more striking by far than the blackcock’s lekking,
because the bird is so small and so grotesque in appear-
ance. And though they are reducible to some dozen
types or so, there are never two exactly alike. How-
ever, we have done our best to drive them from their
homes in England, and have succeeded far too well.

We saw many pairs of grey plover, and much to my
surprise, either none of golden, or but one pair about
which I was doubtful.

A pair of large waders flew wildly off. I thought
them godwits, but was not sure.

Long-tailed ducks were exceedingly abundant—every
little pool holding its pair. A duck brought in by
Hyland contained a fully formed egg.

King eider, too, were numerous—I shot a pair. The
duck had not been sitting. On one of the lakes I
saw one pair of scaup, which rose and flew off, the
drake croaking like acrow. Also that day we had the
passage with the swans, which, if I detail it according to
my purpose at: the end of the book, will there be found
by those who get so far. And the grouse we found also,

which will be the subject of some comment later on.

44 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Besides these birds we found the red-necked and the
grey phalarope, and in their stomachs were the remains
of mosquito larve. So J knew we should be troubled
with this enemy when the sun grew hot.

Of flowers we came at once on Mardosmia frigida, a
well-known Arctic plant, and
saw the dead remains of a

Potentilla and of a large um-

=~" bellifer. The cloudberry which
aie

g "My dant

we left in flower at Tromsé
at fae" only showed a small green
shoot at long intervals. The
cranberry was just pushing a
few green leaves through the
moss. In Saxon Lake I saw
what I took to be the dead
remains of a Potamogeton, and

THE CLOUDBERRY.

I looked in vain for the A/zppuris which was so abun-
dant at Tromsé. I made notes on many other plants,
but as none of them have popular names, or I do not
know these where they exist, I shall be better advised
to leave them all to my chapter on flowers.

We saw no human beings, nor any very recent signs
of their presence. But we did come upon old sleigh and
reindeer tracks, also upon beacons built up of drift-wood
(which was very abundant), and circular furrows round
rises where chooms had evidently stood.

Also I pointed out to Hyland a place where stones

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 45

had been pulled out of the ground evidently by human
hands. Powys picked up two bears’ skulls, and a curiously
shaped and drilled bit of bone, which the mate pro-
nounced a bit of walrus tusk shaped for a harpoon
handle. But I had no doubt that it was formed of
reindeer horn; though as to its significance I could not
make any guess. It was, as I knew later, a powder
measure. Of which more in its place.

Of mammals we saw evidences of none, except a fox’s
track, droppings, and kennel in the moss; the footprint
of a reindeer, and another like that of a wolf. But this
no doubt was a dog’s.

The bogs were only soft on the top. Two inches
below the surface your foot struck the ice, so that it was
much like walking on a London pavement in time of
slush.

For some time we steamed slowly on in front of the
ice. But with the neap tide it fell again to the south.
We seemed to be clear of it for a bit, and began to look
out for a good anchorage. At midnight, however, the
ice reappeared and chased us up, stretching away on
our port bow. But as we found we could just keep it in
hand without steam, and as it had become important to
save every possible ounce of coal, we dodged along the
edge of the pack northward under jib, And so we

went all that morning.

June 17.—At noon we had the trawl out, and worked

46 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

it for about five hours. At the end of which time it
seemed better to haul it up as we had taken nothing but
a medusa and a slaty stone.

We found the boat sailed very fairly well a point off
the wind, and this day we had used the screw very
little, just keeping the fires banked against any sudden
call.

At eight o'clock on this evening we came to our anchor
in 42 fathoms of water, with 24 fathoms of our port cable
out. We were now just off the Sauchika river, as we
judged by a dead reckoning. That is to say, we were
lying about a mile from the coast, about sixteen miles to
the north of parallel 69°.

Powys and I soon felt like clean run salmon, for getting
all the lumber out of the bath-room we had a bath for
the first time since leaving England. One of the draw-
backs to the extreme activity of the yacht Saxoz was,
that even in an ordinary quiet swell the bath, when
filled, would respond at once by emptying itself all over
the floor. We had therefore made it into a store place
for bottles and many other things.

An hour later we went ashore in the small boat. We
landed and got off again not without considerable diff-
culty, because of the surf and the steepness of the beach.
Powys walked inland with the mate for sporting purposes.
I was alone, except for old Sailor the spaniel, and wanted
to inquire more carefully into this approach.

I found that there was no river at all. It is quite true

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 47

that from the sea it looks like a river entry; and Sawel-
jew, who no doubt only saw it from the sea, was very
naturally deceived; or, if not Saweljew, the navigator
who named the place.

There were two small entries, the southern of which
was quite closed by a bar, and the northern almost so,
except that it was crossed by a little stream which ran
out of a lagoon which lay behind the cliff. This lagoon
was filled with brackish water. Into it ran a small snow
stream across which I stepped. In it I found a lump of
red granite and a small half nodule of iron. The cliffs
at this point were higher than we found them to the
southward, and were overhung with beds of peat.

Just above the lagoon was a sandy rise. On this I
found a small sleigh. It was in pieces, but I easily fitted
it together. I thought it was a dog sleigh. But the
mate, when I showed it to him on the ship, assured
me that he had seen the Eskimos of Smith’s Sound use
just such another when at their sport. They would, he
said, fasten some green thing to it, and then, lying down
flat on the belly, push it along before them, so that
behind this cover they could approach their quarry. All
of which I found to be equally true of the Samoyeds
when I came to know these people. My find was, then,
a stalking sleigh.

I did not go very far, because I was much interested
in some small insects; particularly in a sort of little
sandfly with very big eyes. This fly advanced by hop-

48 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

ping, so that it was not easy to catch, but by patience
I effected it. Also I followed the movements of a
minute red active bug, which I believe to have been the
same as that we call the money-spinner here at home.

A pair of turnstones had made many sham nests, and
one was ready for eggs. A Lapland bunting’s nest,
though empty, was also quite finished. .

A grouse was sitting on twelve eggs, of which I took
SIX.

All the while that I was prowling round this part, a
pair of glaucous gulls sat and watched me, and once

Samoved's Slabkinngs Stagh.
The's > abeut- 3 fost bong. Ja Res peoyeokg foie qh uparght:

brushes af coLtuny ane ‘ted, and hey SUbEh Co puatid aga Screen,

the male bird came and mobbed me slightly. So I
thought they had a nest; but search as carefully as ever
I could I failed to come upon it.

I chanced on a pool where there was one red-throated
diver and a pair of wigeon. A fine yellow-ringed
humble-bee came booming round me, but I could not
take him, for I had no net.

I had been probing carefully along a line of drift as
one who looks for gold, till my back ached with stooping.
Straightening myself up I suddenly saw just in front of
me a veritable flower-garden—a bank green with grasses

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 49

and spangled blue and pink. The sun was shining
brightly, and the thing was so unexpected and so beauti-
ful after the dreariness that had gone before, that I gave
quite involuntarily a shout or cheer, or some noise which
made old Sailor come running up.

In a moment I was up the bank on hands and knees,
picking and digging up flowers. Sailor at first was much
excited at this move, but after he had stuck his nose into
several places, and could find no smell of bird or beast,
he drew off and sat and watched me for a fool.

Forget-me-not was here, and flowers in purple, white,
and pink (Astragalus), and a tiny veronica, as well as a
buttercup (Ranunculus acris).

This was such an attractive spot that we talked of
landing again to-morrow. But it was not possible; for

we had to shift our anchorage.

June 18th.—Powys had turned in and I was writing
my diary in the chart-room, when, chancing to look up
from my task, I saw that the sky to the north, which had
long looked queer, was growing very curious. Whether
it meant wind or fog I did not know, but obviously one
or the other was threatening.

I went out on deck. The skipper and the mate were
both below, and I routed the watch out of the galley.
Bidding him keep a good look-out and report any change,
I went on writing.

About one o’clock I was out again. The sky looked
D

50 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

worse. It was clear enough with us, and there was
strangely little wind ; but across the north of the island
an far away to seaward long black and copper streaks
of something driving—snow, fog, rain, I could not tell
which—made things look very queer.

I did not like it at all, Ours was a most exposed
anchorage. The wind was then from the north-west ;
but it chops so quickly hereabouts that I felt at any time
we might be caught. So, instead of turning in, I got
out my paint-box and made a careful study of the coast.
Immediately opposite the cross on this sketch is Sauchika
entry, and from here we could just see the Kriva head-
land where we lay before.

The most noticeable point in the coast-line from this
position is the ‘cow’s horns.’ But I am afraid that a
sketch, be it never so careful, would be of little use toa
future voyager after a year or two had gone by. Liitke
published his projections, and very carefully they were
done. Meantime the cliffs have crumbled and tumbled,
and all is changed.

As time went on the sky improved, but, all the same,
one could not but feel that we had no right to be lying
out here while there was a chance of finding a snug place.

The Gusina, if any, promised to be such. Here it was
the Raskolniks landed, and here it seemed possible we
might too. So, at 4.30 a.M., when the skipper came up,
I told him what I thought: whereupon we got up steam
and moved off. All looked fair now; there was no par-

OUR FIRST LANDINGS

ticular reason for being awake, so
at 5.30 A.M. I turned in.

An hour later they sent down
to wake me up. We were just
making Gusina Point. I did not
much like these tactics. If any
sailor should read this, very likely
he will laugh at my ideas, for I
make no pretence to be a sailor.
But I have a feeling that when
you get a river debouching like
this, and protected by a point which
checks the tide, a bank under
water is to be dreaded. At any
rate there was very little water, it
was nearly high tide, and I was
afraid of grounding.

So we stood out again, and a bit
to the northward, and then came
straight for the river which we
could see, bearing SE. by S. We
felt slowly along, the water getting
less and less, and at last came to
an anchor in 44 fathoms, about a
mile away from the river-mouth.

It was now half-past ten in the
morning, The sea was all muddy

from the river water, and we sent

N

ines

oe

3

MAS hes,

oI

52 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

out a boat to sound in every direction. Not a bit of it.
Not a ghost of a channel could we find: luck was
clearly against us.

The wind shifted to N.NW., and a vile, drying, freez-
ing fog came on: so all day we could not move.

But we made the best of it. Powys kept up our
spirits with the banjo, and we sang, skinned, and ate

many figs.

June 19th.—The changes in the air temperature in
the shade were instructive. When the fogs came on
the thermometer fell through 10°, the surface water
temperature varying only from 33° to 30° as the ice was
near or farther off.

This miserable fog lasted all night, and only cleared at
ten o’clock this morning. Then we went ashore to
see something of the place and to get fresh water.

We had tough work to get in. Again there was a
bar—a bad bar. But over it was running the river very
fiercely all in flood, and the water where it-met the sea
—for the tide was then making—curled and rolled
and broke in a very ticklish manner. But we had
good men at the oars, and biding our time ran in at
last on the crest of a big wave, and found ourselves in a
channel no more than six feet deep.

I had taken my collecting gun, so while the man was
filling the barrel Powys and I walked about. We had
landed on the eastern side. We could see no sign

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 53

whatever of the old huts of the Raskolniks. Only there
were two or three heaps of drift-wood piled up ready
for carrying away. The river's mouth was wide and
muddy; and all the land about was rolling, lichened,
and filled with snow in the hollows. An idea was
passing through my mind that we might have to land
here for good. And although this was greatly against
my hopes you may be sure I looked about pretty criti-
cally. But it was a bad camping ground; there seemed
not to be a single hollow where a tent could be secure
from the winds.

I shot a red-throated pipit, and we saw a pair of
twist-tailed skuas.

We were walking slowly along when we distinctly
heard a sound like a shot fired. A few minutes more
and we heard a second. But after thinking it over we
concluded it must have been a cracking of the ice.

It is in the nature of such enterprises as this that
the interest, and whatever of excitement may exist,
must be rather for those who are doing the things
than for those who come thus to them at second-
hand. Could I but put my readers fairly into our
position ; could I but put into them the thoughts and
a certain eagerness which inspired us, then I think
they would be carried on. Then the dry facts would
have a living interest. For see. We had reached,
actually reached the land which so many had gibed at
our hopes of reaching We had now three times been

54 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

upon it; we had our little craft all safe so far; and on
board of her our nets, dredging and collecting gear, our
instruments, and all that we could require for a proper
diagnosis of this new land. We had everything but the
one without which all the rest would go for nothing.
In a word, we had no harbour.

Those who can follow this out to the extreme of its
bearing will understand me when I say that the situa-
tion, dull as it must read, was interesting enough for us.

The tide ran stronger. We waited long about the
river-mouth before we could find it wise to venture out,
and when at last we pulled out with might and main we
had much wary nursing of our little boat before we could
take a wave safe enough to carry us over this critical
place. We shipped much water, but we got through.

The boat had to go again for water, and coming out
was all but swamped. Indeed, seen from on deck, she
seemed once to have really gone, so greatly was she
buried in a wave which broke upon her. The greatest
credit was due to those fine fellows who brought her
through.

At noon ice came down to us from the north. It
threatened to close us in. There was no help for it;
we must steam again.

Off we steamed, and away down the land. It
was beautifully clear, with a growing breeze from the
north. By 4 p.m. this had strengthened to a stiff wind.
We then set sail—our big square sail for the first time—

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 55

and, though ice-blink covered nearly all the horizon to
the west and south, we saw for a long time no ice. The
day wore on—we had passed Sauchika entry and the
Gobista mouth. Evening came—we were sailing past
the Kriva and still had met no ice. It really did look
hopeful. Perhaps, after all, we should at last round the
corner and find the Waskina.

Alas! The tide that brought ice on us from the
north had certainly pushed the southern pack down,
and the wind too had helped to that end. But limit of
compression had been reached. We were lower than we
had been before: and at 11.30 P.M. were off the sand-bar
where ‘Shore-Lake’ used to lie. To round these sand-
banks was impossible. Two miles to the south the old
enemy lay in wait; an ice-field grim, uncompromising,
impossible. Its better acquaintance we did not desire.

We dropped an anchor and stayed.

June 20th.—When I turned in at two o'clock this
morning the situation was unchanged. I had waited
and waited hoping against hope that the ice would move
and let us pass.

I slept too soundly by some bad luck. Usually I was
tike some weasel always popping a nose out of the hole
every hour or two to see that things were right. This
time I had clean lost consciousness for nearly five hours
straight off, and was only awakened after seven by the

sound of the screw.

56 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

This had happened. The watch had been badly kept.
At half-past six ice had been reported, coming up. The
engine had only half pressure (25 Ibs.) on. The ice
came up with extraordinary rapidity right in the face of
the wind. Nearer and nearer it had come until it was
close up to the vessel’s screw. Mercifully the steam
was just up—but only at that moment—and we had
slipped out of the dragon’s mouth. It had been a
narrow squeak—too narrow to be pleasant by a very
long way. I must confess I was glad I hadn’t been on
deck a moment before. If a block of that ice had
touched our screw ten chances to one we should have
paid dearly for it. Had I been on deck an hour ago
we should then have been tacking away. Vain questions
do no good. We didn’t ask the skipper why he hadn’t
tried the sails. All the men were very grave and silent.
They had all had an object-lesson which they would
not soon forget.

We had now, however, a little notion of what this ice
really was. It was, as the skipper put it, ‘real, solid,
polar ice—same as we had in Smith’s Sound.’ Rough,
jagged, tumbled, hummocky, it had come, setting south-
westward, from the Novaya Zemblya seas.

As long as I live I shall regret this day because of a
fatal mistake. We should have landed at Kriva for good
and all; and we didn’t. We could have done it, but we
lost the chance, and it never came again.

Reluctantly, slowly, we moved up in front of the ice.

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 57

It pushed us up, so to say. As long as we had it well
in hand we didn’t care. We still clung to the hope of
a harbour, and harbour there was none on this side.
If this ice was coming on, the northern ice might be
going back. It seemed that we might yet find a way
round by the north when that ice went up with the tide.

We sailed as much as we could, saving our coal all we
knew. But I had made up my mind on a point which,
before I turned in, I unfolded to my companion.

‘If,’ said I, ‘we can’t get round the north of the island,
then I land to-morrow.’

Now will I enter upon considerations which I should
not deem it necessary to give, were it not that, since my
return to this country, I have been taken to task in
more than one quarter for the ‘folly and rashness’
of committing another and myself to such uncertain
chances as offered themselves upon the island.

But the reader who reflects that we had the evidence
of our eyes that there had been, if not lately, at any rate
not very long since, persons on this island with their
reindeer and their sleighs; that even if these people had
crossed to the mainland they would be coming back
again when the sea was clear; or else that some from
the mainland would come to them—for nothing is more
certain than that even Samoyeds would not long exist with-
out flour and other necessaries of life ;—and finally, that we
had come all the way with no other object but to inquire
into this very country—the reader, I say, who reflecting

58 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

thus will put himself into my place, will, I venture to
believe, acquit me of everything but a very sensible
intention to carry out, as I might be able, the object at
which we had been at so much pains to arrive.

And I did not dislike this island. ‘A good island;
may God bless it,’ people had said in the priest’s paper.
And these words had stuck in my head.

But, to be sure, my thoughts were not shared by all.
Our old Greenland hands had conceived a very immov-
able prejudice against this place. They could not
imagine what in the world any one could want with
such a miserable-looking and inhospitable district. No
whales, if we except a beluga who showed for a moment
at the Gusina mouth—no bears—nothing that seemed to
them worth the trying for.

And this part of the consideration weighed much with
my friend, and very naturally, as I could not but admit.
For not every one is so much concerned in flowers and
birds and objects of nature that he will venture himself
for them into the unknown. And toa keen sportsman
ever hoping for large game worth the killing it seemed
indeed a promise of disappointment. So, very wisely,
Powys determined that he would journey still further
afield. ‘To Novaya Zemblya he would go, and he went,
for bigger quarry.

He was very much set against my purpose. He urged
that I might not find these people, and what should I
do then, with much to the same effect. I acknowledged

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 59

the kindness and good friendship of this; but the mind
which is completely made up is no longer open to
alternatives.

And so ended the sixth day of our disappointment.

June 21st.—The morning settled it. The wind was
chiefly north ; but sometimes it was north-west, and then
in little over an hour’s time had swung right across to
the north-east. Anyway, it was bad as bad could be for
the northern ice.

Over the north of the island swept the same fog-
clouds, black and copper, and wicked in look. When
they lifted for a moment there was the ice-blink, as
steady as it had been before.

We talked over our position. It came to this. We
had just enough coal for a run to Vardé—we had thirteen
tons or so—but not more. To go on playing this game
of dodging and waiting was to ruin all. What would I
not have given to be back at the Kriva! But it was
now too late; the ice was chasing us up.

And so I had to land.

And then this question arose. Should I go alone or
should I take Hyland with me? I was strongly inclined
to go alone. I mentioned it to Hyland; he begged me
not to leave him behind. And when I pointed out to
him that it would be no child’s play—that, indeed, we
might not come upon the natives at all and should
have to trust to our guns for food, he still said he would

60 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

come. I liked him much for this ; because I knew quite
well that his friends the sailors, who had formed the
gloomiest views of the place, had told him in effect that
he would only be going to his death. However, it was
settled : Hyland should come too.

We had this understanding. We should take a
month’s provisions, which might be made to last five
weeks. Also one of the little tents, the instruments, and
a few other necessary things. On landing we should go
into camp, and then, leaving all we could not carry, walk
down the coast to the mouth of the Waskina and try for
the Samoyeds. Should we fail in meeting them there
then we were to travel on to Stanavoi Scharok (ze.
Scharok harbour), which we believed to be the place
where the Russian gunboat had lain last year for a
few hours, according to information which Powys had
obtained from the Russian Consul in Vardé, and had in
writing from him.

Any plan or change of plan I undertook to put on paper,
and to bury six feet due north of a cross which I should
erect at such points as we might reach. And the further
to protect it from busy hands, I was to write on it
these words in Russian, ‘ Nicholas the Priest,’ because it
seemed that this, could it be read, would make any
aggressor pause. I here calculated on the reverence
or the superstition of the native mind.

Then the Saxon, after coaling at Vardé, should run for
Novaya Zemblya, and returning in a month’s time call

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 61

for us. We should still, we thought, have time for some
work at dredging and in other directions, which we could
not do without the boats.

But, though we all ¢hough¢ the ice would be gone by
that time, none of us could pronounce on such a point as
this. This consideration added to my friend’s anxiety
on my account. So then I relieved him of all concern
and of all obligation. ‘Do not worry. If you can come,
come. But if not, then we will cross with the Russians
or the Samoyeds, or with any that do cross that sea.
Or should the Russian gunboat give us a call we will
go with her; and that is all one.’

Because the year before, when I was in Archangel, the
governor had been so kind as to offer to send me in
the gunboat when she went to Novaya Zemblya. And
although that would have been too late for my venture,
I had from Vardé the other day sent a note to Archangel
inviting the officers to call and see us when they came
that way.

So thus it was arranged.

The men knocked up a little sleigh, on which we
entertained I scarcely know what hopes of bearing some
things across the tundra. And at 8.30 in the evening we
got all our packages into the boat and pulled away to
Sauchika entry.

We were foiled.

For the wind was against the tide. Great rollers were
running up and smashing on the shallow sands, and

62 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

though we hung about for a bit we could not make it
other than an undertaking far too dangerous. We had
all but left the return till too late. The ice, as we pulled
back, was fairly vaczng up upon the yacht.

How wicked it looked! Monstrous lumps indeed they
were, pounding on, one after the other, dipping and
swaying like great hungry sea-bears thrown forward as
cavalry from the pack.

There was an old man pulling in the stern thwarts who
had spent a lifetime in the Greenland seas. He made an
impression on me I shall not hurriedly forget. His hard
old face, half fear and half defiance, he never stopped
inveighing at the ice. ‘Damn thee,’ he said, ‘damn
thee, are ye coming on then, ye blackguard, are you
going to have us this time? God Almighty, but it’s close
you are !|—Now then, boys,—oh, the devil!’ and we just
missed a big block. Thus ran his adjuration ; only
he said it in the Scotch, and he said it in the whaler’s
form of words.

“You don’t seem very fond of the ice, Jim?’ I
remarked.

‘I have lost too many relations by it,’ he replied, ‘and
blood is thicker than water.’

There came to my tongue-tip, but I did not say it:
‘And thicker than either is ice.’

We were on board again, catching up the boat and
slipping off only just in time.

You can imagine something of our feelings. I

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 63

knew well enough there was now but one chance
left.

That chance was the Gusina River. It would put the
whole island's length between the Waskina and ourselves.
But it was that or nothing this time. Now you partly
see why passing by the Kriva was so fatal a mistake.
We steamed north. Suddenly we were moving in a dead
calm: the water was like oil. This was eloquent—a sign
we had learnt to understand well. But the ice had
moved to the north of the river ; so we could land there
if the tide allowed.

Once more we filled the boat and pulled off. As I said
good-bye to Powys, whom we left upon the ship, I
promised I would stay in camp at least till the following
evening to assure myself that the Savon was through.

What if the northern and the southern ice stream,
formed by the island, came together a few miles to the
west ?

The skipper said he had no doubts on this score, and
most earnestly I trusted he might be right. But who
could tell ?

We reached the river-mouth. All was well. We pulled
in and landed, not on the right or northern bank where
we had landed before, but on the left or southern.

I chose the best spot that offered for the tent on the
sand of the river-side, under the lee of a bank which

separated the river from the sea, and there we stowed

the things.

64 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

It was just on midnight.

Of all the depressing partings I have ever had to get
through this was the worst.

One by one the sailors came and shook hands with us
as with doomed men. I rallied the mate on this glum
proceeding with ‘Nonsense; you wouldn't mind coming,
would you?’ ‘Now, sir, look here,’ was the mate’s

GUSINA CAMP

reply, ‘I wouldn’t pass a month on that there island, not
for a thousand pounds—there, not if you was to give me
the Saxon. Then he shook Hyland by the hand,
slowly and lingeringly, and uttering words I could not
catch. But Hyland told me what he said.

It was, ‘Well, good-bye, good-bye for ever. I shall
never see you again.’

Poor good fellows, they meant it well enough—and I
am sure their hearts were right. But I was very angry
at the time; it seemed so disproportioned to the very

OUR FIRST LANDINGS 65

humble venture we had before us. And I thought it
so hard on Hyland.

But the men pulled off.

While we were arranging the tent old Sailor was
sniffing round, and came to a halt on the top of the bank,
his ear cocked, pointing down into a crevice. There,
far down, we found a snow-bunting’s nest which held
six eggs. It was a pretty incident, and I took it for
a good omen.

The sun was getting higher, and the river floes and
all the banks were flashing wonderfully.

We could not have landed at a more delightful hour ;
and we were in the best of spirits.

PART II

SHows our life in our first solitary camp —
How we followed vain hopes— Of foolish
wanderings—A seal hunts for ducks—How we
walked right across the island—Our interests
by the way — Of snow gullies — Of icy
rivers — Of the birds and animals—
The geology and natural features
—And of how, finally,
we fell in with the
Samoyeds.

CHAPTER |
IN GUSINA CAMP

Fune 22nd.—An hour after we had landed the Saxon
was under way. For a long time I watched her standing
away to the westward, and then set to work to get
things square.

You saw in the picture how we were just separated
from the sea itself by a clay bank, so that we could
not work and watch too.

The actual fixing up of the tent did not take us very
long, for these Whymper tents are certainly good in that
way. But of course we had a good deal to do besides
that.

It took us some time to collect wood for the fire. The
beach was strewn with drift-wood, and some of it was
heavy to bring in. Hyland, who was far better than I at
carrying weights, really surprised me by the enormous
logs and trees he bore in on his shoulders. Many of
these stranded trees had been chipped by the axe on the
spot where they lay, and some of them quite recently.
Of course we looked at them with great interest, as
they were, if we except the sleigh-tracks, the first

evidences we had seen of human occupation.
69

70 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

After a bit we had a fine pile of drift-wood collected,
and, making a roaring fire, cooked some supper.

Hyland was very anxious to shoot a grouse for break-
fast, so I sent him off with his gun. When he returned
at 3.30 a.M. he brought with him a fine cock bird, and
told me that the Saxon was still visible, and going ahead
all right.

It was not at all a pleasing morning, for a chill fog
had settled down over the island. However, it cleared
away about nine o'clock.

We were sitting at breakfast when we distinctly heard,
as we both believed, two shots fired. The sound seemed
to come from an easterly direction, exactly from the same
point whence Powys and I had thought we heard them
the other day—last Tuesday.

It at once struck me that our wisest plan by far was
without any delay to try and find this mysterious shooter.

Unfortunately we were on the wrong side of.the
Gusina. However, we took our guns and old Sailor, and
followed down between the river and the sea.

And now it was that we had the first experience of
those snow-filled gullies which were to give us so much
trouble later on. Many of those we met with in the
interior of the island were much more formidable than
these; but I think I may as well describe them once for
all.

Imagine, then, a deep, narrow dene or combe with
very suddenly sloping sides. This in the winter would

IN GUSINA CAMP 71

be entirely filled with drifted snow. Now, as this snow
begins to thaw, it drops, of course, towards the middle,
until it lies at the sides at an angle say of 45°. At the
bottom forms a stream, the banks of which vary in height
from six to twelve feet or more, and are either perpendi-
cular, or more frequently sloping inwards, so that the
edges overhang. You will understand at once what a
nasty place this would be.

A GULLY

But very often the stream itself was out of sight—
entirely bridged over with snow; only you could hear
the water plashing and tinkling somewhere down below.
Here, then, was a regular trap. If by any chance one
had fallen through the snow-bridge or had otherwise

72 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

found oneself at the bottom, I really do not know how
one could have got out. For we had no ropes, nor any
appliances for snow or ice work.

Old Sailor, too, was an anxiety. The old dog was
pretty active, considering his years, but I was always
afraid of his getting caught. He was very quaint about
these places; inspecting them most carefully before he
would commit himself in any way. He didn’t at all
like this mysterious sound of water in the depths, and
when he came to a little bit of a thing which I could step

across, he would make the most prodigious leap—landing
often with a couple of feet to the good. This satis-
factorily accomplished, he would just look over his
shoulder at the place, and then rush about like a puppy
and roll in the snow, as much as to say, ‘That was
rather a fine jump—another of them defeated.’

Well, at last, after following several curious horse-shoes

which the river makes, we came to a grassy cliff from

IN GUSINA CAMP 73

which there was quite a panorama. Below us the river
made almost a circle, ringing round a peninsula of sand
and grasses, where was a Russian cross, marking, as it
seemed, a burial-place.

A peregrine falcon rose as we approached, and we
found the nest half-way down the cliff, just under where
I have put the star in the sketch.

The nest, on a little projection in the grass cliff, was a
simple depression in the ground, scantily lined (though
it was scarcely a lining) with dead grass and a few bits of
down, no doubt from the sitting bird.

It contained four eggs.

The cliff at this point was not in the least degree pre-
cipitous : it sloped, rather than fell, to the water's edge.
But there was an entire absence of castings and of
remains of food about the nest. There was not a bone
or a feather to show the predatory nature of the occupant.
I afterwards found a few pellets about the Russian cross
—an obvious resting-place—but by the nest nothing.

My readers will know that all the birds of prey, and
many others besides these, throw up or eject the indiges-
tible part of their food—the bones, fur or feathers—in
the shape of castings or pellets. You can see the bird
‘choke’ much as a ruminating cow does, and then the
pellet appears. Any one who has kept these birds in
captivity—any falconer, for instance, knows quite well
that it is no good offering the bird a new meal until this
part of the last one has been got rid of. It is very

74 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

necessary too for the health of these birds that natural
food of this sort should be given. When you see—as you
sometimes do see—a collection in which the birds of
prey are fed on plain horse-flesh or liver, you may feel
sure that they will not remain long in good health.
Examine these pellets every day to see whether all
meat has been properly digested, and you have at
once a simple key to the success of the vegzmen and the
bird’s condition. But this is a digression.

Now, some raptorial birds never let these pellets be
seen near the nest, but others are not so particular. Our
screech or barn owl leaves its mouse-bone and mouse-
fur pellets all about its nest, but our brown or tawny owl
either moves them away or is careful to eject them at a
distance. At any rate I have never seen any castings at
a tawny’s nest.

On the other hand, you will find reliable accounts of
peregrine’s breeding places in which not only pellets
were seen but much old food, so that Yarrell says: ‘ The
presence of birds’ bones in or around the nest seems to
be the rule, and upon the top of the cliffs near St. Abb’s
Head, where Selby visited a nest, he noticed, scattered
in great profusion, the castings of the falcons.’? But it
is quite obvious that, in such an instance as this, the
young birds were hatched; the food was for them, and
the castings were theirs.

Just opposite the Russian cross the river, widening

1 British Birds, 4th ed., i. 59.

IX GUSINA CAMP 75

out, seemed to be shallower. 1 took off some things and
waded across, while Hyland sat with Sailor and watched.
The river was about a hundred yards wide, and there
were some nasty-looking places where the current set
very strongly. So I went slowly up and down, feeling
my way along the shallows with my toes, for you couldn’t
see the bottom, it was so muddy. At its deepest it
was only half-way up one’s thighs. Snow water is not
warm, and for a few minutes after landing I could not
tell my feet from my boots.

Hyland came manfully across in half the time that I
had taken. But, though I am afraid I chaffed him a bit,
I was really very sorry for him, poor fellow; he felt
the cold so badly. It seemed to catch him higher up
than in my case. I fancy that the practice of having
a cold bath every morning perhaps makes one less
sensitive.

Sailor thought nothing of it, though he had to swim.
Dogs must look. on us as very poor and imperfect
creatures in view of the fuss we make over a thing so
simple to them.

Under the cross I found a wooden implement which
I took for a paddle. I thought possibly it had belonged
to one of the poor Raskolniks, but I know now that
it was a Samoyed dough-trowel or spatula, and that
this was therefore a Samoyed grave. All of which will
appear later on.

Just after this we came upon a fox-warren. If you

76 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

look at the end of Sir George Nares’ book on the Arctic
Expedition of 1875 you will find a most interesting account
by Colonel H. W. Feilden of this animal’s habits as
observed in Grinnell Land. Had I known of this before
I should have made a closer inquiry into the interior of
the holes. As it was, I noticed only that the place was
strewn with the remains of geese, and that the sternum
and fore-legs of a small seal were lying there. I was on
the look-out for the remains of the lemmings, so I did of
course look down into the burrows as far as I could see ;
but very possibly a little digging might have revealed
the larders described by Colonel Feilden. We could not,
however, afford to wait if we were to find the firer of
shots.

It was not long before we came upon the track
of a sleigh drawn by five reindeer. This was very
cheering, for it might have been made yesterday—it
looked so fresh.

We began to follow that sleigh-track. It doubled and
twisted all about. The man had been collecting willow-
grouse eggs, or else the dog (for he had a dog) had been
collecting them: I could not quite make out which.
But we saw several plundered nests and places where a
bird had been shot, or more probably caught by the
dog. Often it was very hard to follow the track. I was
very much struck with the lightness of the runners.
Of reindeer sleighs I at this time knew nothing, of

course.

IN GUSINA CAMP 77

On the lichened peat the traces of the runners were
often quite invisible, but this did not matter as the
reindeer’s feet had always split the crust a little. By
far the worst tracking was over the dry moss of the old
bogs. This was so wonderfully elastic that we always
lost the track on it and had to cast about and pick it up
on the other side. Our own steps in the same way left
no impression on the dry moss. |

Well, we stuck to this work for about three hours,
until, in short, the track took us back in a ring almost to
the Gusina again, when it suddenly turned and went
straight off in an easterly direction. The man had gone
home—wherever ‘home’ was.

And then I came to the conclusion that I didn’t think
much of following five reindeer and a sleigh; and that
home was the best place for us also. I learned afterwards
that the mysterious hunter was On Tipa. Had we only
succeeded in finding him we should have been spared
many days of weary walking. But we had not. So
there was nothing more to be said, excepting what I
uttered at the time, and that was very short.

At this moment we were on a bit of rising ground, and
looking out to sea we saw, apparently in the middle
of the ice, a sail. With my glass I made her out to
be of a sort of cutter rig. No doubt she was a walrus
sloop.

This time we took a slightly different line to our ford.
As we came in sight of a little round lake a snowy owl,

78 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

either a female or a bird of last year, stooped and picked
something—a fish I suppose—out of the water. She sat
on the bank with the quarry under her foot for a minute or
two before skimming off, and a red-throated diver swam
backwards and forwards in front of her with its bill wide
open, as though daring her to come on again and steal
its lawful supper. Doubtless it was making a noise
of defiance, but we were too far off to hear. I saw the
details of the drama through my glass.

This, the most lovely of all the owls, comes to us at
intervals. It has never been proved to have nested in
Britain in the wild state. An Arctic bird, I have seen
it frequently in Canada, and have described some of its
habits elsewhere.t This was the first time we had seen
it on Kolguev.

To-day also we saw a white-billed northern diver
flying past. This bird I never saw again on the island.
The white-billed northern diver is quite distinct from
our bird. I consider its rarity in Kolguev most re-
markable; for it is known to be a breeder in the lakes
of the mainland tundra.

In the bank of a little brook we found a nest of the
red-throated pipit, which contained six eggs. The nest
was built entirely of grasses. Noone, I think, could
mistake this bird for its British ally, the meadow-pipit.

We moved a grey goose off her nest of four eggs. I
believed her to be a bean goose.

1 Pictures in Prose: of Nature, Wild Sport, and Humble Life (Longmans, 1894).

IN GUSINA CAMP 79

And now, before we close this day, comes something
which involves a moral, if one only knew how to point it.

We often speculate on the law of chances; we wish,
for instance, we could trace the steps, see some of the
working by which things which seem as if they must fall
out in such and such a manner, are just missed, just
fail.

Well, the very first thing that met our eyes as we once
more reached the bank of the Gusina at our crossing
was the fresh track of nine reindeer and two sleighs all
up the side of the river mud. They had passed since
we crossed. So fresh was the track that the mud had
scarcely settled in the footprints of the deer. There
they were, sure enough, a light sleigh drawn by five and
a heavy sleigh by four deer. The men had probably
been up the river collecting drift-wood. We traced their
trail for some way. One more turn of the river bank
and they would have come full in sight of our little tent,
where we should doubtless have found them on our
return. But nothing told them ; and they stopped short.
How they missed seeing our footprints as they passed I
couldn’t imagine. Fancy, if you can, an Indian missing
them! When I came to know the Samoyeds I found
they were not Indians—by a very long way.

But see the case: Here were we, the only two,
solitary white men on an Arctic island, in need of but
one thing, and that was native help. We knew abso-
lutely nothing of where these natives lived, but this very

80 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

day we had missed them by an hour or two only, if so
much, and missed them twice.

It took us six days to find them after that.

So we had to wade the river again. And while we
were undressing old Sailor curled up and went to sleep.
We didn’t notice it at the time, but when we had finished
dressing on the other side he was not with us. And,
looking across, there was the old dog on the mud
sleeping as sound as a bell.

We had the greatest difficulty in waking him up, and
at one time it really looked as if I should have to cross
again for him. But at last when I had exhausted every
view-holloa and yell in my glottis, and Hyland was
voiceless, he quietly raised his head, looked round, rose,
shook himself and swam across ; coming out as innocently
as though he had been waiting all the time for us, and
not we for him.

It was just 10 p.m. when we reached camp. All the
scene had changed. There, where had been the open
bight by which we entered, was a solid pack of hum-
mocky ice. All was ice—ice to the northward, ice to the
southward, ice packed tight and grounded against the
island, ice to seaward as far as the eye could reach.

My diary for this day closes with the words, ‘ Saxon,
I trust, is through.’

CHAPTER II
PREPARING TO START

June 23rd.—So there was nothing for it now but to
make a determined effort to find the natives. Obviously
this was the first thing to be done.

Our trial trip of yesterday had shown me one thing
pretty plainly. This :—

If I held to my original idea and should try to reach
the Waskina by travelling down the west coast, we
should have entries to go round, and at least two big
rivers —the Gobista and the Kriva—to cross. Our
passage of the Gusina did not altogether tempt one to
repeat the process more than was absolutely necessary.
Also the sleighs we tracked yesterday had made away
for the east.

So it seemed better in every way to steer for Scharok
harbour, keeping as much as possible to the high land
which would form the divide between the watersheds.

Knowing nothing of the interior of the island, it was
impossible to say how long such a walk would take.
It might be, too, that we should arrive at Scharok
only to find that there were no natives there. What
should we do then ?

82 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Well, in this event we would, I thought, walk south
from Scharok, and keep on walking right round until,
if we had found no natives, we should arrive at last
back at our Gusina camp.

But, of course, there was a good deal to be done
before we could start. Every little detail had to be
carefully thought out; nothing left behind which we
might want, but nothing taken that was not absolutely
necessary. For everything had to be carried on our
backs.

Meantime it was pleasant enough in camp. With
a light breeze that varied from N. to NE., a barometer
that stood steady at 30 in., and a sun which at mid-day
showed 62° F., the day was as beautiful as well could be.

We were well occupied with egg-blowing and bird-
skinning, so we did not leave camp except to climb
the bank and look out over the sea.

Close as the ice was packed, there were yet a few
bits of open water on the shallow, just large enough
for a paddling-place for a few birds.

I liked to stand on our little cliff and keep an eye on
the life of these ice-girt pools.

They were always great playing-grounds for the
long-tailed ducks, and I find this about them in my
diary :-—

‘farelda has at times a remarkably human cry. It
is funny when one looks down on him from the cliff, to

see him steering his way with rapid feet among the

THE RIVAL WILLOW-GROUSE

Face page 83

PREPARING TO START 83

hummocks, head under his wing the whole time. He
never seems to look where he is going, yet never makes
a mistake; avoiding in the deftest way the floating lumps
of ice. But his mate has the caution of her sex. She
swims with head alert, and both eyes open.

‘We have not yet succeeded in finding the time when
birds are quiet or not moving. It is now 11.45 P.M.
(Kolguev time). The sun is just getting up again.
Cock willow-grouse are challenging one another, and

OUR LITTLE CLIFF

fanning their tails just across the river. Geese are
flying about, waders and small birds singing as they
have done all day. However, as while on our march
we shall sleep at mid-day and travel all night, we shall
soon know more about it.’

Yes, I can see that scene now.

The rising sun had just caught the opposite bank of

the Gusina, and a mist was rising from the mud and

84 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the ice sheets on the river. Down into the sunlight
strutted a splendid old willow-grouse, his wings droop-
ing, his tail fanned. On the very edge of the bank he
stood and crowed, bowing like a Mussulman till his head
touched the ground. He did more. He went through
a kind of dance, turning round and round, and stopping
now and then to flirt his tail, and answer with all the
power of his lungs his rival on a little hillock not twenty

yards away.

June 24¢h.—I was writing in the tent this morning at
1.30 when Hyland, who had been walking along the
shore, came in with a very interesting piece of news,

Some creature, a seal he thought, was hunting ducks
among the floes.

In a moment I was round the corner of the cliff and
at the water’s edge. It was true enough.

A group of long-tailed ducks were just settling on a
little bit of open water close in front of us. As they
lit they drew up together in a bunch, Before long there
was a panic among them, and they rose wildly in different
directions. Right in their midst—or what had been
their midst—appeared the dark head of a seal. Risen
from below, had he been trying to take a duck, or had
he not? The point was soon settled.

The ducks flew round and lit again in the next pool.
The seal raised his head a moment higher from the
water, and then sinking, disappeared. We watched the

Sg aug ang

SHINd dO AAINAH V

PREPARING TO START 85

ducks. Once more they rose confusedly, and once more
the black head showed.

Again the ducks settled down on the water, just on
the other side of a small flattish floe. We moved along
till we were opposite this, and once more watched.
And now close to the edge of the floe a seal’s head
twice appeared. The creature raised itself high above
the water and looked about, reminding one exactly
of a weasel sniffing the air for a mouse when the
hunt is momentarily checked. Again the head dis-
appeared.

Half a minute more and up rose the ducks for the
third time. They rose all but one. There was a flap-
ping of wings on the surface for a moment, and then a
duck went below. It seemed as though the bird had
been caught by the feet.

I never saw the creature land with its capture, though
Hyland thought he could make out a seal on the ice.

The drama was ended.

As we turned to go back Hyland shot a red-throated
diver as it flew to the river from the sea. Sailor re-
trieved it—his lips tucked up and his whole face expres-
sive of infinite disgust.

These were early days with Sailor; he soon changed
all that.

And then we went to bed, for we had a long day’s

work before us.

86 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

We rose at eight for breakfast, and then a strange
thing happened.

We were sitting at breakfast when on the bank at
the farthest point of this first reach of the river, distant
barely 500 yards, there came into view, if our eyes did
not deceive us, several persons moving down to the
river. Presently they stopped, and one man sat on a
stone and waited so.

It was an anxious moment.

It seemed to me that these natives, having sighted
the tent, were suspicious and hesitating. They pro-
bably had their reindeer just behind the bank. What
if, filled with alarm on seeing us approach, they should
whip up and be off!

Were we to be cheated again?

I went for the whisky bottle, telling Hyland that
the only chance would be to walk slowly along the
cliff towards them and without our guns. For I
thought that so, having time for a good look at
us and judging us peaceable, they might wait our
arrival in some confidence, being probably armed them-
selves. And the whisky, I knew, would seal our over-
tures.

We started.

We had not gone ten yards when something seemed
to change. I raised my glass and took ‘another long
particular look.’ And what do you think I saw?

Five bernacle geese.

PREPARING TO START 87

Nothing more. There never had been anything

more—except the mirage !
We set about preparations for departure; and you
may like to hear what we carried on our backs. . Here is

the list :-—

300 CARTRIDGE MAGAZINE, containing:
1 Biscuit tin of 43 lunch biscuits.
1 Biscuit tin of 39 digestive biscuits.
1 Tin of cocoa.
4 Pots of Liebig’s extract.
6 Pots of Bovril.
4 Small tins of potted meat.
Tin-opener.
Kettle-lid.
SEXTANT CASE, containing:
Dried apple chips.
Dried vegetables.
Raisins.
2 Desert spoons and forks.
CAMERA CASE, containing:
Methylated spirits (pint bottle).
Boiling machine.
Podophyllin and quinine pills.
Lint.
Plaster.
Essence of ginger.
Cough tablets.
Egg drills and blowers.
Wadding.,
Pencils.
Matches.
TIN BOTANICAL CASE, containing:
Bacon, 1 lb.

88 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

We slung the kettle and two metal cups by the
handles.

We took a change of socks, and so on—‘for the
evening.’ I could not find anything better than a pair
of canvas shoes, but Hyland had some Norwegian fur
boots I had got for him in Vardé, and I am afraid I
greatly envied him these.

Also I carried my telescope, flask and cup, pocket
microscope and test-tubes, knives, watch, revolver,
money, note-books, sponge-bag, soap, tooth-powder
and brush.

Then we had of course our guns, and 125 cartridges
each.

We weighed these things with the steel-yard, except
the cartridges. Reckon each cartridge at 2 oz. and it
comes to 154 Ibs. a-piece ; of food we had 18 lbs. a-piece;
of extra clothing about 5 lbs., and our guns weighed
between 6 and 7 lbs. each. Altogether we each carried
a good big 50 lbs. weight, and rather more.

We intended to try and walk in india-rubber boots.
But as I was very doubtful about the wisdom of this, we
each carried at starting a pair of shooting-boots slung
round our necks. These, however, we soon discarded.

Now this looks, as one reads it over, a funny list of
things. But I think it is worth giving, for this reason,
namely, that with the exception of the boots, some of the
medicine, and many of the cartridges, there was literally
not an item too much or too little. If I had to take the same

PREPARING TO START 89

journey again, there is not a single detail which could be
added or be changed, excepting perhaps the clothes.

We were obliged to take all those cartridges, because
we took them instead of food. For all we knew to the
contrary, we might have to shoot our way back.

So I wrote a note for Powys in which I told him we
were starting for Scharok. This I put in a tin and
buried it on the cliff, six feet due north by compass off
a cross. On this was written the words agreed upon
between us.

Then we buried the axe in the bank, stowed the tent,
bunged the barrel, and roped the tent down.

We were ready to start.

CHAPTER II!
WE WALK ACROSS

June 24th (continued.)—We \eft exactly at seven in
the evening; and we left in a roar of laughter. I began
it, and Hyland took it up.

You remember the White Knight in Alice ex Wonder-
land? Well, that was Hyland to a T.

Just try and picture, if you can, a man with a gun,
dressed like this, and on a desert island. Start at the
bottom and go up. India-rubber boots, cord breeches,
a kettle tied round his waist with a bit of string. Two
coats—a long-tailed shooting-coat, and over this a
canvas Norfolk jacket covered with pockets of many
kinds all bulged out to the utmost limit. Various
things hung all about him, including a bundle of clothes,
a pair of shooting-boots, a couple of grey skin boots,
ornamented in red, with tassels; the whole topped with
a flapped velvet stalking-cap.

I don’t know how it reads, but it looked very comical,
and my dress was much the same, without the skin boots.

First of all we made our way to the ford by the
Russian cross—a distance of about two miles. But by

the time we reached it, we had both come to the con-
90

WE WALK ACROSS gl

clusion that a pair of heavy shooting-boots hanging
round the neck was one of the worst devices. So we
hid them. We laid them up by the grey goose’s nest
just above the ford.

The male peregrine was still hanging about the neigh-
bourhood of the eyrie. Rising at our approach he
mounted high into the air and flew round and round
watching all our movements, and screaming wildly from
time to time.

We were not to cross the river so easily this time.
The water had risen.

Thinking it might be just a spate from the day’s snow-
melting, it seemed best to curl up for a sleep and wait
for a fall in the flood.

It was not easy to find a suitable corner. The bank
at this point dropped very suddenly to the water’s edgé
where it was not wholly covered with snow, it was almost
worse ; mud ina semi-liquid state, slipping down in great
treacle-like masses.

At last we found two places about forty yards apart,
either of them capable of holding one man if he curled
up close. The bank had become undermined and there
had followed a land-slip, leaving a hollow ledge above.
Hyland took one, I the other.

As I lay down there was a flutter under my head, and
out of a hole slipped a little snow-bunting. So I turned
my head and looked down, and there was her nest with
six lovely little eggs. After that I just changed my

g2 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

position a bit, so that my head was clear of the nest. I
was lying very still, watching a stone in the water which
served as an index to its height: and I do not think more
than five minutes had passed before she came, making
no more of me than if I had been a stone, and—whir-r-r-p,
—she had whipped close past my ear into the nest.

You will recollect that we had found these birds on
Horné with young ones able to fly, and here on Kolguev
they had not yet hatched. Indeed these eggs were
quite fresh.

A male snow-bunting in his breeding plumage is
certainly a most beautiful little bird. Unfortunately we
do not often see him like that in England, for the bird
does not nest with us, or only sparingly, in the extreme
north of Scotland. They are with us in winter in flocks,
but then the beautiful black-and-white of the male has
given place to more quiet colouring. Only when they
rise from the stubbles where they feed, your eye is
caught by a white flicker in the wings.

A ringed plover which had her four eggs a few yards
off was not half so trusting.

It was very cold, but this silly little bird kept me often
in most uncomfortable positions for long together, be-
cause she was so nervous. I should think she ran off
and on to her eggs almost as many times in ten minutes.
For she would settle down in quite a final way, but if I
moved a finger off she went running about a yard or
two away, and piping plaintively. Whether her eggs

WE WALK ACROSS 93

were spoilt or not I do not know. I think not. When
I woke up about two hours later the first thing I saw
was a little black-and-white head and a bright eye watch-
ing from the nest.

And then I looked at the stone in the river ; the water
had not sunk.

It must be a common experience with many who have
tried camp life, or sleeping out of doors, that although
they sleep as soundly they wake far more easily than at
home in bed. They don’t stretch or grunt, or pull them-
selves together, or wonder where they are, or protest in
any way. Only they open their eyes. And with that,
simultaneously, the thread of things is taken up again in
all completeness. Quite alert, absolutely equipped, the
sleeper is awake.

So the ringed plover was as still as the stone in the
water for a minute or two after I] woke; but then, when
I was obliged to move, she left her four eggs to the
mercy of the elements and ran piping off into the fog.

Such a fog it was—a sea-fog coming from the ice.
And as it came it froze, and all it touched grew hard
and white. My beard and moustache were solid, so that
I had to break a way into my mouth.

Scrambling along the bank I reached Hyland's
hollow. Poor fellow, I shall never forget him. He was
lying there as white from the frost as the woollen sweater
he was wearing. His face, ordinarily red and jolly, was
blue with orange patches, and his hands the same. He

94 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

could not speak, or only jerkily, because he was shaking
all over. I thought he was in for ague, or had got it,
and I fed him with quinine.

It was useless to reproach myself. now for having
taken him; I had to make the best of it. But I was
very much concerned. I had never realised till then
that people could feel the cold like that.

June 25th.—\t was 4.15 a.m.: I could not let Hyland
stop still, the more so as he seemed disinclined to move.
So I got him up and moved him on. As he went he
gradually shook off the shakiness, and by 7 a.m., when
the fog cleared, seemed really all right, so we stopped
for breakfast. Our allowance was four lunch biscuits
each day; we now ate two apiece and spread on them
some potted grouse. Also we made some cocoa, boiling
the water with our methylated spirits.

We did not find a fordable place till noon. The river
had been running most curiously in large horse-shoes,
and always there was one side where the current ran
hard and deep. But now it straightened out.

I felt very mean. In my long boots I was able to
walk across. Hyland’s boots were not long enough, and
he had to take off his breeches again and wade.

At one o'clock we stopped for food and sleep. Poor
Hyland, who was quite done up, dropped on the ground
and was asleep in a moment. I was very anxious to
husband the spirit as much as possible, so after throwing

WE WALK ACROSS 95

down my load I started out to see if I could not find
something that would burn.

In the ordinary way you might as well look for—what
shall I say?—a bishop at Rosherville, as for a piece of
wood on Kolguev, excepting by the coast. By an ex-
traordinary bit of good fortune, however, I came upon a
small piece which had doubtless dropped off a sleigh.
Carrying it back, I set to work to chip it with my knife.
Every little chip (it was very hard, and would not split)
I treasured as carefully as though it had been diamond
—more carefully. At last, having made about two
handfuls, and having piled up moss and green creeping
birch, I really got a fire—a poor smouldering thing like
weed-burning—but still a fire. Into this the kettle was
stuffed. And after an incredible amount of blowing and
choking and blowing again the kettle really sang. It
wouldn't boil, but it did sing; a great concession under
the circumstances.

I made some Bovril this time; it is safer than tea with
lukewarm water.

This was a pretty good place. For there was a sort
of little dry ditch which as you lay on your back just
caught your shoulder-blades nicely and kept off the
draughts.

So we slept there till 7.30 p.m. After this we rose
another hill, and then came to a bad obstacle.

The hill formed a sort of amphitheatre. Circling
round it, we dropped by steep slopes to the edge of a

96 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

wide river. All the slope was covered with snow, which
overhung the river. You could see as you looked side-
ways the river cutting underneath, black and swift under
its white roof.

But it had to be faced.

I don’t know how we managed to get down it, but we
did; or at least I did, to begin with, while Hyland lay
on the top with old Sailor and watched.

Choosing a place where a big stone just showed itself
above the stream, I managed to drop on to it from the
snow above. Fortunately, | am pretty light, but as I
did so there was a sliding of the snow, and a huge fall
followed me and went floating down the stream. But,
at any rate, it had made a practicable breach.

Now, if you want to be comfortable, don’t drop from
a snow-roof on to a slippery stone in the middle of a
swift-running stream whose depth you have not ascer-
tained.

There was no turning back, for behind me was a snow-
wall. I had to probe with my gun, and was glad to find I
could touch the bottom. And then, very cautiously, |
stepped down from the stone. The water just reached
to within two inches or so of the top of my long wading
boots.

Usually it is found an advantage to be a light man,
occasionally it is distinctly not. When you are set to
wade a very rapid stream, and the water is up to the
top of your legs, the more you weigh the better. But

WE WALK ACROSS yt

though feeling as buoyant as Captain Boyton, and looking
every moment to be floated off, I managed with the help
of my gun to keep my legs, crossing the narrow channel,
and emerging on a bit of land which just showed above
the water.

And then I had quite a long exploration. For there
was a second and deeper channel beyond. But finding
my island tailed off into a shallow, I followed it carefully
a long way down the middle of the river. At last, by
little and little it led to the further bank, and I emerged
safe and sound some quarter of a mile lower down.

But these river inquiries meant a double journey for
me. Back I went till once more I reached my island.
From the water it was possible to see better how the
snow lay, and I found Hyland an easier place.

And now it was the old puzzle of the fox, the goose,
and the bag of corn. How was everything to be got
over? I could only settle it in one way. Balancing my-
self on my nasty wet little island, I pulled off the long
boots and flung them across to Hyland.

It was an anxious moment.

The first travelled splendidly, spinning right up on to
the top of the snow. But the second catching the edge
of the snow-bank slithered down and was in the water
before you could wink. You can imagine the desperate
plungings and snatchings which rescued it. But it was
rescued, emptied of water, and eventually figured on

Hyland’s other leg.

G

98 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

So we followed carefully along the track which I had
taken and landed safely.

Now as this sort of crossing was often repeated, I need
not trouble you with the manner of it again. Sometimes
one could walk straight across the stream. But some-
times one had to follow a shallow a long way down,
winning an inch or two at a time towards the crossing of
the’ stream. Often these shallows were only narrow
ridges with deep water on either side. Often you could
only just manage it by feeling with your toes big stones
on which you stepped; and, when they were slippery,
down you went—a departure which tends to execrations.
Sometimes, much to my disgust, just when I had accom-
plished successfully, inch by inch, a long and ticklish
journey and was congratulating myself on a good crossing,
lo and behold my little highway would suddenly end in
a deep and impossible channel. But if all went well, then
either Hyland would come across alone, or if it was
exceptionally difficult, | would go back and give him a
lead.

While we were sitting down to wring out my things
Sailor amused us very much. For the old dog did not
at all like this drop into the river off a steep snow-bank,
and careered round for a long time in the hope of finding
a better place. At last, finding himself perched like a
chamois on the top of a steep snow cliff, he gave it up,
ran back to our crossing, went bundling somehow into
the stream, and came gallantly across.

WE WALK ACROSS 99

On this river, the upper waters of the Isbushishna,
we saw one pair of bernacle geese.

Most of my readers will be familiar with the name of
this goose, and will connect it with the quaint old idea
(which I have seen illustrated in a rare book) that it
was hatched out of shells of the common barnacle
which grew on trees hanging over the water. This
bird, a winter visitor to our (chiefly west) coasts, breeds
easily enough in a semi-domestic state; but where it
nests in the wild condition has never been proved.
Professor Collett, it is true, records the nesting for
several years running of a pair on an island of the
Lofotens, but this pair seem to have been as solitary
as the instance.

So it would have been extremely interesting if we
could only have found a nest. But we failed. This
pair with our Gusina five exhausts our list of Kolguev
bernacle.

June 26th.—We walked on through the night till 1.30
a.M. It had been a pleasant night. But at one in the
morning a chill fog with wind came suddenly on.

After crossing the last river I had tried to keep
to the high ground. But this was so much_ inter-
sected by impassable gullies that we had_ perforce
dropped down. The cold fog drove us up again on
to a sandy plateau.

Here we constructed sleeping-nests. We worked like

100 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

rabbits till a good big hole was scooped out, and then
built round it a fortification against the wind.

Now fine dry sand has its advantages, but also its
drawbacks. The wind played with this sand through
every chink in the rampart—built of lumps of saxifrage
—and drove it home. By which I mean that sand—
very fine—all but impalpable—went into your eyes, into
your hair, up your nose, ¢hrough your trousers and socks.
I slept blindfold, with a handkerchief tied round my
head. Hyland, who did not take this precaution, suffered
much from his eyes for a day or two afterwards. [|
suppose it must in reality have found its way into our
lungs. Anyway, our throats, on our awaking, were full
of sand.

We found nothing here with which to make a fire, so
we had to boil water with the spirit-lamp, and making
some cocoa, ate a lunch biscuit each and a raw rasher of
bacon. We were obliged to be a bit careful with the
biscuits on Sailor’s account. As it was, the poor old dog
got very short commons.

The country through which we now passed when we
moved on at 8 A.M. consisted of a wide stretch of high-
lying mosses and swamps containing many enormous
beds of peat. As I shall have occasion later on to refer
more particularly to these peat-beds, I will here only
remark that many of these were of most curious
formation. Some perfectly circular, many absolutely
rectangular in shape, they rose suddenly from the bog

WE WALK ACROSS IOI

or water with perpendicular sides to the height of four
or five feet.

At 11 A.M. we had lunch on a high, barren hill, and,
crossing a river which ran at its foot, headed for some
mountains which loomed high in the distance.

These mountains looked as if they might be at least
1000 feet high. But long ere this we had learned to
mistrust the evidence of our senses in this strange
land.

A story such as that of the five bernacle geese (told
earlier in this account) might well meet with a smile of
incredulity from those who have not themselves been in
Northern regions. But the following quotations will
show that ours was but part of the common experience

of Arctic voyagers.

One morning, when we were in Mossel Bay, we were roused
by the watch at an unusually early hour, who announced that
there were twenty or thirty deer by the shore washing them-
selves in the sea. Field-glasses and telescopes were brought to
bear upon the dark moving objects, and two boats were lowered
immediately to take ashore the three eager sportsmen and the
captain, all anxious to secure some of these, the first reindeer
we had met with. Ascending to the crow’s nest soon after they
had left the ship, I saw through the ship’s glass what was taking
place, and anticipated the results of the drive. It was evidently
nothing but a wild-goose chase ; so I made my way down and
announced that there would be no venison for breakfast that
morning. After they had rowed some miles, the hungry sports-
men returned empty-handed ; but they had seez the geese."

1 Rev. A. E. Eaton, Zoologist, Nov. 1873.

102 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

And again :—

It happened once during foggy weather on the ice at Wahlen-
berg 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.”

Well, we were constantly taken in in the same way.

To-day, for instance, we were just coming up, as we
thought, to a large lake when, turning to Hyland, who
was following some little way behind, I said, ‘Look
there. That is the first swan we have seen since we left
the Kriva.’

‘So it is, sir,’ answers Hyland. ‘We must try and
shoot that.’

I took the ‘number 6’ out of my gun and slipped in a
brass cartridge with S.S.G.

Presently—‘ That’s not a swan, but an old cock willow-
grouse with his head up,’ I remarked. Hyland assented.
(Polonius and the cloud.)

1 Nordenskidld, Voyage of the Vega, vol. i. p. 348.

WE WALK ACROSS 103

But again I had my doubts. Indeed, the bird was
changing very strangely. And then I saw plainly enough
that it was not a bird at all, but an Arctic hare sitting up
as hares will sit. I was much excited about this. It was
the first hare I had seen.

Icreptup. The hare sat on,—still a hare, but dwindling.
To cut a long story short—when I came within shooting
distance it was to find neither lake nor swan, neither
willow-grouse nor hare, but a little cock snow-bunting
perched upon a mound against a drift of snow.

Further on on the top of a wind-swept shoulder of the
hill I took four eggs from a grey plover’s nest. The
nest was a deep circular depression containing, with the
exception of a little lichen, nothing but the eggs. The
hen bird I shot, but the male was impossible to secure,
he was so wild and wary. After waiting about a long
time for him I had to give it up.

As this bird flew off it was met by one of a pair of
Arctic skuas who were hunting the ground for eggs.
The skua made a cut at it. But the grey plover, rising
high in the air came down on the unlucky skua like a
bolt, and followed him up, wheeling and buffeting in fine
style.

We reached our mountain to find it was about 150
feet high.

It consisted of three conical hills, rising very suddenly,
and grouped in the shape of a triangle. The base of
this was open, but the hills were tied together on two

104 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

sides by a high sandy causeway. At the bottom ran
stream.

The lower part of the formation was clay, now in
semi-liquid state ; but the tops were of sand.

I had not intended to stay here. Really, I had mounte
the hill in order to try and get a view of the surroundin;
country. But adense fog came on as usual, and so w
stopped.

We found it very difficult to choose a place for a bed
for all the hollows were filled with snow, and the nort)
wind curled keenly in every direction.

At last we contrived, by taking advantage of a sligh
depression, a tolerably protected retreat with moss an

turf which we cut with our knives.

June 27th.—I wished much that I had a thermomete
to register the cold of last night. It must have bee:
very considerable ; for the little stream which when w
came was racing like a cataract, was, but for a tin
trickle, stopped. The fog, too, at midnight was ver
dense, and drove along the sides of the hill like whirlin,
desert dust.

I must confess I envied Hyland his warm skin-boot:
Indiarubber is the very worst material for a cold country
I kicked my feet about to no purpose, so at last I pulle
off my long boots and tried my canvas shoes. The
were better.

At half-past twelve a sound woke me up. Hylan

WE WALK ACROSS 105

had another ague attack. Last asleep, he was shaking
all over, his teeth chattering like castanets. I knew he
was dead-tired, so concluded that he had better sleep a
little longer. T threw over him a thin coat I had—the
only thing | could spare—packed him all round with moss,
and climbed the hill for a walk. I collected a few flowers
and lichens, and returned, for there was no chance of a
View.

At 2.30 A.M. on waking up, I found not only that my
moustache and beard were solid, so that I could not open
my mouth, but that my eyes were also sealed by ice.
After a somewhat painful operation I managed to get
them open. The fog had cleared a little, and again |
went for a walk.

Traversing the sandy causeway, | made for a high
point, but was brought up sharp by a ravine which seemed
impassable.

But as the fog lifted here and there, I could make out
that our hill was just an isolated rise, and that in front
of us lay a vast plain which we should have to cross.

Poor old Sailor, who had hitherto been tolerably inde-
pendent and regardless of cold (for he is the hardest
dog, I think, that I have ever seen), was fairly beaten
this time. He crept close up to us for warmth. Hyland,
too, made a grand discovery. It was this, viz., that
your extra socks are a very fair substitute for gloves.
It seems extraordinary that one had not thought of this
before; for our hands had often been exceedingly cold.

106 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEYV

1 may mention here another discovery worth remember-
ing. When vou can find no shelter of any kind, and are
not well clothed, the discomforts of sleeping in the open
air are much mitigated if you sleep with your head to
the wind. For it is the back which sutiers most.

It was just tour o'clock that morning when, atter having
eaten a fig and a lunch biscuit, we were onee more on
the move. The fog had cleared. and the sun shone most
brilliantly.

TL have somehow forgotten to tell you about the tlowers ;
but as | mean to give them a separate chapter later on,
perhaps T need say but little here. The most beautitul
of them all, 1 think, was the Arctic Forget-me-not. Of
an intense blue, it flourished but on the sandy places.
Commonly it grew on the pure sand, unsupported by any
other green thing, Here it looked strangely unnatural,
T used to think, like the Hower in a lady's bonnet.

Ato7 Aah we reached a little half-frozen stream. |
got out my sponge-bag and made a toilette with some
dithculty. Then we had breakfast, finishing our first tin
of potted grouse. And so we went to sleep.

Just after we had started again at ro.30, Tall but trod
on a lony-tailed duck. Bang off her nest she went,
scattering her ceys in her flurry, She had six eges,
and they were slightly ‘set. The nest was remarkably
neat and, for a duck’s nest, very deep. [t was all of
down with a litthe dead grass and dead birch-leaves.

We walked very slowly, To understand how this

WE WALK ACROSS lor

é

Was you must put fifty pounds weight odd on vour back
and with it waik a mile er two, sometimes on Brighton
beach, and sometimes in a bog which takes you almost
up to vour knees.

When we stopped for luncheon at 3.30 P.M... we each
ate a lunch biscuit spread over with Liebig’s Extract.
and a raw rasher of bacon, and drank snow-water. We
couldn't make a fire. and felt obliged to sive the methy-
lated spirits

Lying on my back. in a hali-sieepy state. aiter luncheon.
T was much interested in watching the ways of a pair of
on ne

Trev were buliding a nest oct of sight under the over-
hanging snow which formed the bank of a Uny stream.
The hen worked exceedingly hard, exerting all her little
energies to pull bres from the ground. The cock was
a fraud.

You know how some persons make 2 great show

x at
?

of passing things te vou at lenemeon-time. Actuaiiv

ning——they let it ge. But eaca tme vou

they do rot

reach for the sais, Chey wave a nan after it as ene h
amage wand. The cock snow-bunting had learned this
tick well. Verv asstGuous. very fossy, Re accompanied
ms wife up and cowr. He waited upon her while she
hunted up ores: he dew back with her anc watched
while she worked 2c the mest—a pertect anny Of 2
descot lord. Ido not Seueve he gutnered a soitary thing

himse!t: I never saw him do it

108 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

A shore-lark’s nest, with six eggs, which I took on
this evening, was entirely composed of dead grass and
willow down. This bird, which the Samoyeds call ‘ sizid’
from its note, is another of our Arctic visitors. It nests
in Greenland and Novaya Zemblya, and all about the
Siberian and Arctic Russian coasts. It has an exceed-
ingly pretty song, about which I shall have more to say
later on. Its plumage is very pretty, for its throat is
yellow, and its breast broadly banded with black.

And then at 8.30 p.m. we found the nest of a little
stint with four eggs; far away from any water, for all
that we could see. The bird twittered and ran about
close to us, feigning lameness. The nest was a deep
cup in the ground, half filled with dried birch-leaves.

Now, exactly at ten o’clock in the evening, we came
upon a little lake. A good dry bank sloped down to its
edge, and on this we lay very comfortably with our backs
to the wind.

We were pretty hungry. After eating a bit of raw
bacon and a biscuit we made some cocoa. I had fenced
the spirit-lamp with lichen and moss as a guard against
the wind. Presently the moss itself caught fire; and
this idea flashed upon me, Why not make a moss fire
and try to cook with it ?

Hyland did not believe this possible But I set to
work and scrabbled up all the moss round about, earth
and all—it was very dry—and presently had a good big
smouldering fire.

WE WALK ACROSS 109

Now we had a cock grouse; and the next and
obvious reflection was, Why not cook a grouse ?

So Hyland cut off the wings, pulled out the tail, cleaned
the bird, and then we stuffed him, feathers and all, into
the middle of the fire, and collecting more and more
moss piled it on the top.

From time to time we took a peep just to see how the
bird was getting on. But always he was just the same
feathered fowl as we had put him in. The feathers were
a trifle singed, and that was all. At the end of some
half-an-hour it looked just as hopeless. This we could
not understand, because the fire really was quite hot
inside. So then we began to probe with knives. They
seemed to go in very easily.

There was no doubt about it—the bird was getting
soft !

We gave it another ten minutes or so, and then pulled
it out of the fire, determined to have grouse for supper,
done or underdone. It came out a perfectly cooked
grouse. The feathers, which were barely singed, stripped
clean off with the skin; and there he was, just like a
gipsy’s hedgehog.

I can only tell you this, that no grouse ever turned out
of the kitchen by your best fancy cook was a patch on
this bird. And that it should be so stands to reason.
For trussed and roasted in the ordinary way all the tea,
so to say, runs out of the tea-leaves. So that I am sure
ours is the way in which to cook all feathered game.

110 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

This night we did not sleep. I have never been out
ona lovelier night. There was nota trace of fog. Clearas
it had been all day, the wind died down at morning. And
over the little lake, half covered with thick broken floes,
you could look, and far away across the tundra, for there
was no mirage now. Grey and purple the peat waves of
the tundra rolled on and on, and the sun as it rose higher
(it had never set, remember) touched the little distant
tarns till they twinkled like the dewdrops on the lawn
at home, or drew off the top of the marshes small soft
clouds of white.

We lay under the shadow of the bank while the
further side of the lake was lit with sunshine. It was
all worth looking at. I felt it was not a bad thing to
be houseless on Kolguev just then.

And soon after midnight, just as the lake itself began
to steam, we had a visitor. Down from the top of the
bank on the further side jauntily stepped a little fox, and
sat looking down at the floe below him. He was patchily
coloured blue and white; ‘christovatik,’ as the Russians
call it, because the dark mark on back and shoulders
shows the form of a cross when the animal is skinned.

June 28th.—We moved on at 5 a.m.

You will perhaps recollect that all this time we have
been steering for Stanavoi Scharok. But last night,
after thinking over the whole position, I had changed
my plans.

WE WALK ACROSS III

In the first place, we had already crossed twice a
river which must be of considerable size as it made
away to the east and south. What river was this,
and where did it debouch? Neither of these questions
could we answer then, though later on we knew it for
the Pesanka.

The Baroshika indeed was, according to the chart, a
biggish river. What if we got down into those plains
which we saw and found this river wide, deep, and with
many horse-shoe windings? And then Hyland, and his
sufferings from cold, was always in my mind. _ Drift-
wood, drift-wood, at any price it seemed, was the first
aim before us.

And so this day I went a point more easterly, aiming
for where a beacon on the sands had been indicated on
our chart.

My little pocket-compass was rather a worry. Not
only was I obliged to put away my gun each time I con-
sulted it, which was pretty often, but unfortunately the
needle had a habit of sticking ; and this, unless you were
very careful, would escape notice.

But I found the sun exceedingly useful as a means of
checking our course, by what I may call the ‘ shadow
method ’—which expression, I take it, explains itself.

I have found it almost impossible to make those
friends here at home who have not been to these parts
realise that there is a real and very beautiful szmzmer in
the Arctic Regions. The cold fogs and frosts we had

112 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

experienced were, of course, very trying, but we should
have been all right if we had had sleeping bags or a
tent, or even good warm great-coats. One cannot
expect to be very comfortable anywhere where it freezes
when lying out at night. It would be just the same in
England for that matter. Try it. Some November day
when the last beat is finished in the home coverts, and
the other guns go back to tea, tryit. Take your gun,
stroll off, and lie down for the night in a furrow in the
middle of a ploughed field. You will not find your eyes
frozen up, but otherwise, by the time the morning breaks,
you will have gained a very fair idea of a night on
Kolguev.

But this day we suffered from eat.

It came on gradually about ten o’clock with a sort of
muggy, Torquay feeling.

We began to feel our loads as we had not felt them
before. From something Hyland said I fancied he
thought his load was heavier than my own. So we
changed loads. If we had been able to contrive a
proper means of carrying these we could have managed
that weight splendidly. Another time I should be strongly
inclined to use one of those fish-creels which the women
carry in the North Scotch towns. This would take
everything, and would put the weight in the right place.
As it was, we were all straps and cords, which cut on our
shoulders and dragged on the neck and spine. My long
indiarubber wading boots, though very important for

WE WALK ACROSS 113

the rivers, really handicapped me considerably, especially
in the bogs,

As the day wore on the heat became intense. It
blistered our faces, and our hands swelled up like
puddings.

We could now only advance by stages. The plan was
this. I, trudging along in front, would doggedly count
about five hundred paces, and then sit down wherever
there was a mound which would take the weight of
the cases off our backs. That was a great relief. After
five minutes by the watch up we would get again and
plod along.

Now one remarkable fact in respect of the intense heat
was this, that neither of us turned a hair. How was
that? I donot know. But so it was.

Sleep, too, was out of the question, because a new
thing had happened. Musquitoes had appeared.

But there was no help for it. We were heading for
some hills that would be about eight or ten miles off;
and in the meantime all the land was weary bog with
peat-mounds here and there, Poor old Sailor suffered
badly from the musquitoes, which bit him about the
muzzle, so that he had constantly to put his nose into a
bit of moss and rub it with his paws.

At last we reached the hills, and after a long and
weary climb found ourselves on, a high plateau. Here
there was a bit of a breeze, and the mosquitoes were

much less troublesome.

114 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Hyland was asleep before I could feed him, and after I
had smoked a pipe and had eaten some raisins I followed
his example.

We slept for an hour or two, and then ate some cold
Liebig, potted pheasant and biscuit, and trudged off.

These little tins of potted meat were all labelled
differently, but all tasted the same.

We went east for ten miles, as near as I could estimate
it—putting our average at two miles an hour—and at
9.30 P.M. reached some sandhills with ridges of stones,
which were evidently old beaches.

To-day we had seen a snowy owl—the third. Like
the others, it was a dark bird, It was sitting on a
hillock some distance off.

The last two miles of our walk was through a most
lovely cloudberry garden. 1 can call it nothing else.
The bog was filled with mounds and ridges of peat, all
white with this beautiful flower. It was like a splendid
strawberry bed, but with more flower and less leaf.

We came upon a pair of Arctic skuas who were evi-
dently nesting, and tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to find
the nest.

Here was the highest growth of vegetation we had
yet seen, for the woolly willow was at least a foot high,
In the marsh I also found a Lapland bunting’s nest
containing seven eggs, The nest was composed of
grasses lined with feathers.

I am afraid I have in some instances forgotten my

WE WALK ACROSS 115

undertaking to say something about the birds as British.
The Arctic skua, a dark form of which is known as
Richardson’s Skua, belongs to a group of sea-birds of
great interest. Four of these occur on our coasts, but
only two nest with us, and on our extreme Northern
Islands. The great skua, the ‘ bonxie’ of the Shetlanders,
is one, and the other is the bird above. They are the
‘robber-gulls;’ indeed, when one has grown familiar
with their ways in such places as Kolguev, one comes to
think of them as raptorial gulls. Not only do they rob
at sea the poor little other gulls, but quarter the tundra
for eggs and young birds as steadily as a brace of setters
or a pair of marsh-harriers.

A light wind was blowing, and it was not very cold nor
very foggy. The snow, in melting off the top of the
ridge, had worn.a little water-course which was now dry,
and here, by pulling up lumps of saxifrage, sand and
moss, we were able to construct very comfortable nests.

The ridges too were covered with creeping birch, most
of it dead and brittle. After working for half an hour or
so, we had collected quite a big heap of this and made a
capital fire.

Here, in a pool, I shot a long-tailed duck, and Hyland
a willow-grouse off the grasses, for to-morrow’s breakfast.

After spending some time in writing up my diary, and
in copying out my route observations, I set to work to
collect every stick I could lay hands on for the morrow’s
fire. I worked a long time at this and wandered far. I

116 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

moved a grey goose [a bean] off her one egg, and then |
grew contemplative. It was a lovely night, and I began
conjecturing—‘ Now, apart from the position of the
sun, what is there to show you it is not day? If at this
moment you were suddenly dropped down here, and
did not think of looking at the sun, would it strike you,
in any way, as a curious day? What, in short, is the
distinctive characteristic of this Arctic night?’

I think this was the beginning of it; but, at any rate, I
got into a brown study and went wandering on until
I was lost. I really was. And I stood and laughed at
myself for being such an idiot. But all the hills were
just alike, and our little crevice was so low down among
them, that it was only by making a cast and hitting off
our track that I found it.

But at two o'clock in the morning I curled up. The
last thing I saw was a pair of old glaucous gulls come
flying in from the east.

So I went to sleep happy, knowing that the sea was
not far away.

CHAPTER Ly
REACHING THE GOAL

June 29th.—But we were not to have it all our own
way. A biting north wind set up, and at 6.30 a.m. we
rose, made a fire, boiled water for cocoa, finished the
potted pheasant, ate some raisins, and then went down
to the marsh to try again for the skua’s nest.

The way these birds ‘carried on’ passes all description.
They tried to lead us away from the nest by every con-
ceivable device. They pretended that their eggs were
in two or three places other than where they really were.
One very striking phase of the performance was the
following: A bird would drop in the water as if shot.
Then it would flap helplessly for a bit, and if this did not
move you, it would raise itself on its tail, beating forwards
slowly with its wings and mewing like a cat. ‘Mewing’
exactly describes the sound.

Sailor was very funny about it. They had a most
tempting way of struggling painfully along on the ground
about two yards in front of his nose, so that he was quite
sure that he could catch one if only allowed to try. But,
rated soundly for breaking once, he did not dare to try it

again. Only he went crouching along, treading as softly
117

118 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

as possible, in a quiver of suppressed excitement, like a
cat preparing to spring.

There were two eggs in the nest when we found
it at last.

The Lapland bunting is a little yellow-billed bird,
with a black throat and a white boa, which never nests
with us, and has only been taken some half a hundred
times in England. But it is a very common bird indeed
on the tundra, and, with its plaintive little piping note,
was our constant companion.

But luncheon-time came, and again we cooked a willow-
grouse in a moss fire, and again with successful result.

While I was sitting down and sketching the scene a
couple of geese flew over. I snatched up my gun and
dropped one of them. It was a male bean-goose, and
I am afraid the parent of the egg I found early in the
morning.

We had never before found such a pleasant camping
ground as this.

From the little crevice in which we lay ran two dry
gullies, down which we could walk unseen to the pools
in which they ended.
~ In one of these I shot a male long-tailed duck. He
had a very good tail, but was otherwise disappointing, for
his head was dark. So we ate him. Indeed, since
we left the sea, we have not seen a single male of this
species in full plumage.

I have grown as tired of writing, as you, I am afraid,

REACHING THE GOAL 119

must be tired of reading about this walk. So we will
hurry on.

At noon, then, we got under way. Crossing a small
plain, we rose some exceedingly difficult-hills. It was a
constant struggle with snow defiles, with sudden drops
and weary climbings, or with sinkings deep into mud
puddings as a little bit of change.

Old Sailor, who. left the ship as fat as an alderman, for
he was a sad galley-loafer, had by now worked himself
into hard condition, though he was as thin as a rake,
But to-day, what with the long-tailed ducks, willow-
grouse, and goose of his mid-day meal, he had a load
which he found it very hard to carry over some places.
More than once he lay down nearly defeated.

I ought to have said that on this morning, when wash-
ing my hands in a stream, I saw a small water-beetle,
shaped like our dyticus, swimming about; but though
I tried to catch it, it eluded me successfully every time.
After all, we could not have preserved it, I fear; for
the boat had gone off with all the bottles, spirits, and

_appliances of that kind.

Now it chanced that at half-past nine in the evening
we were struggling through such a country as this,
when, on the top of a distant hill, a little peaked lump
came into view. Instantly my glass was at my eye.
The sling telescope which I carried had been used many
times a day. For at first we were always supposing that
we saw persons and reindeer. But the mirage was such

120 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

that very soon we had learned to distrust these appear-
ances, which the glass too often showed to be nothing
better than a heap of stones or a ridge of peat.

And just as once I should have only looked to confirm
my certainty that here were human beings, so now I
only did so to make sure of my belief that here were not.

You can therefore imagine a little of my astonishment
when the glass showed me this time, as it really seemed,
a native choom and many reindeer well defined against
the sky.

Now, when you reflect upon men in our case, it would
seem an intelligible impulse to have danced about or
cheered, to celebrate this great moment. But then, I
thought, what if, after all, this should be but a creation
of the mirage as others had been before! It would be
but a cruelty to have raised my companion’s hopes only
to dash them again.

These considerations made me careful, so that I only
said, ‘We will stop here and wait a moment.’

And then, having looked again with a steadier glass, I
saw with such clearness the choom, and the reindeer as
they moved along the sky-line, that I could no longer
doubt. But when Hyland at last asked me what I was
looking at so intently, I said quietly and very casually :

‘I fancy I see a choom and many reindeer.’

For now that I was certain it seemed pleasant to play
with the occasion,.nor would I startle Hyland into excess
of joy. But, owing to the tone of my voice, this

REACHING THE GOAL 121

news affected him with no greater sense of credibility
than had I said, ‘I see the Lord Mayor and the Bank of
England.’

With this I gave the glass to Hyland. And no words
of mine could convey the intensity of his delight on really
seeing with his own eyes that this wonder was no
illusion. For just as we have all known many a fisher
to mistake a weed or log which he has struck for a pike,
but have never known the contrary happen, so, for all
the deceptions of the mirage, when the real thing came
there could be no mistake. There was nothing for it
now but to march right on till we came up with the
choom.

I had always in my mind that old account of the
Samoyeds on Yalmal, who fled away from their Nor-
wegian visitors; which made me suppose that in such an
isolated spot as Kolguev, where visits of the foreigner
were all but unknown, we might find with them the
same experience, which would be a grievous disappoint-
ment.

However, I need not have felt this concern, as will
presently appear. So we kept plodding on, over one of
the most difficult bits of country with which we had yet
met. Up the hills and across the gullies we struggled,
until at last I said we should make some tea.

For I experienced that which many others in similar
cases have known before. As long as there was im-

perative need for pushing on I never seemed to be really

122 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

played out. Always, as horsemen say, I had a leg to
spare. But now that there was no instant occasion for
haste, now that we had really found that which we had
been seeking, it was just reversed. Hyland was grown
quite fresh and filled with new energy in this discovery,
while I had found that I was really tired, and that the
constant carrying of this heavy weight had in some way
told on my spine.

So we stopped half-way up a hill, and made some tea,
using for that our last drop of methylated spirits.

At one o'clock in the morning we came among the
deer. To my surprise we found that a large proportion
of them were white. Meantime a very heavy fog had
settled down upon the hills. We could not see with any
certainty more than twenty yards in front of us. I had
been sitting down to rest, and on rising again to move
away my companion remarked that I was going in the
wrong direction, and that the choom was just the other
way. And indeed I had done a foolish thing. For,
since sighting the choom at first, I had put away the
compass for good and all, knowing that to walk straight
up to it from that point was only a question of keeping a
clear head. But no sooner had we entered the hills than
we lost all sight of the choom and the reindeer, and
had not since seen the choom at all.

And as I had been lying on the ground with closed
eyes, I supposed that I had become confused, and there-
fore followed Hyland’s lead. But it did not answer.

REACHING THE GOAL 123

We came upon no choom. The fog grew denser and
denser, and at last there was nothing for it but to make
a cast round. This showed us nothing, and it really
seemed as though we had missed it altogether.

And now I am going to relate a fact which I cannot
explain excepting by a parallel taken from the physics.
Just as by the first law of motion a body will continue
in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an
intercepting force, so it seems it must be with the brain.
I cannot help believing that to this must be greatly due
the notorious faculty which savages have for finding
their way from point to point. I do not mean that such
agencies as sun and wind have not a determining in-
fluence, for of course they have; but that, apart from
this active and observant intelligence, there is a con-
sciousness of direction which is obeyed subjectively. It
is instinctive, as we say. I remember once asking a
Cree with whom I was hunting how he found his way
home so wonderfully well, and was much struck by the
man’s answer. Putting his hand to his side he said,
‘Indian’s feart.’ | thought it was such a capital answer.
By it I suppose he meant that the Indian’s affection
would naturally be a sufficient guide to the home to
which it pointed.

The heart with him was the seat of the ‘homing
instinct.’ ,

And so it doubtless is. And this function of the mind
[whether ‘the heart’ (ze. the affection) or any other

124. ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

motive of desire] is served continually by the intelligence
so long as it remains unbroken, uninfluenced by some
other force.

We say, then, that we ‘know the direction,’ and this
consciousness is such that if its object is retained and
pursued day after day the mind becomes so trained in a
certain line of concentration that after a check it can take
up the thread again quite independently of the eye.

I remember, again, how one day when it was very hot
I threw a jacket over the bough of a tree where my Cree
Indian said we should pick it up on our return. We
hunted all that day and the next, lay out that night, and
the following evening as we were returning home I
suddenly remembered my jacket. A jacket hanging on
a bough in the middle of a pathless forest is no very
easy thing to find. But the Cree, shutting his eyes,
remained so for a minute or two, and then, turning half
round, walked straight away. I followed, and at the end
of an hour or so we had come straight up to the jacket.

This has been a long digression. But now to the
point.

I remembered the Cree. I shut my eyes and thought.
After a moment I could, as it were, see the choom, and
so clearly that I knew I could walk up to it.

I opened my eyes. All was fog—dense fog. But
pointing, I said to my companion, ‘ There is the choom
—straight over there,’ which was almost in the opposite
direction from where we had supposed it to be,

REACHING THE GOAL 125

We shouldered our things and marched on, and sure
enough it was not long till we saw before us the dim
outline of the choom looming through the fog.

Sailor, too, knew we were approaching something
strange. Ever since we had come upon the reindeer
ground he had been very uncomfortable. Unlike him-
self, usually so cheery, he had dropped his tail and
advanced in a doubtful, hesitating manner. And now
he was so staggered that he kept stopping, and we had
much ado to get him on. No doubt it was because of
the smell of reindeer and of strange dogs. Sailor was
never afraid of these dogs, but braver than them all, as
will appear in its place.

CHAPTER V_
FRIENDS

At half-past three in the morning we reached the
choom, a circular peaked dwelling covered with birch
bark. No one was about, but.a deafening chorus arose
from many dogs who were tied up round about it.

‘How do you do?’ I said in my bad Russian as I
raised the flap of the choom door. ‘How do you do?’
came back in Russian worse than mine from underneath
a heap of skins. The first impression one had was that
the whole floor was a mass of skins, with a pot hanging
in the middle; nothing remotely like a human being
could I see.

And then the floor of the choom began to bubble and
rise, so to say, and out of the bubbling came a little man
and a little woman all clad in skins. On their heads
skin hoods, on their bodies skin caftans, on their legs
skin boots. They were dressed much alike, but one had
the smoother face and was decorated with bits of red.
So I knew it was a woman. She was plain and wrinkled,
but had a not unkindly twinkle in her eyes. They
waited as patiently as a pair of public officials for us to

explain ourselves, only they gazed from one to the other
126

FRIENDS 127

with bewildered looks, In my bad Russian I did my
best. It was a comical conversation.

“You Samoyed ?’

‘Yes yes, Samoyedi—Samodine, yes yes. Nyanitz,
in Samoyed Myanztz. So we had already learnt the
native name of the people.

‘We Englishmen ’—(we might as well have said ‘We
Angels, for all they understood). ‘Englishmen from
the Gusina.’

‘Ah, Gusina,’ said the woman quickly. ‘Yes, yes,
Gusina, Gusina, yes, yes,’ the man went on, These
people have caught and amplified the Russian repetitive.

‘We walk on foot from Gusina.’ He didn’t understand,
so I stamped round. Then he grasped my meaning.

‘No, no, not possible. Much hardt. No, no.’

‘Yes, yes, very hard, but quite true.’

(But he didn’t mean that. ‘Hardt’ is Samoyed for
snow.)

Then I gave them both a little whisky, for I had a
flask that held a wineglass and a half. This put us all
on better terms.

I told him he must take us back to get our things ;
that my choom was there. At this they laughed, but
said ‘Impossible. Reindeer ill.’

So I showed the Governor’s letter.. The spread-eagle
they recognised, nothing else.

There was something about these small people,
absolute masters of all we saw, that gave me an un-

128 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

comfortable sense of being an intruder. We in our
English clothes, with our English guns and Englishspaniel,
seemed as strangely out of place as a tramp in a West
End drawing-room. And frankly, I think I should have
scarcely been surprised if the man had said in superior
English—‘ Well, my good men, I’m sorry for you, but
really I’ve nothing to give you. I can’t have tramps
coming here.’

However, while this was going on we had entered
the choom. Various sleepers moving and grouping
themselves on one side left the other free for us.

They lit a fire and the women cooked us a goose,
cutting it up and throwing it into a great pot. It was
excellent.

At first the smoke of the fire was very disturbing. It
got into one’s nose and eyes—
but we soon found that by
keeping low down, as did our
entertainers, the smoke was
little felt. They were much
amused, laughing heartily when

they found that we could not

sit comfortably cross-legged on
the floor as they did; and

UANO

presently gave us tubs to sit on.
The choom contained :—

Uano, a Samoyed, about fifty-three years old.
Ustynia, his wife.

FRIENDS 129

Mekolka, his son, unmarried.
Ustynia,

Anka, daughters.
Tierrtso or Zornka,

Katrina, his daughter-in-law.
Niab-kutni, her little girl.
Wanka, her little boy.

A baby.

I have given you all the dvamatis persone, just as
they were introduced, or rather explained to us by Uano,
except the three last who did not come out of the skins,
This was pretty well for a circular room about fifteen
feet across.

While the goose was cooking we had time to consider
our entertainers more carefully. There was a touch—
but not more—of Mongol in all their faces, more marked
in the women than in the men. They had high cheek-
bones and a tendency to slit-like eyes, and their eye-
brows were beautifully arched.

Uano had a short grizzled moustache and _ beard,
and a world of shrewdness in his eyes, which were
redeemed from cunning by a kindly twinkle. His wife
Ustynia, whose old face was as yellow as his, was
not ugly. Just a homely, kind-looking old woman who
would have made a respectable cottager on any English
estate.

Katrina was almost pretty; indeed when first she
married she must have been a pretty girl, Her eyes

were dark, she had a pretty colour in her cheeks, and
I

130 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

her manner betrayed a quiet self-possession very remark-
able among such a people.

Her sister-in-law Ustynia was really, if you accept the
type, a pretty girl. Her broad forehead was banded by
a circle of brass ornaments and beads, which keeping
back her black hair wound about it as it fell in two long
plaits, and finally about her waist, divided into a triple
row of heavy beads joining the two ends together. This
is the common fashion with unmarried women. And I
think if English girls knew how pretty and becoming
this forehead band is they would wear something like it
too. Ustynia’s eyes were bright, and a pleasant smile
played about her lips. When she laughed—and these
people are always laughing—she betrayed the most
perfectly beautiful teeth it is possible to imagine. In-
deed all these people, even old Uano, had most wonder-
ful teeth—white, regular, and perfectly shaped. On her
fingers Ustynia wore heavy rings of white and yellow
metal, and her hands, like those of all Samoyeds, were
faultless in shape and extraordinarily supple. If you add
to this a dress reaching to the knees, formed of young
reindeer skin, worked in many stripes of white and brown,
the skirt—(the dress is all in one piece and fastens in front)
—banded with scarlet cloth and dog-skin fur, and foot and
leg coverings of soft, patterned skin reaching above the
knee-—there you have Ustynia, the belle of Kolguev.

Anka was a replica of her sister on a smaller scale.
She would be about fourteen years old.

USTYNIA

Face page 130

FRIENDS 131

They served our stewed goose in wooden bowls, and
laughed much at our efforts to sit cross-legged in their
fashion. I made them some cocoa, which they said was
‘very, very good. Yes yes.’ Then old Uano begged
my pipe. There was no pipe on the island, he said, and
so I believed, for he let it go out every other moment.
Everything we had, our matches, our spoons and forks,
our boots and guns, were a wonder and delight to them.

All were critically examined, and they wanted to have
them all.

Well, we laughed and talked till 3.30 a.m., then lay
down on our reindeer skins for sleep. Hyland was
asleep in a moment. But I lay for a long time smoking
my pipe and taking in all the details of this curious place
in which we lay. Then I too curled up, determined to
sleep as long as ever I could. For I felt we deserved it.
The first part of our endeavour was at any rate achieved.

We had found the Samoyeds.!

1 (1) Just as the Ostiaks call themselves ‘ Habi,’ so the Samoyeds call themselves
‘Nyanitz.’ Also ‘Nyanitz’ is a Samoyed man, while ‘Nya’ is a Samoyed woman.
The Samoyed name for a Russian woman is ‘ Habynia.’ They never say ‘ Baba.’ But
very curiously the maznland Samoyeds, when pointing out one of their own women
to me, said ‘ Barena,’ z.e. ‘ Lady,’ as opposed to ‘ woman.’

(2) I have just been reading in my journal a ‘ Review of our walk.’ It is too long
by far to be quoted at length. But the following is curious, I fancy :—‘ The result of
these various influences (cold, heat, frost, etc.) is a remarkable swelling of the hands
and ears. Our hands are huge and puffy, the skin quite tight, and very, very dry and
brittle. Almost every day I knock off a small bit of skin by some slight accidental
touch, and it does not heal or get worse or ‘‘angry ”; only it slowly widens to a cut
or crack, I have on my forefinger now a slit which began as a little chipped-off bit
of skin (on the ship), and has gradually widened and deepened—it is just on the first
joint—till it forms a clean deep cut across the finger and nearly to the bone. This
is very interesting and curious. I think it is the effect of the extraordinary dry wind.
The fact of our not perspiring under a heavy load in the baking sun is in itself

worth noticing.’

132 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘The exasperating feature in this week was that it was t#posstble to do much
collecting. I made notes, picked what flowers and took what insects I could; and
when we halted searched the banks for Saurian and Mammoth remains, though I
found none. But any proper work was impossible. We could not carry an ounce
more, not even eggs; though I did manage to get the grey plovers’ and the little stints’
safely through. I was struck by the dearth of mammals, the dearth of raptorial
birds, the absence of swans, the limited list of passerine birds. Of these two last
we have only added the white wagtail to those we saw before.

PART III

Shows how we re-crossed the island with sleighs
and many reindeer—Of the wonders these
animals performed—Of the manner of life of
the Samoyeds—The choom, the sleeping,
etc.—How we met On Tipa, the rich
man—Of the wolf-like dogs, of knives
and boats—Of the crossing of a
river, with other matters domestic
and not so—And finally, of
how we travelled to Scharok
harbour to wait for the
Saxon, which yet could
not come for
the ice.

CHAPTER I

RE-CROSSING

June 30th.—We were now in—though we did not
know it—for more than a three months’ stay with the
Samoyeds,

When I actually came to live among the Samoyeds
and to see all their manner of living, I found all so dif-
ferent in many ways from the books, that I think a good
deal that has been written must have been taken at
second-hand.

It is possible of course that I have—nay, I must have
made some mistakes as to meanings and significances—
they are always hard to be sure about—but facts are facts.
And you will have them here at all events, in an accurate
record of our life among these interesting people as we
knew them.

You know what winter hop-poles look like when
stacked ready for putting out. Well, cover them round
with birch bark and you have in appearance the outside
of a choom.

The word ‘choom,’ or ¢schumen, as I have seen it spelt,
is of course a Russian word. The Samoyed’s name for
his dwelling is ‘mya.’

The ‘mya’ in which we found ourselves was built of
135,

136 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

thirty-two poles or ‘shaistoy,’ as we afterwards came to
call them. They were about twenty feet long, and at
their base they formed a circle of which the diameter
was about fifteen feet. They were brought up to a
point and secured with a thong.

Round the outside was wound a covering of birch
bark. This covering is made in three layers, sewed
together with sinew, so that the seams overlap. The
strips were about two feet six inches in width, and were
in four lengths—two shorter for the lower part, so as
to leave an opening for the door, and two longer to be
carried round higher up to the apex. A hole was left
at the top for the exit of smoke; while the door-way
was closed in by a flap of reindeer skin.

The furnishing of the inside was not elaborate. In
the middle, on the ground, was the fire, formed of drift-
wood. Above this ran a pair of wooden bars, supported
on perpendicular poles, carrying the long wooden hooks
to which hung the big cooking pot called ‘yud,’ the
kettle, and a smaller metal pan for the simmering of
goose-fat. Away from the fire hung by three claws a
tin bowl containing water for hand and face washing.
You had no soap, but you tipped up the bowl and rubbed
your face with water. You might do this tipping for
yourself or not as you pleased. Ordinarily it was an
act of the women’s ministration, as it is in all the
Russian cottages.

They had two very low wooden tables, a flour barrel,

~ RE-CROSSING 137

a sack or two, and piles of reindeer skins. This was
about all the furniture. ? 3 @
Mrs. Uano began bread-making about ten o'clock.
They thought, no doubt, that I was asleep, but I was not.
I had been awake at least as soon as they were, and
watching every point like a terrier at a rat’s hole. Only
I lay very still and just looked through my eyelashes,
Tierrtso pounded up the flour, which was caked, for
it had been wet. Tierrtso was about eleven years old.
She had, like the others, a Russian name, Zornka, but

as she was Uano’s fourth’ and youngest daughter; they

The Kona fe a made firm am, old. fle.
Like all Samumyed Kmeve s Kare ane chisel edged

always called her Tierrtso, for ‘tierrt’ in the Samoyed
means four. The eldest daughter was married and
away on the mainland; we were not to see her till
much later.
- Anka, the second girl, went out and cut up the drift-
wood for the fire; while the eldest unmarried daughter,
named Ustynia after her mother, busied herself about
the fire.. :
Katrina, his son Philipo’s wife, as Uano told us, and
Niab-kutni, her little girl, did nothing on this first morning,

138 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

for they were visitors at the choom. Niab-kutni’s hair
was short and curly. We had no other curly heads on
Kolguev.

Mrs. Uano, as I must call her to distinguish her from
her daughter, made bread very skilfully.

She wetted the pounded flour with water, and then

fe

INSIDE OF CHOOM

quite spoilt its taste by mixing it with some old dough by
way of leaven. Then, having made a good big pudding,
with a rapid movement of her finger she ran it down
both sides of a long flat stick, so that the stick carried
the loaf. Finally she spun her fingers up the edges once

more to thin them out and make a pretty pattern, and

RE-CROSSING 139

there you had a flat loaf an inch thick in the middle, no
thickness at all at the edges, about two feet long and four
or five inches across, ready for baking. Then she stuck
the stick in the ground, and the loaf cooked over the
fire. This bread is called ‘rieska.’

While this was going on duck and goose were sim-
mering in ‘yud,’ and water was boiling for Samoyed
tea. This was made by mixing birds’ eggs with hot
water. It does not taste very well.

At eleven o'clock the remainder of the choom dis-
covered itself. Out of burrows in the stratum of skins
emerged the men, Katrina, and the baby. The baby
I daresay had a name too, but they always called
it Adski, for that is the equivalent for infant in the
Samoyed.

We fed at noon. The Samoyeds had wooden spoons,
but no forks, so they were much taken with ours. Before
we could eat, these forks were handed round, critically
examined, and pronounced ‘ good, very good.’ The price
was also asked, as of everything that we had. The
Russians have this habit too, as every traveller in Russia
knows to his cost.

The Samoyeds held the food between their teeth, and
with the other end in the left hand cut quickly upwards,
with the knife close to their noses. We tried this, but
not successfully. It requires much practice, because of
your nose.

The whole family were scrupulously clean in respect of

140 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

faces and hands. Their hands they washed often during
the cooking, and always after any special office.

While the meal was preparing the men went out to
collect the reindeer. This is a very interesting practice ;
but as I did not see it well on the first morning I will
describe it in its place.

When'I first entered upon this book I had thought
to treat of these people in a separate part. But now
I have decided rather to take them as they fall into

their place in every
day, by which you will
not learn less about
them, but learn I hope
“agreeably, and by-an
easy way. “

“They had no soap,

but begged a bit which

we had carried for our

stockings.

SAMOYED WOMAN’S WORK-BAG

The whole conduct
of the choom: was a picture of perfect good order
and kind temper. First the men fed, then the old
woman with her daughter-in-law and the two eldest
girls, then the children. .

It is true that the dogs, of which there were ten inside,
warming at the fire and picking up as they could, were
somewhat of a nuisance, but on the whole the girls man-
aged them well. And they did not interfere with Sailor.

RE-CROSSING I4I

These women, and all we saw afterwards, had a
curious characteristic posture, in which they seemed as
though looking for lost money. They would walk
about and stand for long at a time with their elbows on
their knees, which are unbent, and their shoulders lower
than the level of their backs. This I found it not pos-
sible to imitate. I used to think they looked like fighting
fowls, or, as Hyland better suggested, like peewits when
anxious about their nests. Possibly this attitude has
been derived from stooping under the rail where the pot
hangs, and from the necessity of avoiding the smoke.

Now when luncheon was past we thought of travelling
off. On emerging from the choom we found one sleigh
ready waiting, to which were harnessed five fine deer.
It was a very small light sleigh, called ‘adliurs,’ to dis-
tinguish it from ‘han,’ the ordinary travelling sleigh.
‘Adliurgo’ in the Samoyed means ‘rapidly away,’ and
these small sleighs form, so to say, the Samoyed express.

On to the adliurs got Mekolka and drove off. I under-
stood that he had gone for more deer.

Now you may wonder how I came to understand what
was said to us, or to communicate in turn. I must
explain that on a previous voyage I had learnt a little
rough Russian, and in the meantime had improved my-
self by study. And although the Samoyed pronuncia-
tion was very different from the Russian, worse even
than the Russian of Arctic Russia (which is saying much),
still I understood some. Also, as my habit is, from the

142 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

very first I began to learn the native proper names and
their exact pronunciation.

Samoyed is an exceedingly difficult language to pro-
nounce. Much of it consists of breathings, inflexions,
and unlooked-for accents, which by no system of spelling
‘can be accurately written down. But assisted by close
application, and a natural ear for sound, I succeeded in
catching the exact, ring of the common words and
sentences, so that I had but small difficulty in exchanging
ideas. But now at the beginning it was a funny conver-
sation, largely made up of signs and illustrations. Uano
was a capital actor, and with this and my pencil and
paper we got along fairly well. It is wonderful with
how few words you can do when put to it. Thus,

Ahnglia oleynia? Nieto?
Ahnglia Ti? Yangho?
England reindeer? No?
express the question as well as half a hundred words.

While Mekolka was gone, the reindeer were brought
in, and after an hour Mekolka
appeared, and with him a very
ugly sad-looking man, whom
they called Onaska. He drove
a team of white reindeer, and
was evidently a man of weight.
We left. We had five sleighs
and twenty-three reindeer. Uano drove five, and to the

back of his sleigh were fastened four reindeer who pulled

zhi aSvd 290.7

LSaud LY WVaL $.LaHdO’d AHL

RE-CROSSING 143

me ona sleigh. Hyland in the same way was part
of a compound organism; he was driven by Shabla,
a dirty new arrival, while Onaska drove his team of five
whites.

Had it not been for the Governor's letter we never
should have started at all. For the reindeer were in full
moult, and therefore at their worst. I insisted that we
should go straight to the Gusina, and that we must be
back in three days. Uano seemed to think he could do it.

So first we went north-east. But we had not been
travelling more than two hours before we came to a
frightful country ; it was all of chasms, sudden and very
full of snow, which hung over in such a way that not even
a reindeer could face it.

So Onaska (the Prophet, as I called him, because of
his white deer, and because he pronounced on all difficult
points) went on alone to see what he could see. Return-
ing presently he simply said ‘Impossible.’ Whereupon
they all gaily determined that they must go back. Sol
came in. ‘Go back if you dare; I will put the Governor
on to you, and off you go to Siberia, as sure as eggs is
eggs.’

With that they would see the papers again. So the
papers were spread out on the ground, and they all lay
down, with their noses over the paper, while Onaska,
who alone could read, spelt it slowly through.

‘Kolguev not here, only Petchora,’ says Onaska, tap-

ping the paper.

144 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘Petchora or no, you go on, say I. ‘Kolguev is
under the Governor of Archangel.’ —

So they were very sulky, but had’ to go; and as we
couldn’t go north-west, we went south-west,—a very sen-
sible compromise. The country was much easier. We
were indeed soon on the bogs, skirting those very hills
along which we had come.

Four hours of this brought us suddenly upon a second
lot of Samoyeds, who had but just arrived at their halting
place, and were pitching chooms.

The head of these was one On Tipa. I write the
word as it sounds ; but I have reasons for believing that
this word is nothing but Antipas. And other names I
could afterwards trace to Bible origin. Onaska is a
diminutive or pet name for Anania, or as we say, Ananias
—Mekolka for Nicholai or Nicholas. The Samoyeds
have also a practice of adding ‘o’; thus Philip becomes
Philipo, while Uano is Ivan.

On Tipa was a fine-looking old man, with long grey
hair and a general resemblance to Moses in the church
windows. He was chocolate-coloured, whereas Uano
was yellow.

He gave us real tea, and we spread reindeer fat on
bread for butter. I was much struck by his long train
of sleighs, some of which carried boats. Afterwards
I came to know On Tipa for the richest and most
trustworthy man on the whole island. His district was
the head-waters of the Pesanka, and he told me that

RE-CROSSING 145

he had been shooting near the Gusina that day when we
had heard the shots.

I tried hard to explain that the amount of our belong-
ings would demand more sleighs. When therefore we left
at seven o’clock On Tipa and his son came with us with
sleighs that brought the strength of our reindeer up to
forty-six.

PREPARING TO START
In the distance a choom is seen packed on a baggage-sleigh [arki-han]

Presently we struck more into the hills, and soon met
with some of our old friends the gullies.

I wish I could give even an approximate idea of the
wonders these reindeer performed. Once we came toa
place where was a ravine, on the opposite side of which

rose a snow wall, some six or seven feet high. We were
K

146 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

obliged to take it at this point because beyond the hill
dropped down in such a manner that the sleighs could
not have gone.

We got out and walked. A team of reindeer, five
abreast, were brought up to the edge of the ravine, till
they all stood level, breasting the long driving-pole held
across them all. Then the pole was removed, and ata
word all five bounded together, cleared the ravine, and
though they could not take the wall they landed against
the side of it, and scrambled up, dragging after them the
swinging sleigh. All the teams crossed in this way.

Reindeer are enabled to do this by means of the long and’
sharp ‘false hoofs,’ which point downwards into the snow.

We slid down the hill, and crossed lower down. Some-
times we sat tight, and flew the ravines. The deer were
put into a gallop before they leapt, and then over we
went, sleigh and all.

We found it exceedingly cold, travelling in this way
without greatcoats, for a cutting wind blew from the
north, and the fog came on. But the Samoyeds very
kindly lent us each a ‘sowuk,’ as they call it. This
garment is of course no other than the north Russian
‘sovik.’ It is made of reindeer skin, with the fur
outside, and a hood attached. We found them most
warm and comfortable, but could only hear badly in them.

It is not easy just at first to sit on a Samoyed sleigh.
There is only one way in which it is really comfortable.
You must sit as the Samoyeds do.

RE-CROSSING 147

I have seldom seen a picture which correctly gives
this. In Nordenskiédld’s Vega picture the sleigh is
wrong, the deer are incorrectly harnessed, and the man
sits on the wrong side of the sleigh. I fancy this picture
must have been inspired by
an old print which I have
seen.

A Samoyed always sits on
the Zef/t side of the sleigh,
and his long rein is attached
to the left-hand reindeer.
But I will leave this for the

present.

July ist.—At 2.30 A.M. we
came to a place by a lake,
where was good pasturage.
Here we halted, all the rein-
deer but five were turned
loose, and the Samoyeds all

lay down to sleep in the
same attitude. They lay
flat on their backs, with their hands, as I thought then,
stretched out by their sides. But in reality only their
stiff sleeves so remained, for the hands were inside on
the chest.

Then I walked down to the lake, which was evidently
much frequented by geese. There I waited for an hour

SAMOYED IN THE SOVIK

148 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

and a half, but no geese came. There were several pairs
of red-necked phalaropes flying and swimming about, and
calling shrilly ‘tweet, tweet.’ I could not find a nest.

Returning at 4 a.m. I lay down to sleep in a hollow
of a hillside. Very comfortably indeed I slept, for my
sovik kept me warm in spite of the fog, frost, and a
constant shower of little chips of hard ice.

About nine o’clock it cleared up, and I cooked some
Liebig for Hyland and myself. The men ate food which
they had brought with them.

There was a good deal of delay in getting off, because
the reindeer had to be first brought in, and they had
wandered far. My telescope came in very usefully here.
For the Samoyeds had not the least idea where the deer
were. Shabla went off with his adliurs in quite the
wrong direction, and after scouring the country for some
time, came ‘back rather glum. But meanwhile I had
been up to the top of a hill, and after a good look round,
spied the heads of two deer a long way off, for the main
body were down ina hollow. So I put Shabla on the
scent, and very soon he brought them in.

In our care to avoid the more difficult parts of the
hills we had dropped a good deal to the south of our
line, so now we turned nearly due north, crossing again
the hills we had traversed on foot, till we reached a point
some five miles from the northern coast, and then turned
west. Keeping this course we reached at 3.30 p.m. the
mouth of the Gusina.

RE-CROSSING 149

I was much pleased to see through the glass our tent,
in apparently the same condition as that in which we had
left it.

And now the Samoyeds were very funny. I pointed
out to them the little green speck across the river's
mouth. It was ‘my choom,’ I said—‘ mein mya.’ They
roared with laughter, it was so good a joke. But all the
time they were looking out across the sea; first one and
then another pointing at objects in the ice, as though at
a discovery; but always it ended with a shake of the
head, and ‘yangho’—‘no.’ At last they all drew up
together, looking very blank.

What was the matter? I asked them. And Onaska the
Prophet, sulky as a cornered bear, waved his hand across
the ice pack, and simply said, ‘ No Governor, no boat.’

So it was out.

They had made up their poor confused old minds that
His Excellency the Governor of Archangel had lost his
ship here in the ice, had sent us on, and was himself
waiting, atop of his belongings, for relief. Or that if we
were the only survivors, still there would be a fine old
wreck for them to overhaul, with plenty of food and
stuffs.

My conscience was clear. I had not taken them in;
I had told them nothing of all this. But they were mad,
very mad; and more confused than ever. For the life
of them they could not understand how we came to be

there at all.

150 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

They found a ford, of which we had known nothing,
about a mile below our camp.

So we went across the river, standing on our sleighs,
with the water all about our feet.

On the farther bank we stopped the sleighs, for
Hyland and myself would go and get our boots.

All was as we left it; indeed we might never have
been away. The male peregrine was still flying round
the place, which much surprised me, for I judged that, as
is the peregrine’s wont, he would long ere this have been
away to find another mate. And the goose left her nest
as we came up. Her four eggs were doubtless incubated
for one which I broke, as we were hungry, was in that
state.

Then we pulled out our boots, all right, but earthy-
smelling from their burial.

We tramped back, picked up the sleighs, and made
down the river for the tent. All was safe.

It took us quite a long time to pack and stow the things
upon the sleighs. And while we were thus engaged the
men were hard at work in consultation about us. This
delighted me very much. I could not follow them, of
course, as they jabbered on, but I could catch much of
the drift of it from their gestures, pointings, and the
like.

We were mysteries to them, I made no doubt. No
spirits, however, but good, substantial mysteries, for we
gave them food to eat.

RE-CROSSING 151

They were in a great hurry to be off; but I had made
up my mind that we had earned some food and rest.
And when they said there was nothing there for the
reindeer to eat I bid them turn the reindeer loose, who
soon would find it. So, in spite of their grumbling, they
tied up five reindeer for the morrow’s adliurs, and set
the others free.

The excitement when we produced our English axe
from its hole in the bank was beyond all holding. They
all wanted it—‘my axe now, yes yes, very good, make
sleigh very good—not a Kolguev axe—Kolguev axe no
good—how much skins for it?’ and so on, and so on.
But I put them off. Only Shabla, the dirty driver,
watched the axe with an eye so cunning, I mistrusted
him much, and you may be sure watched him too. We
had two big lumps of salt pork from the ship, and on
this we fed them, boiling it in our only pot. For we
had made a splendid fire from the drift-wood lying
round,

They did not eat much of this pork ; had it been goose
or reindeer they would have eaten four times as much.
They could not make out what it was, and I did not
remember the Russian word for it, though ‘okorok’ I
knew was ham; so I told them it was ‘okorok.’ But
this did not help, so pencil and pantomine as usual were
my resort. I drew them a pig, but they took it for
some form of seal, and said its legs were wrongly done.
This put me to squeaking and grunting on all-fours, at

152 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

which they laughed much, and for the greater part were
none the wiser. Only the Prophet said, ‘Drem, drem’
(‘yes, yes’) ; he had seen itin Archangel. Onaska, then,

was not a Kolguev man, and thus I learned why he

SHABLA SMOKING HYLAND’S PIPE

In his right hand is his cow’s horn snuff-box. In the distance a man goes off with the di-zha
to take a deer

was master of reading and writing, as the others were
not.

After this we all—Uano, Onaska, Shabla, On Tipa
and On Tipa’s son, Hyland and myself,—seven men in

RE-CROSSING 153

all, crowded in my little tent (seven feet by seven),
where we made the evening go very merrily; for I gave
them a little whisky apiece, and lent them a tobacco
pipe, which went the round, though Onaska would not
smoke at all, so Uano had a double share.

_ Then I brought out a large coloured sheet of Scandi-
navian birds, and also my bird-book, at which they dis-
played the greatest interest. They told me which were
Kolguev birds, and which were not, and gave me all the
native names, which will come in later in this book.

They were most intelligent about it, and had grand
arguments over certain cases. I was quite surprised
at their accuracy and skill, and almost everything I
doubted at the time I afterwards found borne out by
facts.

They said that the snowy owl nested not on Kolguev,
though it crossed over the sea in the summer ; that the
ivory gull was common there in the winter, with many
facts of that kind. Only they all insisted that the
swallow was a bird of their island, but I feel sure they
took it for a skua. They would give it a name, and
then imitate exactly the call of the bird, to show that
the name was only what it said itself.

One instance struck me much. The Samoyed name
for snowy owl is ‘hei-nib-chur.’ But ‘heinibchur’ is
also their name for sneeze and snuff, and when I found
out later that the Russians call this owl ‘Sowah,’ z.e.
snuff, I saw that it had reference to the bird’s habits

154 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

of sneezing, as one might call the hissing breathing.
noise it makes.

July 2nd.—We slept a bit, and at midnight turned
out, caught up the reindeer, stowed the tent, made a
fine fire, and cooked breakfast, and by 4 a.m. were
ready to start.

Then I wrote a note to Powys, telling him of our
change of plan, and that we were going to Scharok.
I put it with the former note, and buried the tin again
below Father Nicholas’ cross. The Samoyeds could
not make much of this ceremony, but the Prophet read
the inscription aloud, at which they all looked grave
and pondering, but had to give it up, and grunting
came away.

CHAPTER II
OUR RETURN

IT was a most unpleasant morning; a biting north wind
blew, snow was falling fast, and soon covered the
ground; but as it made the travelling much better, we
did not complain.

We took this time a more northerly route, crossing
the upper waters of the Konkina and Veliki rivers.

So well did we travel that by 8 a.m. we had done
nearly thirty versts, and then we pitched the tent.

We had a most exciting and delightful drive. This
side of the mountains did not seem to me to be so much
cut up with gullies as the other. But it is hard to say ;
for the Samoyeds, who knew all the passes, often made
so that we should take at any easy slope hills which
would have been very fierce and formidable had we been
hurrying on foot.

And very often we were able to travel for long
distances along the side of the snow gullies when they
were not very steep. But this was rather alarming to a
beginner; for then the men would put the reindeer
to a gallop, and the snow here lying not flat, but at an
angle, the second sleighs, those on which Hyland and

155

156 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

myself were seated, would slide away sideways down the
decline, until it really seemed that we must be shot or
dropped into the stream of the ravine itself. And the
heavy-laden sleighs were often in difficulties, especially
that which carried our big barrel. However, all ended
well.

We slept soundly enough till a little past mid-day,
and though we would have had the tent larger had that
been possible, we were a little better used to our com-
pany.

We had tea with ham and figs, and again gave the
Samoyeds pork, which they seemed to like better than
before.

We found them very averse to making a fire; indeed
they said that as they had no wood it could not be done,
and that we must hurry on. But I started picking
moss, and Hyland did the same. And when they saw
our game, and that a fire we would have, they made
a virtue of necessity, and soon had brought us much
moss and creeping birch.

I let them have the lighting of it, for I hoped that
we should see some curious way of obtaining fire or
sparks, but was disappointed; for out of their clothes
they brought Russian matches, and used them.

Long before we left Kolguev we had to all intents
and purposes become, in the matter of patience and the
readiness to delay, three-parts Samoyed. But in these
first days of our pilgrimage we found them very trying,

OUR RETURN 157

so that I chafed much and frightened them unnecessarily ;
for you can no more change the nature of a Samoyed
than that of any other man, though you rave never so
much, To-day you may gain your point and will, but
to-morrow you shall have it all over again; so that in
the end you are no better off, only more exhausted.

This is the particular way of these people to which
I now refer.

The reindeer are feeding, scattered far away ; but they
will not make a move to bring them in until the tent
or choom is struck, and every article packed on the
sleighs. This done, the whipper-in, who rides on the
adliurs, goes out for the deer. It sometimes takes an
hour—it took an hour this time—to find them and
bring them in.

Then they have to be corralled, sorted out and har-
nessed up, and then at last—no, even yet we do not
start.

First of all they all sit down on the ground for twenty
minutes or so, and snuff. Snuff-taking is a considerable
feature in the life of a Samoyed. The snuff they buy
from the Russians, or sometimes the vile tobacco, called
‘mahorka,’ which they pound up to that end. And their
snuff-boxes are very ingeniously made. Usually they
are of a cow’s horn, the larger end filled with a plug,
and the tip bored for the exit of the snuff, which is
shaken out on to the thumb-nail. Sometimes they con-

trive a snuff-box out of wood or metal, but even then

158 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

it still takes the shape of the cow’s horn; agreeably to
a principle well known to anthropologists, which comes
out in the gourd-like water-bottle or the buttons on
the back of our coats.

However, we did get off at last, and travelled very
well. At ten at night they had a consultation about
the tired reindeer, and it ended in a turn to the south,

mara

)

| ee nN) line ‘ Pa
wa =~ Ne

TAKING SNUFF

through a pass in the hills. When we halted On Tipa’s
contingent left and took many of the reindeer off. It
appeared that since we met On Tipa, his choom had
been moved up into the hills, and was now some five

versts away.

July 3rd.—WWe made ourselves some tea, and waited
for On Tipa. His son came back without him before
very long, and brought many fresh deer.

About one in the morning we got off again, and by
three o’clock had reached Uano’s choom.

It was so very cold and uncomfortable, for everything

OUR RETURN 159

was frozen hard, that I would not attempt to unpack
at present. Thus for the second time we slept in the
choom.

We were not so tired now, and noticed the discom-
forts more. I was, I must confess, not well content;
for the edges of the choom were many inches from the
ground, nor could we find any form of packing to keep
out a cutting wind; for while there were women and
children on the other side of the choom, I could not
put in any claim to the reindeer skins, which were
bundled there. The skins, too, were reduced in number,
for some we had taken with us to sit on in the sleighs,
and these were now wet or frozen from the passage of
the streams.

But sleep at last we did; and the last thing I saw
was old Sailor creeping round in a half-guilty way, to

find himself a comfortable position close to Hyland’s
head.

CHAPTER. iit

NOMADS

July 3vd.—And now I will go on from day to day
recounting events as they came about, without further
digressions than may be expedient for the making clear
this point or that point which does not explain itself.
By these means I judge I shall best discover to you
the life of these solitary people, to whom we owe so
much, not only of our entertainment, but perhaps of
well-being itself.

We were for a time their companions, a part of the
equipage of their daily concerns, living with them side by
side, feeding from their pot—from ‘ yud’—moving with
them as they moved ; in a word, we were to be Samoyeds.

At two in the afternoon of this day, Tuesday, the 3rd
of July, we rose, and by half-past three the mid-day
meal was ready cooked and eaten.

The Samoyed has three proper meals in the day, as
we have ourselves. The word for a meal is ‘zeindow.’
Of these they have—

1, Sienitz-zeindow =the morning meal.
Hov-zeindow = do.

Ortow = breakfast.
160

NOMADS 161

This meal we commonly spoke of as ‘ortow,’ but ‘sienitz’
and ‘hoom’ both mean morning, and possibly ‘hov’ is
simply euphonic for ‘hoom.’

2. Yaliernia zeindow= midday meal.
3. Vayosoom zeindow = supper.

We had ‘ yaliernia zeindow’ now. An excellent goose
stew the women made, and when we had finished all the
meat out of ‘ yud,’ barley flour was thrown in, and a capital
soup resulted. This went either by the Russian name of
‘schtee,’ or the Samoyed word ‘yah.’

The men drank this soup in the Russian peasant way,
four spoons to one bowl, but we had our iron cups. The
stewed goose fished out with a bent nail was either
spread on a low wooden stool, or into wooden bowls,
with which the choom was provided.

The dogs at meal-times were not so bad, but outside
were an intolerable nuisance. It was impossible to move
without a train of yelling curs at your heels. In par-
ticular, there was an exceedingly handsome dog, an especial
favourite with Mrs. Uano, Huilka by name, and he bit
Hyland. He made no sound when attacking, only
came quietly up and bit. Fortunately the wound was
very slight, but it naturally annoyed Hyland very much.

Such a miserable day it was, however, with its snow
and keen north wind, that we did nothing more than
pitch our tent. This was a matter of some difficulty.
It was hard to find a spot where the pegs would hold,

for all the ground was sandy. The wind, too, was much
i

162 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

against us—it was almost as great a task as the taking
in of a sail in a gale of wind. But the Samoyeds helped
us much, and were very envious of our tent, which they
said was so much better than a ‘mya.’ The time came
when we would willingly have exchanged with them. So
far, however, we had no rain, and therefore felt full of

trust in the green ‘ waterproof’ canvas.

af

q
“anal
wih

i!
iy)

iy
‘ly

Mf
“i HW)
wilt

OUR TENT AND UANO’S CHOOM

July 4th.—TVhis day to begin with was very fine, and
we were glad to hear that our friends meant moving down
to a position near the mouth of the big Pesanka river, so
that they might be well placed for observing the geese
which frequent the river’s mouth.

NOMADS 163

I will describe the details somewhat particularly, and
will say once for all in the light of later events that what
is true of these Kolguev Samoyeds is true, in my ex-
perience, of their race on the mainland at least as far
east as the Petchora River.

A Samoyed has three distinct forms of sleighs, the
‘han,’ the ‘arki-han’ (‘arki’ means big), and the ‘adliurs.’

The ‘han’ is the ordinary passenger sleigh ; upon it two
can ride at a pinch. It has four, occasionally five, sup-
ports on either side, set slantingly. The ‘arki-han’ is
really a baggage sleigh; it is very stoutly built, and has
two supports only on either side, and they are set
perpendicularly. The adliurs I have spoken of before ;
it has four slanting supports on either side.

The packing of the sleighs was done with that expedi-
tion which one would expect from a nomad people, con-
stantly on the move because of their reindeer. Can
you imagine what this means—the discomfort, the
unrest of it? They can stay in one spot only just so
long as the deer find plenty to eat. Buta large herd of
deer soon clear a district, and every day they feed farther
and farther from home, and it becomes more difficult to
bring them in. So after a day or two there is nothing
for it but to pack up all your belongings, and move away
to new pastures.

Small wonder, then, that these people were good
packers. They were. Everything fell into its place as
if by magic.

164 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The women and children did all the domestic part.
They took down the chooms, and packed them on the
‘arki-han,’ and the pots and skins they stowed also.
Meantime the men got barrels, the boat, and the fire-
wood on to the sleigh.

These boats (‘ar-noh’ in Samoyed) are very light.
They have no keel, but usually two bilge keels or runners
on either side, so that they are pretty steady, and run
easily over the mudflats. They are nine feet long, with
a three and a half feet beam.

You are to understand that the chooms were placed
on a circular sandy plateau, of which there are many on
the tundra ; and that such places are always chosen, when
possible, for the following reasons. There is a good
view from them, so that the reindeer can be kept much
in sight; they are dry and healthy ; and from the hard-
ness of the ground are well adapted to the practice of
such exercises as I shall describe in their place.

Now all was ready for the deer. The team of five
fast and strong bucks which had been staked out by the
choom all night was harnessed to an adliurs. One such
team is always kept up in this way in order that the
whipper-in may have them ready to his hand.

Mekolka is to take this team and bring the deer up.
Off he goes at score, followed by some of the dogs. But
I have never introduced you to the dogs.

Latori was king of the pack. He was an old white
dog, with one eye only, and the sweetest disposition you

Sox adud 207

ANIT NI

NOMADS 165

ever met with, He was respected as a patriarch by all
the rest, and retained his throne by moral influence ; for
if might were right, as among the dogs of the Eskimo,
the rule would already have passed to Ni-arr-way.

Ni-arr-way was a fine black dog, the biggest of them.
When Ni-arr-way gets to be Latori’s age he will be just
such another in character; for even now he is the soul
of kindness, and a remarkably useful dog—as you shall
see.

Thirdly there came Huilka, the handsome treacherous
one. Red he was, with a lovely fox-like coat. Then
Pasco, who had the puppies later on. Mandaluk, a lady
also, and very pretty but shy. Sixth, Sierko, about ten
months old; white, ragged, and always dirty, who barked
incessantly at nothing at all, and I think was touched in
the head. Hurpey, a piebald youngster, who promised
better things. Mno-coh, a dog like a timber wolf, whom
I seem to know little about. There are dogs, you
know, with whom you may live for a long while, and yet
notice very little; independent characters, who ‘gang
their ain gate.’ Mno-coh was one of these. There
were also puppies which came at intervals, and were
loved and nursed by the children as they are at home.
And sometimes they disappeared mysteriously, as they
also do with us. But of those who survived our favourite
was little Chua. Chua would play with you by the hour
if you gave him achance. He was one of those electric

pups you sometimes meet. If he was asleep at the other

166 ICE-BOUND ON KROLGUEY

side of the choom you had but to snap your flngers and
whisper Chua,’ and in a moment he was sprawling all
over you, wrigeling like an ecl.

These, then, were some of the doys.

Off went Mckolka on his sleigh, and rounded up the
the herd. It was not so easy as it may seem, There
were five hundred reindeer in’ this herd, and they were
seattercd fir away. But the team was taken ata rapid
trot round and round the herd, and the dogs worked also,
as sheep-dogs work at home, ‘The bulls and) steers
would always run from the dogs, but a cow, especialy if
she had a younvish calf, would often charge and charge
again. But the whole herd is brought up at last; the
steers and bulls being then penned for tna strong herd
such ats this the cows arc not worked at this time of year.

As the deer come up all the ‘choom! turns out to meet
them. The draught deer as a rule are pretty quiet, and
draw up together more or less of their own aecord,
They are brought up on to the level rise on which
stands the choom, and thea the women and children en-
circle the lots, with a bit of light string held in the hand,
while the men going into the ring make up their various
teams. Some of the deer have to be caught and haltered ;
some are so quict that an arm over their necks is suflt
cient to guide them about,

Then the creatures are harnessed up, and off we po,

The two little girls cach drove their team of three
reindeer, and wonderfully well they manayed, jumping on

L£gi a8vg a0

ONITTAAVUL SAATVD GNV SMOOD UAAACNIAY

SysapeN dl

NOMADS 167

to the sleigh when the deer were at the trot as easily
as their elders.

The light-heartedness of these children was delight-
ful to see. They wanted to drive races, but were not
allowed, because the deer were not at their best. But
they were laughing and chattering all the time, and were
much concerned about their puppies, which kept rolling
helplessly about on the sleighs.

All other movable things were roped down on the
sleigh with strips of sealskin; but you can’t rope down
a fat, round puppy.

We were not yet promoted to team-driving, so I had
nothing to do but sit on my sleigh and take snap-shots
with the camera at anything I chose. Mr. Nettleship’s
picture gives an admirable idea of the general appear-
ance of a travelling herd of cows and calves.

Mekolka was well occupied. With his light adliurs
and his fine team of five he was continually scouring
round at the gallop or hard trot, bringing up the
stragglers.

When we reached the Pesanka we found it pretty
much swollen because of the melting snow, and it was
some time before we could find a fordable place.

First of all the cows and calves were driven across.
The dogs hunted them over. The main body went
readily enough, but some of the cows whose calves were
small would now and then rebel, calling loudly, and
charging back on the dogs. And one or two on finding

168 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

that their calves had remained behind on the bank
turned, and came pounding back, swimming and dashing
across the shallows, and taking no more notice of the
dogs than if they had been stones. So they rejoined the
calves, and then both crossed together. The little
things swam admirably, carrying their heads well laid
back, just as their parents did.

It had been a most picturesque and charming sight.

I sat and sketched it while the Samoveds, in default of

A HALT

other occupation, squatted down close to me, rather too
close to be quite pleasant, and looked on.

Of course at this place was the regular ford, but the
water was unusually high. It was quite impossible for
us to cross straight over; so now Ni-arr-way’s part came
in, and a very proud dog he was. He had to find out
for us a passage by the shallows. For, as Hyland and
myself had by this time every reason to know, in these
rivers a passage may often be found, though you take
long about it. You may have to grope halfway across,

and then perhaps a quarter of a mile or so right up the

NOMADS 169

middle of the stream, and possibly at an angle down
again, but as often as not you come out all right at last.

And Ni-arr-way did this for us. Into the water he
went, and puzzled out the track. He might not swim;
that was forbidden. Whenever he came to a deep place
he turned, and tried another tack. Close behind him
followed Mekolka, standing up ona pilot sleigh. They
were a long time about it, but at last they emerged on
the farther side some three hundred yards above.

Meantime the women had been gnawing bones and
horns, and the children running about picking dead
grasses to put in their shoes. This grass they call
‘sti-el-ka,’—a pretty name.

Now it was our turn to cross. We went over easily
and well. As Uano and I were the first over, I was
able to sit and watch the long train of sleighs as it wound
its way across. Twenty sleighs mean some eighty rein-
deer, so it took some time for all to cross. And what
do you suppose happened then? Why this. A wretched
white puppy, quite big enough to swim if he had had an
ounce of pluck, was found to be running up and down
on the farther bank, and squeaking miserably. ‘Tasso’
is ‘puppy’ in Samoyed. But nota soul called ‘ Tasso,’
only Mekolka turned again and drove all the way
across for the creature; and then, with the perverseness
of puppyhood, this little stupid would not trust his de-
liverer, but wriggled away out of reach, careered around,
and took as much catching as an autumn grasshopper.

170 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

At last, when things seemed at the worst, he suddenly
rolled over on his back, smit by a sense of his own im-
possibility, in the ridiculous way that puppies have, and
was carried off in triumph. I timed this sleigh recrossing ;
it took twelve minutes. Soon after we rose a little hill, and
pitched. Then I went out with Hyland for a stroll.

We were walking about thirty yards apart, along a
high peaty ridge, when Hyland called out, ‘What's
this bird, sir?’ It was a dotterel, and was sitting quietly
close in front of him. Whether it had a nest or no we
could not determine. It flew off with no deceptions.

Then we circled round, and presently a second dotterel
ran away, evidently off her nest, for she was shamming
lame. We had no difficulty whatever in finding the nest.
It contained four eggs. The dotterel which nests with
us, though now few and locally, is a bird of very beautiful
plumage, and the female is more strongly coloured than
the male. It has for trivial name the ‘foolish’ dotterel,
because once it was so easily taken in the nets.

We did not touch the nest, as I wanted to scc some-
thing more of the birds, but came in and had a capital
meal of goose soup, black bread or ‘ rieska,’ and Samoyed
‘tea.’ This is easily made by mixing up raw eggs with
hot water. I cannot recommend it on other grounds.
It is not equal to the best China tea.

By the Pesanka to-day | found a charming little pink
primula, and several other plants which will be found at
the end.

SOMADe 171

The Samoyeds were much mystified at the trouble I
took about these plants, not being able to imagine to
what use I would put them. Although they have dis-
tinct names for many of the birds, the plants, except
the edible forms, are all lumped together as ‘omdoh.’
which is to say, ‘a flower.’

July 3th.—During the night a big wind arose. It
grew and grew until it raged all day, a gale with rain and
snow. A vile day: you could not walk; to go out was
to be almost blinded.

And now, for the first time, I lost faith in the tent
It was one of those known as ‘ Whymper’ tents, which
are contrived for Alpine work. They are made of
‘Willesden’ canvas, recommended as waterproof. These
tents are excellent in dry and still weather, but in a wind
the sides bulged in badly. I always thought that this
might be met bya portable set of ribs; but how they
could be fortified against rain with wind I do not know.
Rain which falls quietly runs off well enough, but driving
rain comes straight through. Very soon, then, the tent
was flooded ; and for the rest of the day we were fighting
the water, making what contrivances we might for guiding
runnels clear of our things. By putting blocks under the
floor we just managed to keep a corner dry where we
would sleep.

Not doing this, we were skinning and blowing eggs;
and it was a great disappointment to find that two grey

172 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

plovers’ eggs had broken in the botanical case where I
had packed them when the bacon was done.

We were not more than ten yards from the ‘mya,’ so
I could keep an eye on anything of interest there. Me-
kolka, one of the most ingenious fellows I have ever
come across, was making a ring for his finger. Round
a stick he cut a groove, fitted a bit of paper over it, and
then ran in some white-looking metal which he had
heated on the fire in a hollowed piece of wood. What
this metal is I do not know;; it is not lead, but evidently
some alloy which melts at a low temperature. The ring
had a fine big stop like a signet-ring. The wood was
cut away, the ring removed, finished with the knife and
with sand. He went on working until he had a fine
heavy metal ring, as well and accurately shaped and as
well finished as any plain gold signet-ring which you can
see.

The Samoyeds are very clever at this work. Their
chisel-edged knives, of which I have told, have handles
ornamented with metal by the same plan. Some of
these patterns are quite intricate in character, and we
never saw two alike. Every man, woman, and child
carries one of these knives. We had not a single case
of accident from them while we were on the island. I
wonder how many English mothers would like to trust
their children of five and six with long, sharp knives like
these. But the use is, with the Samoyeds, a case of
heredity. They use the axe, too, wonderfully. A little

NOMADS 173

girl of ten or so—little Zornka, for example—would cut

up the wood for the fire with great precision and speed.

July 6th.—You are to understand that we made our
hours for meals by the sun. At present it was about
like this. At ten or eleven in the morning the Samoyeds
rose, and the men went out to tend the reindeer and to

settle matters about the camp. There was always plenty

to be done—sleighs to be made or mended, harness put
right, reindeer brought up and inspected. Meantime the
women were getting ‘ortow’ ready. They fetched for
water melting snow in wooden tubs; they made the fire,
plucked the geese, and finally called us to a well-cooked
meal at noon.

At seven in the evening ‘yaliernia zeindow’ fell, and
‘vayosoom zeindow’ at midnight. After the morning
review of the reindeer I was not a little surprised to find

that many teams had not been set free, but remained

174 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

tied up to the sleighs. Whereupon Uano told me that
the ‘choom’? to-day was moving on.

This would have been greatly against my own idea,
for we were now in a beautiful little spot, and one that
promised well for the birds. For at the foot of our hill
flowed the Pesanka, which we could trace very far away
as it wound across the tundra. More than one little lake
we could also see. Nor had I forgotten the dotterel’s
nest.

Our property was still wet from yesterday’s soaking,
and must be dried; and between these I made out suffi-
cient reason why we would wait here another day.

I do not say that our host agreed willingly to this;
on the contrary, it raised a universal storm of protest
in the camp. But I had always one and an invincible
argument on my side. This was nothing else than com-
plete indifference to anything which they might say.

Of course they might have driven off and left us, but
so early in our acquaintance they were too greatly afraid
to do this—just as afterwards they developed such an
affection for us as would have kept them with us against
our wills.

It was blowing about half a gale from the north-west,
which dried up our belongings by about three in the
afternoon. Then we went out, and again visited the
dotterel’s nest.

1 The word ‘choom’ is used not only of the wigwam-like dwelling, but, as here, in
the sense of the family or household, as we say ‘my house.’

NOMADS 175

On one small lake were three black-throated divers,
of which we shot one. Sailor retrieved it, though it
pecked viciously at him all the time. While we were
standing there and shooting, two more of this species flew
over and dropped into the pool, which was not more
than sixty yards across. Each time that one of these
birds came to the top it barked and yelped so exactly
like a dog that at first I was completely taken in, be-
lieving that Sailor suffered correction at Hyland’s hands
for doing something wrong.

This lake was very pretty. There was a steep bank
on the farther side which was many feet deep in snow.
It hung over the water so that we could not go that way ;
but where we stood was only marsh, and all ablaze with
marsh marigold.

To-day Uano produced three fox’s skins. One pure
white, one red, and one blue. They had all been taken
in the winter-time.

In the evening we played some games of draughts
with old Uano.

I had noticed that the table off which we fed was
scored with cross-lines, and worked in a chequered
pattern, and this evening Uano explained that it was for
the game ‘hardranger, which after all was only
draughts, with variations. They used for the pieces
the Russian words ‘kiesler’ and ‘dama,’ and from
the Russians perhaps they had the game. For draughts-
men we used little stones, which came out of a skin bag.

176 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Uano beat me game after game, roaring with laughter
at my defeat. Old Ustynia looked on with her wrinkled
face and kindly twinkling eyes, taking the keenest
interest in her lord’s success. Hyland played it better

than I, but he was worsted too.

July 7th.—It was a lovely sunny day, though the wind
still blew keenly from the northward.

Always most anxious to keep any undertakings made
with these people, so that they might come to rely upon
my word, I used every. effort to have all ready and
stowed on the sleighs by half-past two, the hour they
had fixed for moving off.

But the reindeer had strayed away, and so we all
stood tentless and choomless until six o’clock. And
then we moved off.

Among the herd was one little calf only born five days
ago. Yet this small creature kept up most gallantly.
Every now and then it dropped behind, and its mother
anxiously waited, lowing, and charging the dogs, who
tried to hurry it on. But just when we thought it was
really so tired that we ought to lift it on to a sleigh, it
pulled itself together and scampered off.

We pulled up now and then for the deer to rest, and
once Mekolka left us. He had picked up by the way a
reindeer’s shed antler. This he bore away to a spot on
the tundra, where was a circular, low tower, built entirely
of reindeer’s horns. On this he placed the horn he bore,

NOMADS 177

but he brought away, after much selection, another in its
place. The Samoyeds pile the horns in this way for
storage and exchange. Under the action of the sun and
the salt winds the horns are bleached and workable, and
are useful then for many purposes.

We were now for the first time on a regular sleigh-
route ; from continuous old traces of sleighs you could see
that this was so.

But in the evening we reached a charming spot in full
view of the ice of the sea. By us, on the other side,
were several little pools. The place itself was a gravel,
stony rise, not lofty, but high enough to command the
tundra which lay around.

It was evidently an old camping-ground, and here we
stayed.

SLIPPERS MADE BY SAMOYEDS

M

CHAPTER IV
PESANKA TO SCHAROK

July 8.—No day in any country could possibly be
more lovely than this. I might have been back in the
mountains of California, when the sun is despoiling the
snow, and the wind comes down the valleys so lightly
that it scarcely stirs a leaf of the poplars to fright the
black-tailed deer. This sense was often upon me during
the day. But could I paint as became the subject you
would have a very different scene from that. Long
descriptions tire us all, but for once I should just like
to try and set you down where we were now. So
will you, for one moment, shut your eyes, and give
yourself to me?

Just behind us was a gorge filled with snow. Up this
the sleighs had wound from the river to find the plateau
where we were. But very soon on that northern side
the hills dropt down, and there was the Pesanka coiling
away over the plain in the sunlight like a beautiful
glittering snake. And the wild geese went up along it
from their feeding-grounds, and all about its edges small
waders ran and fed.

Our hill sank in front to the tundra itself; very grey at
178

PESANKA TO SCHAROK 179

first because of the lichens, as it rolled along it changed
and changed again. For it took colours from the sun-
light and colours from the clouds. Here it was purple,
which deepened back and deepened back till suddenly
a spot lay lit to emerald, as the sun caught a moss-flat or
the grasses round a tarn. And here it was blue—a blue
like the haze in England when the hay is in rows in the
sun. And if you sat and watched a little longer, lakes
began to form from separate small centres, and widened
and grew till they formed a chain of waters spanning the
tundra from hand to hand. Though you knew they
were but phantoms of the mirage, transformed from little
drifts and cups of snow, it mattered little—you had your
picture all the same.

And away to the west lay the ice barriers, dense upon
the water and ridged upon the sands. Only now, lifted
up in the sunlight, it was no more the level ice-pack,
but noble cliffs of quivering whiteness as round some
enchanted isle.

There was more than this, much more. But these are
the broader touches in the scene.

This was Sunday, and that perhaps was why the
women all knelt in a row by a stream and washed their
hair. Then they combed it with their fingers and tied it
up. It is straight and black, and it reaches nearly to the
waist. Also, because it was Sunday we cooked one of our
four tins of preserved beef, and stewed some apple chips.

I don’t mean to imply that the Samoyed food is not

180 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

good. It is; but when you have eaten white-fronted
goose, bean goose, king eider, and long-tailed duck for
many days on end, you begin to feel with Mark Twain’s
American after watching the dead bodies, ‘Cussed if I
want any breakfast.’

And after all the white-fronted goose and the bean
goose, though they have different names and different
feathers, when they are cooked are only—goose.

Of the other two, however, king eider is excellent, but
long-tailed duck very poor. We came to hate long-
tailed duck.

Verrmyah, also called Philipo, Katrina’s husband and
Uano’s eldest son, appeared to-day. It seemed he had
been southward. He
brought very cheering
news. The ice, he
said, did not touch the
south of the island.
I asked him whether
any ships could get
through to the south.
He did not know;
there might be a
channel, and a boat mzgh¢ get into the gulf; but truly,
he did not know.

UANO AND VERRMYAH HIS SON

But this set me thinking whether we ought not to be
somewhere nearer the gulf or Scharok harbour in case
a vessel should come. For this was just about the time

PESANKA TO SCHAROK 181

when, as the governor of Archangel had said, the gun-
boat would be going on its first trip to Novaya Zemblya,
and could set me ashore on Kolguev.

But it was pleasant here, and I was loth to go.
Philipo was quite a good-looking fellow, with a frank
laugh that caught me much. Athletic and well-built he
was also, if you except the bowed legs which nearly all
these people have. Philipo was his Russian name; his
proper name was Verr-my-ah, just as Uano’s was
Siins-koh.

They skinned a dog to-day.

A young reindeer (not the little one) had died last
night. They didn’t in the least know the cause of death,
and yet they let it lie about until all the dogs had gorged
themselves upon it. Asa consequence of this there was
an epidemic of swelled throats, all the dogs looking as if
they had mumps, and had them badly. And one, Huilka,
died. You remember Huilka, the old women’s pet, how
handsome I said he was, and how he bit Hyland’s leg.
I never had reason to dislike him myself, but was relieved
when he was taken from us, for he and Hyland had
never made it up. He was a wonderful catcher of birds.

I saw to-day many red-necked phalaropes, a pair of
scaups, and several long-tailed ducks in the pools. All
the male long-tailed ducks had lost their tails.

July 9.—To-day, with a south-west and warm wind
(the thermometer in the tent at 10 A.M. stood at 50’),

182 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the musquitoes began to be troublesome in the marshes.
I found it impossible to escape them till I walked down
the bed of a little stream between walls of snow. Here

I sketched a very big sandstone boulder. It was quite

circular, and was just nine feet across. But it lay in
three pieces, cracked right across the lines of formation
by the expansive force of ice.

Then I went and lay down by a lake. Had it not
been for the musquitoes it would have been most

pleasant there. The black-breasted dunlins were run-

PESANKA TO SCHAROK 183

ning and flying, or sang like grasshoppers from the tops
of mounds. I found four of their little ones crouching
in the grass. They were all downy, but with big strong
legs.

The little stints I could not understand. They were
now about in lots of six, nine, or ten, chasing one
another round and about, as on the Kriva all that
time ago.

And I watched four pairs of red-necked phalaropes
for a long time, with no result, at least towards finding
their nests. They swim well, in a curious, jerky, perky
way, with heads straight. They somehow recalled to
me a crinolined lady by Leech, picking her way across
the street in the pages of Punch. Mincing—that is the
word—the red-necked phalarope seems to mince.

And then, while I was looking at a red-throated diver,
it swam to the farther side, and then I could see it through
the glass sitting in the reeds. So I made a circle, and
came quietly upon it, whereupon it stretched out its
long neck, and shot down a lane of shallow water that
led from its nest, and away out into the lake, cutting the
water for many feet, just as an old pike does when you
have him by the lip.

- But now I had weighed to more purpose the question
of our course.

If the ice was really away from the Waskina, ought not
a message to be left waiting there for Powys should he
call? If Scharok harbour were open out to sea, then

184 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

we should be making soundings, and finding how the
channels lay against the coming in of the Saxoz or the
gunboat.

After I had finished the work with the prismatic
compass, and all the entries in my route-book, which
always took up much of my time, I told Uano we would
move to Scharok.

We left at about four o'clock in the afternoon. For
good-bye the women said ‘prostee,’ which is the common
Samoyed formula. It may be Samoyed, but it sounds
like a corruption of the Russian ‘pra-schei’ or ‘pra-
scheite.’

We crossed in the order named, the Tinyan, the
Barakova and the Peinmur rivers, all running through
the same flat, and then came upon a really fine lake.
This Uano told us they called ‘Solnoi Toh,’ which is to
say, Solnoi Lake. The Russians, he added, called it
Solnoida or Soldonoida Lake (‘ozero’).

Soon after seven o’clock we made the passage of
the Baroshika, the largest river, said Uano, after the
Pesanka, on this coast.

An hour and a half later we rose a slight hill, and
there, some four miles off, were a row of little huts,
plainly visible against a background of ice. They were
not much to look at, but even after these few days of our
wanderings seemed about as strange as though in the
middle of Gobi you should come upon a modern hotel.

Here the men pulled up the reindeer, flung down the

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ae

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PESANKA TO SCHAROE 185

‘toors’ (driving rods), and sprang from the sleighs.
‘Scharok, Scharok,’ they cried together—‘ Sarco in the
Samoyed—in the Samoyed Sarco.’ They always put
everything twice like this, for fear that I should miss it.
For after they found that I wrote down their words, and
used to try and use them, they were at the greatest pains
to teach me all they could.

And then they snuffed and the reindeer fed. The
ground was well lichened, and the deer were just half
an hour feeding steadily before they raised their heads.
Then within a minute or two of each other every head
was up. But we left them no time for rumination, for
again we moved off.

And then we took to the snow at the sides of the mud
creeks, and then to the mud itself, on which the sleighs
ran very well.

Splish, splosh went the feet of the deer, squirting up
unsavoury mud which the tide had left. It was red at
the top, but below this crust was lying liquid and
black.

At last we came on the huts—' isba’ and ‘ombara’—
sleeping-huts and storage-huts. All were deserted.
One of them, Uano said, was his. ‘Have you no boat
of any kind?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, there was a boat,
but it wanted doing up. It was lying up among the
sheds, but we hauled it into a handier position, nearer to
the sea; for I meant to use that boat. Then I pitched
the tent, and gave the men some tea, and just before

186 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

midnight they picked up their toors, jumped on their

sleighs, and were off at a gallop, but not before I had

made Uano undertake to come for me in nine days’ time,

so that I might go and help to catch the geese.
Meantime we were to be alone.

PART IV

Wuicu treats of our solitary life at Scharok
harbour—With how we explored the district—
How we sounded the harbour—Of ‘the waiter’
and his ways, and of new faces—A baby is
described somewhat particularly, and a
Samoyed Saga is given—The reader will learn
with other matters how we met the father
of the island—How we took the wild
geese — And finally, how through
want of bread we were compelled
to return to life with the
Samoyeds.

CHAPTER I
IN SCHAROK CAMP

So the Samoyeds were gone, and again we were
alone.

There was no help for it, and the best we could do at
the moment was to prowl about and see exactly how we
lay.

We made for the huts—they were about as cheerful
and promising as a group of tombs.

Three were ‘ombara’—rickety shanties, designed as a
cover for barrels and skins.

Three were ‘isba,’ or dwelling-huts: one was locked,
the other two we entered. The first was Uano’s.

The door—so low that you had to bend down as you
passed—opened into an antechamber, some ten feet
square, and blocked with barrels full of fat. The floor
was of earth, covered with a good deep layer of melted
seal-blubber. It had run from the tubs out through the
doorway and was smeared all about. A still smaller
door led into the living-room. On either side of this
was a wooden settle, a small table stood between the
two, a tiny window looked out across the sea, and on the

wall hung a little Russian cross of wood.
189

190 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The second hut had its complement of blubber in
the entrance-room, but the inner part had been evidently
used asa chapel. There were the Madonna and a saint
or two, left cruelly alone. Before them hung their
lamps with none to light them, and the gilt about their
setting was all tarnished by the fogs. On the floor was
a packet of incense, a bundle of tapers, a censer and a
charcoal-heater—and this was about the sum. It was

depressing.

THE CHAPEL AT SCHAROK

Outside it was more melancholy still. For here was a
place of burial, but not railed off. Only there were
many Russian crosses with legends and queer patterns,
some fallen down.

Foxes had burrowed into the graves; glaucous gulls
sat on the crosses and scarcely moved at our approach.
Seal-fat was everywhere ; in great lumps and smearings
upon the grass, and on everything that lay about.

IN SCHAROK CAMP 191

Reindeer skulls and bones and horns showed through
the thin grass on every hand.

Never—xever need a man feel lonely when he is away
out in the wilds with only nature there, for so long as
he has flowers, birds, and streams about him he has
always friends at hand. But for downright, sickening,
malicious melancholy put me in such a place as this,
where man has had nothing but dreariness to give for
all that he has taken away.

We walked farther, a little up the coast. The tide
was out, and there lay open a wide expanse of ooze, cut
up here and there by a creek from which came the voices
of birds. The cliff was not higher than some thirty feet,
and all along the coast-line ran a broad, sloping escarp-
ment of slowly melting snow. Away out beyond the
mud-flats, as far north and south as the eye could reach,
was the white line of the ocean ice where it struck upon
the outer sand-banks.

We came upon a neglected boat and a_ neglected
grave. But the grave had once been above the ordinary,
for it was covered by a wooden tomb. In this grave,
as I afterwards learned, Uano’s father was buried. He
had not always been a Kolguev man, but had crossed
from the Timanskii tundra in the island’s palmy days.
I saw that the willow-grouse had been dusting about
this tomb, and when I raised it, underneath was a snow-
bunting’s nest. But it came on to rain pretty sharply,
and so we turned back.

192 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

You quite understand where we were now? At Stanavoi
Scharok, z.e. Scharok harbour, the one and only harbour
of Kolguev. For Uano had explained to me that the
Waskina was no harbour at all, that they could not even
get their little boats in there, and that, though there was
one river—the Pugrinoy—without a bar, still (as was
clear from his description) there was not enough water in
this to float the Saxox or any other sizable boat.

So now there seemed to be nothing for it but to wait
within sight of this one entry for the ice to go.

July 10.—We found it very hard work to get wood
for the fire. No drift-wood is cast up on this side of the
island except on the outer rim of the sand-banks. It
was impossible for us to reach these, for there lay between
ourselves and them a good two miles of water and mud.
But we found the foundation timbers where a hut had
stood, and managed, after much labour, for it was like
iron, to cut some of this with our little axe.

Hyland, who since during our stay with the Samoyeds
had been very fairly well, was out of sorts to-day. He
complained much of giddiness, and had to sit about.
Our stock of medicine was not a large one, though,
fortunately, in the end it proved enough.

Last night as the tide was ebbing, nine-and-forty
long-tailed ducks came down the creek with the stream
and lay just below our tent. They were still there this
morning, but well out of shot.

IN SCHAROK CAMP 193

Later on I made a plan of Scharok harbour and its
entry, but it will be enough to say now that there is
nowhere any expanse of deep water; only immediately
under the huts runs a wide creek which, after three
windings, finds it way out into the sea over a low bar
some two miles off. This entry we could clearly see,
because it was free from grounded ice.

There is far more to be done when settling down into
camp life than many might suppose. As we had no
bucket or water-can, the Samoyed plan of melting snow
for drinking purposes would not do. But we found a
place down by the edge of the creek where a tiny stream
came under the snow. Breaking a hole through the
snow-crust we tapped the water and found it good. But
this spot was a long way off from our tent.

Also we collected a quantity of tightly rolled-up birch
bark, which we found along high-water mark, for lighting
fires.

I have often puzzled over the origin of these rolls.
They are found in abundance on our own east coast after
heavy northerly gales, and are spoken of by writers on
Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemblya. It has been sug-
gested that they are used as floats by the Norwegian
fishermen. I scarcely think this would explain the
immense quantities in which they are found. Every
tide brought in a fresh supply, and we had a constant
store for fire-lighting. For this purpose birch bark is

superior even to pitch pine, for it catches instantaneously,
N

194 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

and burns even in a high wind. When in need of a fire
on the mainland we cut some green bark off a growing
tree, and found it burned equally well.

Sailor’s kennel was a question of some moment. We
had not a box or barrel, nor anything that would answer.
However, the old dog himself solved the case. For
when we had provisionally staked him out under the lee
of a sandy mound, he set so vigorously to work that very
soon he had a snug retreat well out of the wind. When
the wind changed he made a second on the other side.
And now let the wind shift as it might, he had only to
move to the one or the other to lie as snug as a fox.

‘Now, Hyland,’ I said, when all was complete, ‘we
have two things to remember : first, that we have now
to trust to our guns for food ; and secondly, that we can’t
afford to waste a shot.’

So leaving him to try and sleep off his feeling of illness,
I set off walking down the coast, which at this point is
much like the Kriva district. There is the old raised
beach of yellow sand, with the bogs and flats beyond.
But the ground—as a bird and flower ground—seemed
in no way equal to the Kriva, for the flats were a
monotonous waste of moss and peat, which apparently
ran on and on till it rose to some high hills or mountains
in the extreme distance.

I found one willow-grouse on the sand-ridge, and that
I secured. It was getting its dark plumage. I saw no
other bird of this species, whereas hitherto they had been
round us every day.

IN SCHAROK CAMP 195

In a pool I also shot three long-tailed ducks, so we
were secure for supper.

A nest of four little stints I found this day is worthy
of mention, because it was the first of those instances of
young birds being kicked out of the'nest by the parent
of which I propose to write later on in the book. The
old bird as she jumped and crept about squeaked just
like a house mouse.

When we cleaned the willow-grouse for the cooking,
we threw the insides on to the grass about ten yards
from the tent, and these the Arctic skuas came and
carried off.

The pink sea-glaux was now coming out and the pretty
blue Jacob’s-ladder. And everywhere cuckoo-pint was
in full flower; but its flowers were white and not lilac.

On the mud-flats I noticed a new wader among the
dunlins. It proved to be a Temminck’s stint. The
glaucous gulls, who were our very intimate friends, used
to carry their bivalves from the creek away on to the
swamp behind the tent. They had quite a collection of
shells there.

This evening there was rain and fog, and it was pretty
dismal.

The wind chopped from south-west to north-west and
back again ; and with every change the ice, as it separated,
went off like great guns.

The ice was never still. It set up or down with each
tide, and thé blocks took often most fantastic shapes.

Most bitterly did I repent having come down here, which

ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

196

Kolquev Ne Lc ae
gees be
AT-B eh

2. MARSH SAXIFRAGE

I. JACOB’S LADDER
(Saxifraga Hirculus)

(Polentonium caruleun)

IN SCHAROK CAMP 197

I should never have done but for Verrmyah’s story of the
disappearance of the ice. For I could see we were in a
bad place. And the ice? I climbed up to the roof of
Uano’s hut in the very early morning when the air was
clear, and instead of Verrmyah’s open sea this was what
I saw: To the north a line of ice—how wide I could not
tell—but too wide for a vessel’s approach. Down the
eastern side ice—ice beyond the harbour entry, beyond
that an open way, and then ice again. The Gulf was
just one single ice-field ; and though there may have been
a patch here and there of free water, only madness would

try to take a vessel in.

July v1th.—With a light wind from the east and the
thermometer at 50° F. in the tent at noon, it felt quite
warm. ;

When Hyland went down for the water this morning
he found a single brent goose in the harbour, which he
shot at and winged. After this bird old Sailor went.
The tide was running out strongly, and the old dog had
a tough job against it. He stuck bravely to his bird.
But it was no use; the goose had the legs of him all the
way. It never dived, only it would let the dog draw up,
and then, just when he was quite certain the game was his,
swim quickly out of reach uttering its defiant cry—a
single ‘Wank!’ At last I grew rather anxious about the
old dog in the cold water, and called him in.

Hyland in the evening brought me in a sanderling in

198 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

summer plumage. He had found it by the harbour-side.
This was in its way a find. For the sanderling, which
does not nest with us (though it is believed to have bred
in Iceland), is suspected of nesting on the mainland; on
the Petchora, for instance, and I had great hopes of
finding its nest.

' But you will be tired of my hopes—they were so often
disappointments.

And I do not think I will go into camp details much
more.

A big bit of everyday would only read like this :—
‘Fetched water ; cut up wood—chipping at logs of iron
with a little single-handed axe; cooked, ate, went out to
kill for supper; pressed flowers; blew eggs; prepared
specimens; wrote; wondered about Saxon; watched
ice.’

Somewhere against the ice the breakers hurled them-
selves with the noise of battle, and again the ice went off
like guns. I liked this cannonading of the ice. It was a
fine sound, chiming well with the wild cry of the divers
and the call of the geese overhead. And when you walk
along by yourself in a lonely island you—I suppose
every one does—come to look on all these as your
creatures or your friends. They are not a bit so, of course ;
just the opposite. You are probably in their view the
one thing unresponsive, the one fact with which they
have no relation—a thing out of all reason, a great
nail-booted, shot-blazing, contra-natural blot.

IN SCHAROK CAMP 199

But you may fool yourself—you may have your
Barataria none the less. You can lie back upon
the moss with the sea-wind in your face and be—
greater than Sancho—be a Prospero who holds all the
strings.

Your island perhaps is assailed by legions, half-Viking
and half-monstrous forms; but let the assault break
never so fiercely it cannot silence the guns.

Down at your feet swoops the falcon with the story of
the battle, for it watched as it hung in the cloud. And
the glitter-winged divers carry your commands, and
large-eyed seals come up to spy in unsuspected corners,
and, silent and secret, disappear again.

All the things have their places according to your fancy,
and you may detail it as you please—a foolish baby
game, but there is no other to play in such a lonely isle.

July 12th.—We really couldn't stand the seal-fat any
longer. It was smeared over the grass and all about, so
that it stuck on our boots and came into the tent. It
was so universal that we could not avoid it, so adhesive
that we could not get it off.

We moved the tent lower, away out of its reach, and
nearer to our snow-pool. Also we collected a heap of
chips, which we loaded on the floor-cloth and dragged
away.

A snow-bunting lightened our labours much. For he
sat on the roof of the huts and sang a lovely song, with

200 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

no touch in it of a bunting’s scrape, but a true wild song,
and very like a chaffinch’s in spring.

A yellow pyrethrum came in flower and a white
lychnis.

We walked down the coast. We found a little stint’s
nest with four eggs, and the old bird—a male—performed
the most astonishing antics. He looked, as Hyland
said, for all the world ‘like a dancing doll.’ Of four
young red-necked phalaropes two were kicked spinning
out of the nest by the mother. Two young turnstones
bolted out of their nest and ran away.

We had all day a very strong wind which was a gale
at midnight, with fog and so cloudy a sky that I lit a
candle, or I could not have written my notes.

An hour later I looked out for a moment before lying
down ; the sun was out, and there, right across the ice-
white sea, was the most splendid rainbow I had ever seen.

July 13th.—In the early morning such a stiff gale
blew that I feared indeed our tent would have fallen;
however, nothing gave. Poor Hyland complained
bitterly of cold hands and feet ; so I let him lie.

It was impossible to make a fire in the usual place;
but a little out of the wind, in the water gully, I contrived
after much patience to cook a piece of bacon.

After we had eaten this I went for several hours’. walk
alongside of an inland creek which lies to the north of
the camp. I suppose I saw twenty glaucous gulls, but

IN SCHAROK CAMP 201

with only two immature birds between them. This made
it pretty clear that their nests had been robbed. Many
Siberian herring-gulls were also about the creek, and of
these many were young birds.

At half-past three that afternoon Hyland was so much
better that we walked down the coast to inspect the
sand-banks.

I had had some hope that we should reach the gulf,
but, owing to the great difficulty in crossing many inlets,
we were obliged to turn homewards when we had gone
five miles.

I took a grey plover’s nest, and removed, with its
surroundings, one of the little stint’s. We also saw two
lots of baby little stints.

I shot three long-tailed ducks, and one of them when
winged gave Sailor much sport in the retrieving. And
here I may notice the different methods pursued by dogs
in this attempt. Sailor had no other idea but to swim
about, waiting for the re-appearance of the diving bird,
and making then the best shot he could. So the dog
was often head under water, and often foiled.

But a Samoyed dog who went to fetch a winged eider,
as we rode to the Gusina, had behaved with far greater
address. For he swam quietly and warily, always trying
to come on the duck from behind. And so well succeeded
that on the third or fourth attempt he was able to take
the bird quietly in his mouth before it was at all aware

that he was near.

202 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

After this, leaving Hyland to lie down and rest, I
pushed on across some small inlets to find out the nature
of a heap of wood piled at the point of a spit of sand.

And this it seemed served two purposes. It was both
a guide or beacon, and also a means of supplying the
chance wanderer with a log or two for the fire. For
this sand-spit was quite evidently a leading passage by
which the marsh could be entered and left.

The fox-trap which I have figured here we found about
two miles below our camp. It is really a form of dead-

fall trap, and was baited with seal-fat ; but though foxes
had been about it I could find no evidence that any had
been lately caught. The trap was not set, and I think
the bait had remained there from the winter catch. For
there is no value in the fur of a summer fox.

Had we not been better informed, the mirage to-day
might well have deluded us into the expectation that
our friends had come. For, as we walked home, there
appeared on the cliffs in front of us a high flag-staff with
a brave flag floating atop. But it dwindled as we came
up, as well we knew it must. For it was nothing finer
in reality than a little three-foot stick with which, when I

IN SCHAROK CAMP 203

had tied my handkerchief to it, I had marked the site of
a nest.

When I had pressed the flowers this evening I sat for
very long watching the red-throated divers, of which
many drop into the creek below the tent when the tide is
at half-ebb.

They were only taking one kind of fish, the Arctic
flounder, which the Russians call ‘kambola.’? These
they caught very rapidly and never missed. The fish
are not swallowed until they have been worried well.
I never saw one diver try to rob another as ducks will;
there was enough for all, and mutual respect.

I, too, had designs upon these flat fish, none of which
were to be realised. It was nota little trying to see these
birds gobbling down with so much satisfaction a kind of
food which would have exactly suited us. But tired as
we had become of eternal long-tailed duck, I could con-
trive no way for varying it. Had we but been possessed
of our dredge, or even fish-hooks, I doubt not we should
soon have filled the pot. But these appliances were upon
the yacht; and though I schemed a method for taking
flounders with a bent pin and a bit of string, I found
that, without a boat, or at least without a fishing-rod to
reach over to the deeper parts, the deep black mud of
the creek was too great an obstacle. Had we really
been pushed to a necessity I of course could have
ventured on mud-pattens made of drift-wood, but we
were not yet in that case. Another time I should, I

204. ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

think, take Indian snow-shoes, the best contrivance I
suppose for work of this kind. They would be most
useful as a support when walking in the lakes. In these,
though there is no danger of disappearing altogether,
your feet often sink so deeply as to tire you very

much.

July 14th.—Ice unchanged.

Now we had one of those rare lovely days which
redeem these regions from the charge of monotony.

The south-west wind held all day, and when I went
out to the long creek, before five in the morning, the
tent thermometer showed 60° even at that early hour.
At 3 P.M. it registered the same, for the wind had grown
a little, and at 8.30 p.m. it had dropped to 41°.

I did nothing at the creek, and was back pretty hungry
by eight o’clock.

In the afternoon I struck inland and found the lakes
you see on the map. Here I secured four long-tailed
ducks at one shot, and got horridly wet through lying in
the reeds while I waited for them to come within distance.
I found that by moving my cap about they would come
through curiosity; Sailor was also a good draw some-
times, the long-tailed ducks following him round, as the
ducks follow the dog of the decoy ponds.

Musquitoes, which regularly appear when the heat
reaches 60°, were a nuisance in the swamps.

Red-throated divers were mewing and braying like

IN SCHAROK CAMP 205

idiots ; most birds behave foolishly when courtship is on,
but these were passing words.

I only found a single willow-grouse. There could be no
doubt that we were on a very poor ground for these birds.

The accompanying sketch (p. 206) I made at mid-
night, while Hyland went up the long creek. Here he
thought he saw some geese with young, but could not
come within shot of them.

On comparing notes this evening we both found that
our hands, which had been so much swollen upon our
walk, were now shrunk to that extent. The skin seemed
almost dead, and was so shrivelled and loose that I can
compare its appearance to nothing better than a baked
apple. Also, we had lost all feeling in our finger-tips,
except a numbed sensation like ‘ pins and needles.’ This
curious state I could only account for on the supposition
that it was due to an abnormal condition of the nerve

terminals from excessive exertions.

Sunday, July 15th.—The ice all day boomed like
cannons, and was moving up, so that we began to have
good hope that the Saxon would be able to come round
all right.

The sun was very hot at mid-day, and the thermometer
rose to 70° in the tent.

All day long great flocks of king eider, long-tailed.
ducks, and dunlins were crossing the sands. For the

first time we had musquitoes in the tent.

LHOINGIWN LY MOUVHOS

IN SCHAROK CAMP 207

The glaucous gulls had left the huts; they only came
now at rare intervals.

On this day something happened to my inside. I had
gone up the long creek with old Sailor, and lay down for
some time watching some grey plover. When I rose
some pinch took hold of me which pretty well doubled
me up, so that I could but just succeed in crawling
home.

It seemed to me that we wanted vegetables. So we
opened a jam-pot which we had been treasuring against
a famine time. The jam said it was strawberry, though
it seemed like glue. But we ate it, and then I turned in
at 11.30 P.M., while Hyland went up to the big lake to
try for a duck.

He had better luck than that, returning with a couple
of white-fronted geese, and a little living young one.
This youngster, he said, dived splendidly, but none the
less Sailor caught it alive, going clean under after it.

Our gosling had a way of standing straight up on end,
but with his breast puffed out, very consequential, exactly
recalling a city waiter. So ‘The waiter’ he was named.

He really was a dear little bird. Not in the least
bit shy of us, he inspected every corner of the tent, and
at last went to sleep for several hours under my chin.

July 16th.—Ice still and apparently unchanged. Mus-
quitoes very bad again, though the day was not nearly

so hot.

208 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The waiter began the day’s undertakings, and we had
to follow. He was out from under my chin at an early
hour and away exploring. He walked up and down me
for quite a while, but left that presently by the bridge—
my face and head—and so reached the big tin case,
which was a finer promenade. Here he marched up
and down for a little while like a captain on the quarter-
deck, cocking his head on one side in a very comical way.
While considering how he could cross to Hyland he
ventured too near the edge of the cliff and dropped right
into a ravine between the tin case and the biscuit-box.
I drew him out of that after many attempts, and started
him again. This time he attacked Hyland, as ravens
attack a dead body, going for the eyes. But Hyland
was only sleeping: till this woke him up. And when
we rose the waiter became a serious question, for if
there was a place where it seemed you could tread with
safety he was sure to sit down there. So then I caught
him and penned him up. Many times I penned him
and in many ways, but always he came out at a run.

Then Hyland said he would build a proper pen.. And
he made one that even defeated the waiter. For fixing
a circle of reindeer horns, he covered them with slabs of
moss which curled inwards at the top.

While this was preparing the waiter came out walking
with me, and betrayed a great liking for the green heads
of cotton grass, which he nipped of neatly just below the
bud. Equisetum also he went for greatly. He disliked

IN SCHAROK CAMP 209

to be left alone, running quickly after us like a little
dog.

We picked this day a bit of wild camomile, just coming
into flower; Hyland found it growing on the roof of
Uano’s hut; for we climb up there when the weather is
clear to see how the ice is looking in the gulf.

Black-throated divers were taking to-day a large and
new kind of fish. I could see them with the glass, but
not what kind they were.

Hyland, who was out in the evening, brought back two
interesting birds. The first, a curlew sandpiper, he shot
among a lot of dunlins on the mud.

This bird you will like to know something about.

It is small, eight and a half inches long, and its
back is curved rather like that of the common curlew,
whence the name. These waders pass through our
country in spring on their way to nest, and return with
their young in August and September, when they remain
on our mud-flats for some little time.

Yesterday, July 15th, twenty years ago, Mr. Seebohm
shot one out of a flock on the Petchora, and Dr.
Middendorf, in June, shot a bird on the Taimyr Pen-
insula, which would very soon have laid, for in the
oviduct was an egg partly covered with shell. That
is as near as we have got at present to a proper view
of the egg. Where does this bird nest? No one can
tell with certainty.

We were not to find it nesting. This was the only
fo)

210 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

individual we saw, till we got one later on in winter
plumage.

The second bird was alive. It was a young turnstone,
some seven days old. We put it in with the waiter, who
opened his mouth at it and made faces, but would not be
friends.

July 17th.—The ice unchanged. A hateful day. The
thermometer at 40°, with a driving fog and north wind.
This fog, of which I have spoken so often, is really a
‘Scotch mist,’ which falls on the tent like rain.

If you leave things out in the sun you must not go to
sleep. The wind here goes round in a minute and all is
up. Now it is sunny and drying, with a warm wind from
the south ; suddenly the wind chops round to the north,
and at once a fog, cold and wetting, sets in.

We had a seal or a young walrus in the harbour to-
day. It showed several times.

But I did not get about much to see things, for I had
la grippe, or something akin, which pinched. I lay up
chiefly and blew eggs. Hyland, who had never before
known me unwell for a moment, began to get alarmed.
He was exceedingly kind, and ‘boneing’ some turn-
stones and grey plovers, cooked them beautifully for
me.

At half-past five in the evening Hyland was plucking
a long-tailed duck, the waiter was making bluffs at the

turnstone in the pen, and I was blowing eggs, when all

IN SCHAROK CAMP 211

of a sudden up comes Verrmyah Uano, with a couple of
teams and sleighs.

He was very cheery, and glad to get some tea. He
said he wanted me for the goosing.

Now see what paradoxical things we are. A moment
before I had been blowing eggs out of pure bravado;
indeed I felt more dead than alive, for I hada real chill
on my inside, and a sort of unkind cramps. But now
nothing would do but I must go to the goosing, come
what would. I said to myself, ‘I will bea Samoyed.’ So,
beyond a bit of macintosh to lie on, a pot of Liebig
and a biscuit, I made no provision for the stay, which I
promised Hyland was to last but a few days.

I would have liked to have made it longer, but I knew
that my companion would not be happy for long alone,
as he had not those resources which keep one from the
dulness of the solitary life. ‘Also,’ I reflected, ‘if I am
away, and he gets upon him the ague or the giddiness,
how will he fare?’

So I left.

CHAPTER JI
THE GOOSING

WeE now had thirty versts to travel if we were to make
our old Pesanka camp.

All went well till we reached the Baroshika, and here
we came to an enforced delay. For the river had risen
badly and was very deep. We tied the reindeer’s heads
to the sleighs and tried the river with the ‘toorr.’ It was
everywhere unpromising. At last we could delay no
longer, but determined to cross at our old ford where
the water would not be higher above the normal than
two feet.

So we slung our belongings round our necks, and
standing on the sleighs, prepared to cross. I doubt not
this sounds simple enough. It was not. It was easier
for the Samoyed in his seal-skin boots. But to stand
on a small, slippery, moving sleigh in nailed boots, with
water rushing round your feet, is hard. The drop from
the bank into the water is the first trial, and the
bumpings, risings and sinkings of the sleigh over the
sandy shallows are worse. However, we did get over
with water up to our knees, and we crossed without

other mishap than a broken sleigh. For somehow my
212

siz asug 20

LIVH V

THE GOOSING 213

bar snapped, but Verrmyah, splitting a thong with his
axe and fitting it in, contrived to jam the tenon up.

We had much the same difficulty with the Peinmur
river, but rose at last the south side of the plateau, on
the northern edge of which we had lain in Pesanka
camp. And here we came almost at once upon a very
different and unlooked-for scene. It might almost have
been Derby Day in a corner of Epsom Downs.

I looked in vain for Uano’s choom. Instead of it I
found a rough semicircle of gaily-coloured gypsy tents,
blue, red and double-coloured, and not a single Samoyed
I knew.

Men, women, and children were scattered all about,
busy as bees as usual; but they were all new faces.

‘Where is my choom?’ I asked Verrmyah, who had
told me by the way that they had a beautiful place for me.

‘ There is no choom ; it is a tent ;’ returned Verrmyah,
and roared with laughter when I looked surprised.

With that he leads me to a little tent, and pointing at
me, simply says, ‘Pud-drr’—‘ yours’; or more correctly
‘thou.’

(Notice the word Pud-drr, literally ‘ he, is used
also for the second personal pronoun, but then is accom-
panied by a point at the object. In this way the
Samoyeds, like most civilised peoples, avoid the use of
the direct. ‘ thou.’)

So I lifted up the flap and looked inside. It was not

encouraging.

214 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

You see it was close on midnight, and Uano and old
Ustynia had gone to bed. Their tent would just hold
three sleepers, cheek by jowl. And, as my entertainers,
they had laid a special white reindeer skin just between
them, which was to be my bed.

‘Sdorova ?’—‘ How d’ye do ?’—they said without rising,
and then tapped the skin between them and said, ‘ Here
your bed.’

Well, I didn’t want to hurt these poor people’s feelings,
but I felt I wasn’t up to studying Samoyed life quite so
closely as all that. I laughed, and said it was too hot
to-night, I would sleep outside; and, under cover of
this, retreated.

I found an old boat, which, turned on its side, would
do very well, and under this I spread my macintosh,
and lay down to sleep.

Now see how kind these people are. Rain-showers
(and nasty ones) had come on, and yet I saw Katrina
and little Zornka busy about the fire in the open, and
Verrmyah plucking a goose. But I didn’t take much
notice beyond wondering that they should trouble to do
that in the rain.

But after a bit littke Wanka comes up to the boat with
a wooden bowl of smoking hot goose, saying ‘pillet’ (ze.
plate), an English word he was very proud of. But I
was afraid to eat goose-stew at that moment, so then he
brought me ‘yah’; and I was afraid to drink the * yah.’
For I knew that if I was to go goose-hunting to-morrow

THE GOOSING 215

I should have to look after the cramps. They were
very much disappointed at my refusal of this, which it
seemed they had made especially for me. I told them
I was not well, and then I mixed some Liebig and
drank this most excellent concoction, following it up
with water nearly boiling, which made me feel better
at once. The goose they insisted I should keep to eat
in the morning.

Also T gave Mekolka Liebig. Uano said Mekolka
was ill—ill in his chest—and coughed, with symptoms
that pointed, I thought, to incipient consumption. And
poor Mekolka, saying nothing, looked so wistfully at the
Liebig, which he doubtless imagined was most wonder-
ful medicine, that I could not choose but give him some,
for which he was most grateful. I mention this because
one does not always look for a capacity for fine and
enduring qualities such as gratitude in a poor half-
savage man. But from that moment Mekolka was
attached to me in a manner most affecting. He began
to show it at once. For he fumbled round till he had
found an old sail, which he spread over the boat to keep
off the wind and rain.

The little boat under which I lay was just the ordinary
‘arnoh,’ which these people make from drift-wood. I
think I have described it before.

For a long time I could not get to sleep because of
the dogs. They were not ow dogs—which were always
tied up at night—but tramps, belonging to the other

216 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Samoyeds. For we have two stranger families with us.
Of whom more to-morrow.

A wandering dog kept pushing in his nose under the
sail against my head, on the look-out, no doubt, for goose.
For a long time I took no notice. You learn to be very
careful with these dogs. One does not matter much, but
you may very easily bring the whole pack about your
ears. At last I thought it had gone far enough, and the
next time the canvas begin to move I knelt up very
quietly, doubled my fist, and caught the prowler a crack

MY ADLIURS, MY TOOR, AND MY RESIDENCE

on his nose so unexpectedly and with such effect that he
fled half howling and half growling. A Samoyed does
not hit his dog, he only adjures him; so no wonder this
dog was scared.

With that the whole pack—and I reckon we had thirty
dogs—broke into a scream like maniacs, and the women
rushed out to see what was up; so that, what with the
noise of the dogs and the women, and the men who yelled
from the ‘ yierserk’ [tents] at the women and the dogs, for
a short time we had quite a Wagnerian symphony. But
gradually all grew still. Once only after that I heard a

THE GOOSING 217

dog creep up with a half-scared, snorting sniff; but
what with the strange smell and the sudden hidden blow,
he probably concluded it was the devil, and troubled me
no more.

All was still, or would have been but for the reiterated
views of Mrs. Uano, who chid her lord for snoring. And
indeed it came as a trumpet-note across the twenty yards
or so that lay between me and them. But at last I slept.

July 18th.—Instead of the drear north wind of yester-
day we had a keen wind from the east, but it was dis-
tinctly warmer. The rain had tailed off into a dripping
fog, and I woke up very glad of the boat, for outside all
was soaking.

A Samoyed keeps much the same hours as the editor
of a daily paper. When I went out at 10.30 A.M. nota
single soul was moving.

The cramps were gone, and I never felt fitter in my
life. I ate my goose, and then, when the fire was lit,
followed it up with hot water.

For the fire was lit at last, and all the camp sprang
into activity.

I received various calls, and began to find out who
was who.

Old Yelisei came—the father of the island, he said he
was, and seventy years old, with a fifty years’ residence
on Kolguev, or on ‘ Awh,.’

I do not. know how to write the native name for

218 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Kolguev ; it is somewhere between ‘oh’ and ‘or,’ pro-
nounced very shortly as an exclamation.

And Yelisei’s wife was there. She was stout, and
wore quite a handsome dress of reindeer and dog-fur,
with splashes of red, yellow, and black. She was a born
stage-duchess. With them came their son Serieh, a
nice, cheery, good-looking man.

The third ‘choom’ (understanding the word in the sense
of the family), numbered more. Its head was Marrk.
Marrk was a kind old fellow, but I have an idea his
head was going. He had curious lapses into abstraction,
and did little work. With him was a charming young
fellow, Kallina by name, whom I took for his son; but
you shall hear more about him later on. Two daughters
also came—good-looking girls, with a wonderful collection
of beads and brass about their hair; they seemed of the
same age as the elder girls of our choom.

In addition to these we had certain unattached items—
Onaska the prophet, for example, and another man.

I leave you to imagine the curiosity I aroused. The
first Englishman they had ever seen or heard of, and
one who had come so strangely there. For you may
believe me when I say that ‘Englishman’ conveyed
nothing to them. Hyland, indeed, they knew as ‘Hylum,’
and me as ‘Ahnglia.’ I had told them our country was
Ahnglia, and they thought it was my name.

I again fed Mekolka on Liebig, in return for which he
stopped some of the chinks in my boat. My friends were

THE GOOSING 219

filled with wonder that I should choose to lie under a
boat. As a matter of fact it was far better than their
wretched ‘ yierserk,’ which let in all the rain.

At about four o’clock we set off for the goosing, and
had much fun by the way, for what with my prismatic
compass and route-surveying, my flower-picking and
questions about birds, I was a mystery and the subject of
constant wonder and amusement.

The new-comers were rather shy about my camera,
dodging behind each other in dread of snap-shots. But
all our old friends jeered at them, for they had long since
got over their mistrust. To them it was no spell from
Nam, nor an application of the evil eye, but some silly
thing which amused me and did not hurt them. I had
told them they were sun-pictures ; so whenever they saw
the camera in my hand they would look from me to the
sun and from him to me, expecting I don’t know what.
I was always so sorry I could not show them a picture ;
but we had no developer and no dark room, so I gave
them sketches instead.

In this way we reached the coast. I should like to
try and give youa clear idea of the goosing or goose-
taking, because I do not know that it has ever been told
before.

The scene: A low-lying stretch of land, half peat, half
grass and marsh [running north ten miles to the Pesanka
hills, and south five miles to Barokoska Nos], and an

island on the tidal flats some four acres in extent.

220 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Round this, now that the tide was out, sand or shallow
water, which deepened to a wide creek against the island’s
southern bank. Beyond this again sand or mud in
ridges, and creek after creek. Further yet, perhaps
three miles to seaward, the long line of the outer sand-
bank with its piled-up ice—and then the sea.

So bad. was the day that only now and then as the
mist lifted could you see the farthest ridges and the
higher banks of mud. But when the banks appeared
they were crested with a cheveux de frise, which you
knew were serried lines of geese.

Seven boats under the command of the younger men
were soon slipping down the creeks; for they were to get
behind the geese.

Then the reindeer teams were driven out, three on
one side and four on the other, remaining as near as
possible equidistant, to prevent escape by the flanks.

All were now away except Uano, his wife, Katrina,
two or three small girls, the littke boy Wanka, and
myself. Katrina nursed her baby.

Before half an hour was gone by the geese began
to rise. We could see them through the rain getting
up in hundreds off the sands,

Uano sat by my side and muttered. * Bad big geese,’
he said, ‘big geese no good. Little geese good. Big
geese fly,’ and he flapped his arms like flying.

Yes, the grey geese were evidently not yet moulting.

In his hands Uano held his ‘ parlka’; so they called

THE GOOSING 221

it, using the Russian word for a stick. But it was a
very formidable stick. About two feet long, it was
shaped like a policeman’s truncheon, only nails or bits
of iron were driven through it all round. Uano soon
let me see its object. Foran old grey goose, who had
somehow reached our island unperceived, now appeared
in front, with head straight out and carried low down,
running wonderfully fast among the grasses. Pre-
sently it squatted; and then the Samoyed crept up
on tiptoe. I followed. The goose never moved till
the man was ten yards off—I saw it squatting there
with its head on the ground and its neck stretched out
to its full extent—and then it rose and ran. At the
same time Uano hurled the * parlka,’ and with such effect
that the bird was knocked out of time altogether. It
was all but dead when we picked it up—a male bean
goose, which had just lost its long wing-feathers.

It is well to explain that all the grey geese belonged
to one of two species. Either they were bean—the
commoner goose on Kolguev—or else white-fronted
geese. The pink-footed goose is not found there.

Away behind us on the island was the trap. I must
describe this particularly. At the water's edge, thirty
yards apart, two poles were fixed, to which a net was
fastened. The net was then carried inland, the two
walls converging until, at a point some forty yards
from the entrance, they were not more than five yards
apart. From this point they bellied out and formed

222 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

a circular cul de sac. The netting was about four feet
in height, of some three-inch mesh, and round the cud
de sac was double. The uprights which carried it were
strengthened by spurs.

A net trap of this kind the Samoyeds call ‘ Po-tm-ga.’

Long before we could see the boats, for the mist had
thickened, we could hear shouting and the cries of the
geese. But after a bit first one and then another boat
came into view. On the men came, but very slowly;
now pulling across a creek, now pushing the ‘arnoh’
over a bit of mud or hauling it over a sand-ridge, some-
times leaving it altogether and running off to head the
geese. So slowly they came zig-zagging along.

By this time we could see geese by thousands through
the mist. I could even distinguish the short trumpet-
note of the brent among the general babel. It was
indeed a babel. How to convey to you any idea of
it I do not know. If you can imagine many hundred
farm-yard geese, and many thousand cornets all sound-
ing together and crowded on by a handful of screaming
wild men—if you can imagine this, then you are not far
off the mark.

On they came. Now I could see big grey geese
running, heads up and wings outstretched like any farm-
yard geese, breaking away to the right and left. And
now I saw that they had small young ones with them.

Nearer they came and nearer, the middle a dense

THE GOOSING 223

solid mass of geese, the sides a constant stream of
parties, large or small, running away like lamplighters
for all that the sleighs might do to stop them.

The very earth seemed geese, and for that matter
the sky too. For there never was an interval when
geese were not rising, and instead of going right away
at once, as one would have looked for geese to do, they
hung about the spot, circling round and rising higher
and higher till they lost themselves in the mist. I could
never have believed it possible that so many geese could
be had on one small island.

And now I became aware that there were geese with
us. Invisibly somehow they had arrived; but there
they were, slipping along in the old way, heads out and
low, and squatting in the stuff.

Exactly at nine o’clock—five hours from the begin-
ning—the advance guard of the swimming geese came
round the corner of the creek. It was one solid phalanx
of brent. They seemed to be by far the fastest swim-
mers. For behind them at a considerable distance
followed a smaller lot of grey geese, some swimming,
some running along the edge.

Then with one accord nearly all these grey geese
rose—five hundred perhaps there were.

Uano and I were lying low in the grass about fifty
yards from the water-side ; but for all that I contrived by
looking over a little mound to keep an eye on the scene.

For some little while the geese delayed as though

224 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

they felt they were getting too much inland, or suspected
a trap in front. Then the boats came up from behind
and the geese crowded on.

They didn’t like going. Sometimes the leading geese
would stop and wheel about, heading right into the mass.
But the boats came on.

No sooner had the boats passed our position than
we rose, and Uano set to work at once to polish off
the few that had hid themselves about us. He slew
some with a toss of the ‘parlka’; some that lay till
almost trodden on he knocked on the head as they sat.

He couldn’t make me out. ‘Quick,’ he cried, ‘kill
them quick. Uano old; you young, you. Good goose,
goose good, very good’—but I could not harden my
heart to kill wild geese like that. So he shouted for
Ustynia, his wife. And Mrs. Uano, ordinarily so com-
posed and kindly, came flying across to us like a mad
thing. The way that woman went on! She hunted
round like a hound, she hurled her ‘ parlka,’ she dropped
full length upon the squatting goose, and rose triumph-
ant and screaming with laughter with the goose in her
embrace.

But the boats came steadily on. Every moment I
looked to see the brent escape by diving, or expected
some to rise, for it was plain enough that many were
full-winged. Neither of these things they did; only like
a pack of idiots they ‘wanked’ and swam along.

But the grey geese dived. The bean and the white-

THE GOOSING 225

fronts behaved exactly alike. First they laid out their
long necks flat on the water as their fellows did on land.
Then, as the boats came nearer, they sank their bodies
till the water was almost over their backs. It was
wonderfully difficult to see them then—they looked like
bits of stick.

When a boat approached a bird it would just sink its
head and shoot forward under the water. They never
went down like diving ducks.

And now the body of brent was exactly opposite the
entrance to the nets, and about them in a half circle
were the boats. Round and round they swam, but
refused to leave the water. The boats did not dare
close in for fear the geese should break. It was a
ticklish moment—the geese would not make the land.

At last a single old goose—a bean he was—stepped
out and ran up the bank. He was quickly followed by
one or two more, and then by the first of the brent.

And now that they had started they went quickly
enough, scrambling after one another and heading into
the net. Over the green they ran like a flock of
domestic geese. Sometimes they aimed for right or
left, but then the children showed themselves and the
geese were turned.

The last bird was in, and then we closed the rear.
Not a brent had flown, not a brent had dived, not one
escaped. Of all that army every bird was in the net—

a dense, black, moving mass.
P

226 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Then the way to the net was closed by lifting the
pegs and moving the net inwards. The women and
children kept guard outside, while the men entered the
circular apex and began the killing. In the meantime a
kind of hurdle had been placed against this narrow entry
to keep back the crowd of birds.

The killing was a long business, though the actual
details were done rapidly enough. Each goose was
picked up by the head and swung quickly round, by
which method the neck was broken very soon. Then
it was thrown out of the circle on to the ground outside.

Meanwhile the geese of the outer ring were running
round and round, every now and then rushing at the
net. Occasionally one managed to get out, and then
the excitement was great. Little Wanka had quite a
chase on his own account among screams of laughter
from all the Samoyeds, and after many tumbles and
sprawls brought back his bird triumphant.

It was really a sickening performance, though one
realised of course its extreme importance to these poor
people in view of winter food.

Now and then a white bird caught my attention, and
when the numbers were reduced I managed to secure it
—a brent, almost entirely white. Unfortunately its
primaries were moulted out.

And so the grim game went on. Each time the inner
lot were despatched the door was opened and a fresh
batch admitted. At last there were not more than thirty

gee Sud aon

aSdaS AHL ONIAING

THE GOOSING 227

birds or so left outside, and then the men stopped killing
and the children were turned into the big ring, while the
elders stood outside, and each backed their own off-
spring : who could catch the most—a kind of game—one
choom against the other. So the children screamed
and snatched and sprawled, while the men shouted
and encouraged, and the women laughed fit to split
their sides. Poor geese! they made a good show for
it, but they were all caught at last.
I cannot say I liked all this. On the contrary, I felt
very unhappy. But there it was.
Then the counting began. We had taken in the net
alone,
3300 brents,

13 bean,
12 white-fronted.

Total, 3325 geese.

Onaska kept the record, as the counting went on, with
notches on a stick.

Then the geese were again subdivided and apportioned
out in heaps, so many toa choom. One point of much
interest for me was the fact that both our varieties of
brent, the light- and the dark-breasted, were represented
here.

July 19th.—It was so late by the time all this was
finished, being indeed somewhere about two o’clock in
the morning, that it was decided to leave all stowing
for a second visit.

228 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

But before we returned there was a little ceremony
whose quaintness struck me much. Five men came up
to me one behind the other, with old Yelisei at their head.
In each hand they carried four brent geese. Old Yelisei
laid four down on the right of me, four on the left,
saying solemnly in Russian this, ‘Yelisei’s gift to Ahnglia.
Little goose, very good, very good.’

So I shook him by the hand. ‘Thank you, Yelisei—
very kind,’ I said.

And the next man came with ‘Yugora’s gift to Ahnglia.
Little goose, very good, very good,’ and Yugora retired.
After him came the rest in order, each with the same
formula as he delivered over his load. It was quaint to
see and quaint to hear. No doubt they had agreed
beforehand what they would say—and it was quite a big
speech for them.

So I now had forty geese. But I was struck by the
fact that old Marrk had not come.

Then we left and had great fun going home. For the
women said they would be home before us, so that the
fire should be ready. With that they left and started
racing, the children urging on their four reindeer to their
utmost speed; and as they were the lightest they dis-
tanced the women altogether as far as we could see.

When they were out of sight Mekolka, son of Uano,
beckoned to me. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘Mekolka’s reindeer
very quick.’ So we jumped on our sleighs and went off
first at a trot. No sooner, however, had we risen the

THE GOOSING 229

hill than Mekolka turned down into a river-bottom
where the snow was lying in broad belts. Here we put
the reindeer to the gallop, and sometimes on the snow,
sometimes on the river shallows, kept up that pace the
whole way home. All this time we were hidden from
the other travellers, who were moving over the higher
peaty land.

We reached the camp, among a chorus of yelping from
the dogs, nine minutes before the women and children
had arrived. When they reached the brow of the hill
they found to their astonishment the smoke of the fire
curling up. This was a very good joke. They laughed
and talked about it for some days after that.

One curious result of the want of the definite article in
the Samoyed is that articles in daily use seem to become
personal. Just as a yachtsman talks of his boat—Saxon,
Valkyrie, Arrow—as though she were a human being, so
is it in Samoyed with everything. Thus—

the fire—too
the bow—iirn

the boat—arnoh
the big pot—yud.

‘ Too wants wood,’ ‘Yud is empty,’ they say. So that
after a bit one comes to look on ‘too,’ ‘yud,’ and the
others as persons rather than things.

I was now to all intents and purposes a Samoyed ;
eating goose with my fingers, drinking ‘yah’ from the
bowl. They had indeed the advantage of me in eating,

230 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

for they could use their knives with the upward stroke,
and I did not dare for fear of losing my nose.

Even the dogs accepted me, and that I thought the
ultimate test. They were quite quiet now when I walked
about the camp. Probably I had begun to smell more
‘ Samoyedy ’—homelier by now.

We had a good deal of fun before we turned in. But
this will be a good place for saying something about the
baby—‘ adski,’ as they always called it.

Baby—it was Katrina’s—lived in the normal way in a
drift-wood case like a lidless box with rounded ends.
Into this was . first put
a layer of reindeer skin ;
then came a layer of dried
sphagnum or water-moss,

and then came baby, with

its arms by its side. After
baby was another layer
of reindeer skin, then a quilt or sheet of coloured
cotton. Then round this were passed brass chains and
straps to tie the whole together; and there you had a
compound organism the nucleus of which was baby.

So, like an Indian’s papoose, the whole structure was
carried about, and when the child was jumped about or
nursed the whole apparatus shared in the movement.

Baby, of course, could not move while in the pupa
stage, so to say, and was only liberated at rare intervals.
Then it was extracted—a curious chocolate-coloured

‘THE GOOSING 231

little creature—and danced about in front of the fire with-
out a stitch of clothing on to keep it from the draughts.
The girls had no greater delight than in nursing and
playing with the child, and little Wanka loved it too.
He used to kiss it in the Samoyed way—that is, by a
pressure of the lips without the sound of kissing.
The Yeleseis and Marrks went soon to bed when we

got back that morning, but we sat up long, talking in our

$
choom. They wanted for the hundredth time to find out
all about the land I lived in.

It was farther than Norway I told them. ‘Yes, yes,’
said Uano, they knew where Norway was; they had kept
and fed some Norwegian sailors who were wrecked on
Kolguev some years ago.

‘Yes, yes,’ adds Uano, ‘and Norwegians say, ‘‘ Uano
very good; very, very good. Russian not good. Uano
good.””’

Then they said it must be the land where they killed
poor Samoyeds with knives.

‘Oh no, indeed,’ I tell them; ‘that is not true. Will
they—will Verrmyah, Katrina, Ustynia and Uano come
back with me; I will take them?’

‘No, no, Ahnglia stop here. Ahnglia always stop
here, and Hylum stop.’

With such simple talk we beguiled the time. And then
I made Uano sing a hunting-song or saga. I had heard it
often before. It begins: ‘Mein Neydoo adliurs hun-
yan ?’—literally, ‘ My son (his) quick-sleigh where (is it)?’

232 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

I made them explain it in Russian as well as they
could, and got at the sense very fairly." Only they
would all talk at once, and squabbled about the proper
equivalents for their words.

I think it might be rendered like this :—

MEIN NEYDOO

Where is the boy’s small sleigh? He is off—
Gallop and speed, gallop and speed—
Gone with the wind by the hunting-pass,
Gone with the wind to the icy sea.

He that can bend his father’s bow
Leaves to the women the reindeer call—
Killoo, killoo, killoo, killoo !

Leaves to the women the fire and pot.
His are the best of the four-year bucks,
His is the fastest team of five.

Soon he will come with hunter’s gains,
The water-bear and the walrus dead,
For the winter bed and the lamp of oil.

Show me the peer of Mein Neydoo.
See, he can drive in the path of the night
Straight to the choom from the island’s rim,
Straight in the night with the team of five.?
All that his father knew he knows ;
Knows where the swan hove will nest,
And where wzvrrah, the small black goose.
Yes, he can set the trap with skill,
Fashion the arrow, frame the sleigh,
Can Mein Neydoo. Is he wise?

He is wise.

1 They are capital actors, and emphasize each song with such expressive panto-
mime that after hearing it two or three times it is no more difficult to follow than
L’Enfant prodigue. In the last act the reciter throws himself down flat on his back.

2 The Samoyeds are very proud of their power of taking a bee-line for home in the
dark.

THE GOOSING 233

But he can toss the drift-wood log,
Throw the dizha, take the deer—
Take and hold the largest deer—
Can Mein Neydoo. 1s he strong?
He is strong.

Where is the wife for Mei Meydoo?

WVya, the maid, for the man Vyanitz?

She must be all that his mother was,

Deft with the needle, skilled in yud;
Zoo—the fire, ywd—the pot,

Yi—the water—these are hers.
Obah—the glove, can she make it well ?
Nier-~i—the seal, can she dress the hide?

Yes, there is one ; she is come—she is here.

Lay me down on the tundra now—

Old and worn, old and worn—

Leave me alone on the moss to die.

The broken sleigh, and the spoon I used,
Carry them up to the Holy Hill,

And speak as I speak: ‘Oh Nim, Great Nim,
He lies on the moss quite straight, quite still,
Who once was wise and strong.

Many a time has he vexed thee, Nim—

Yet now, Great Nim, forbear—let him rest.
See, it is true, the spoon, the sleigh!

They were his—they are thine—He is dead.’

This would be sufficiently like it. And the tune?
That was the worst part of it. Only after hearing very
many of these songs could I at last come at any method
in the tunes. In general they were not unlike bagpipes,
returning often to a fundamental long-drawn note.

They loved singing these songs; you only had to say
‘Huntz,’ 2.2. singing, to set them off at score.

And then they would dance, singing an accompani-

234 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

ment; such a stupid old dance, round and round, with
great lifting of the arms.

They could not whistle,t and envied us very much this
accomplishment. The girls used to practise it by them-
selves, till Anka at last became a very tolerable whistler,
and would whistle incessantly as she drove her sleigh.
Then they would know whether in our country we had
chooms or huts. And when I told them no chooms,
only huts, they thought that was a very bad plan. For
they remembered how we had explained that we lay
down without any cover on our way from the Gusina.
And they said if we had no movable house at home,
then, when we could not get home by night, we must
sleep on the ground, which was not good.

We got to bed at 4.30 a.m. A dripping fog had come
on, but my quarters were fairly dry, for most of the wet
had been caught by the sail. The camp did not wake
till eleven o'clock. I was out a little earlier and prow-
ling round. Particularly I was interested in three little
blue foxes in the Yeliseis’ camp.

It was the hottest day we had experienced. Even
the dogs were beat by it. They puffed and panted, and,
sprawling all about, refused to budge.

Poor old Pasco nearly succumbed under the combined
attack of her six puppies. Here is her picture taken on
the spot. Pasco was a very pretty bitch, with long
brown fur and a lovely brush, but her puppies were of

" Yet they had a word for whistling. They called it ‘Shu-ga-ring-on.’

THE GOOSING 235

all colours. They were beaten at last, and rolled over,
too fat to move. While we were in ‘goose camp,’ and
after, they fixed up a little choom about four feet high,
and here Pasco and her puppies lived, and at night this
shelter was also shared by the two younger girls. How
they all packed in was a mystery to me.

Pasco loved those pups for all they were so hideous—
and they were. Whenever I passed too close she had
a way of running straight at me quite silently, as if she

Bend beat ty Ba bind (
ay arn

were going to bite. But she never actually bit me,
though she came very near it once or twice.

We had a little brush to-day, which made me sorry.
I had put my cap on the top of the boat with other
things to dry in the sun. On coming out the cap was
gone, and there was Uano strutting about roaring with
laughter, with my cap on his head. Now take a
Samoyed as you may, you would draw the line at lending
him your clothes. The old idiot began dancing round,
saying, ‘Uano Ahnglia to-day.’ But he suddenly dropped
that. He had never seen me look angry before, and I
think it scared him; though I had only said quite

236 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

quietly, ‘Put it down.’ He obeyed like a lamb, putting
it on the ground exactly where I pointed my finger.
Poor old chap! he looked at me deprecatingly, as your
retriever will sometimes look. ‘Uano good, very
good,’ he said. But I felt I must give him a lesson
somehow. So I said, ‘Bring some water.’ He fetched
it in a wooden bowl, and then I made him pour it
into the cap. This done I swished it round, emptied it,
and said, ‘ Now put it on the boat again.’ He did it all
so humbly and obediently that I fairly wanted to smack
him on the back with ‘All right, old fellow, no bones
broken over that.’ But I felt that this impression might
be of lasting use in case we should ever have to leave
our things unguarded. So he crept away to his choom.

I was sorry, and instinctively knew I had lost ground.
If they once began to fear me they would retire into
themselves with all the old reserve they showed at first,
and then good-bye to my Samoyed studies. This came
home to me forcibly at breakfast-time. Instead of little
Wanka coming running down with ‘Ortow Ahnglia!’
at the top of his voice, as he usually did, there comes old
Uano very solemnly, with a wooden bowl of goose and
salt and bread. This he offers to me as though I were
the great god Naim himself. I took it for this once.

The heat beat us all. The men and women put off
their skins for the first time, and came out in red shirts
with the knife-belt round the waist, and the shirt tails
outside in Russian fashion. Young Yelisei had a green

L&z asnvg any
VHZ-Id AHL ONIMOYHL

RASS

THE GOOSING 237

waistcoat (of all things) over his shirt, and with his long
black hair and thin moustache looked just like a super
in Hamlet.

We entered to-day on a new phase of reindeer life.
For the first time the fly appeared (Hypoderma tarand?),
known to the Samoyeds as ‘ Pi-liur,’ and to the Russians
as ‘Orwot.’ The first I noticed was probing the cracks

in my boat with its ovipositor; no doubt the grease

I. REINDEER FLY (Ayfoderma tarandt) 2. SAME, WITH OVIPOSITOR EXTENDED

3. LARVA OF SAME 4¢ ADVANCED LARVA OF SAME

would make a fair nursery. This fly, which has a
general resemblance to a humble-bee, lays its eggs on
the back of the deer, where it is out of reach, and these
eggs develop into larve (‘Oograh’ in Russian, ‘ Sivia’ in
Samoyed), which, burrowing into the creature, worry it
terribly. The deer have therefore to be often caught and
examined ; and this catching is done with the ‘ di-zha.’
The di-zha is simply a lasso or lariat of plaited hide,
the noose of which runs through a block of reindeer

horn. I practised throwing it ata stump. The Samoyeds

238 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

throw it underhand, and not so well as the cowboys with
their overhand throw. The deer are brought up by the
dogs and the adliurs, and are then divided into two lots.
The cows and calves are constantly bolting from one
side to the other as the men creep after them, and ona
favourable chance the di-zha is thrown. A calf or young
deer makes a fine struggle, and takes a lot of holding,
but very often the cows, from having been often caught
before, come in to hand without any or with little resist-
ance.

The poor deer tormented by the fly rushed all over
the place, scuts up, snorting and grunting.

The musquitoes were bad to-day, and gnats were in
clouds. I think the Samoyed name for the musquito is
so good—‘nyanink’, they call it, from the noise and its
stab, ‘Nya’ is its singing, and then ‘nink,’ and in goes
its horrid little stab.

However, at 11.30 we left again for goose creek.

First the sleighs were loaded on the island, and then
the geese were brought across to the mainland and
cached.

The turf cut round with the axe, where the cloudberry
grew thickest, was torn up with the hands; then the
geese were stood on their tails with the heads tucked in,
till the girls had made a circular group some three or
four yards across. Then the turfs were rolled back on
them a double layer, and the packing was complete.

‘Dorndaftsa come hungry now, and dorndaftsa go

giz asng 990.7

asaao LNA AHL ONIHOVO NANWOAL AHL

THE GOOSING 239

away again. No get in; no good. Yes, yes,’ says
Ustynia, with a chuckle. ‘Dorndaftsa,’ by the way, is
our old friend the blue-bottle.

I can recommend this plan for any who would keep
game in this country.

We had passed within a yard of a king-eider duck’s
nest a dozen times, I should say, without seeing it, when
she suddenly rose straight off her eggs and away to the
creek. The extraordinary point was this, the eggs—
there were five, all incubated—were completely covered
up; and yet none of us had seen her moving, though we
were working at the goose-cache not more than twenty
yards off.

Katrina’s time was much divided between storing
geese and attention to her baby. The baby, which very
seldom cried, did so on this day at intervals. Very likely
because, poor little wretch, the ‘nyaninks’ settled on its
nose. Katrina danced it up and down in the cradle, con-
soling it with ‘ Pein-shaw, pein-shaw adski.’ This word
‘pein-shaw’ they always used on these occasions. What
it exactly means I do not know, but if you can give to
it the same tone as an old nurse’s ‘There, there,’ why
then you have the thing exactly.

I came across a new flower in the bog to-day, a white
ranunculus with a powerful scent, half-daphne and half-
hawthorn. The idea of a sweet ranunculus pleased me
so much that I kept stopping the sleighs and collecting
it. I put some in my button-hole, where it smelt as

240 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

strong almost as a violet. The Samoyeds were much
amused at my delight over this flower. I had never
even heard of a scented ranunculus, so no wonder I was
leased.

yg Ps

‘mgs; It was the only
me ‘

aS? flower with a well-
defined scent, except

valerian, that I met
with on the island.

About an hour be-

fore we were ready

to leave old Marrk

came up to me with

five brent geese. |

was sitting on a

Peek om sleigh sketching, but

Jeb DI. gy. out of the corner of

3.30 @ m. my eye saw him

coming up with a

half-important, half-

deprecatory air, fol-

lowed by the eyes of

all his choom. His

lips were moving as

THE SCENTED BUTTERCUP. (Ranunculus Pallasit) he ne for he was

rehearsing the terms

of a little Russian speech, of which he at last delivered

himself as follows: ‘Yesterday no Marrk. Marrk bad

THE GOOSING 241

yesterday. To-day Marrk good. Ahnglia five little
geese. Little black goose very good. Yes, yes.’

His relief at getting this over was so great that before
I could thank him fairly he had wheeled about and was
on his sleigh. ‘ Now, all ready,’ he shouted and started
off But the girls hallooed at him to ‘stop.’ It was
anything but ready, for the geese were not covered
up. So he came back looking very sheepish, among
general laughter and jeers. I always fancied poor old
Marrk was just a little bit touched in the head.

The Samoyeds distinguish the brent (wurrah in
their tongue) as the ‘little goose,’ and the ‘little black
goose.’

July 20th.—After our return last night I improved my
boat quarters very much by filling in the chinks with
moss, so that neither the wind nor the prowling dogs
could find an entry except by the front.

The heat to-day was really considerable, and the
musquitoes and reindeer-fly very trying. I felt that I
had regained the confidence I lost yesterday over the
cap incident. I am sure I deserved it; for I worked like
a slave at reindeer-catching and various forms of labour.

The reindeer when attacked by the fly behave very
differently from cattle. Ordinarily, as I have said, they
are scattered feeding all about, but now they draw up
together to the accustomed place where the bucks are
harnessed and picketed. The only explanation of this

Q

242 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

that I can see is that the uric acid which passes off
the ground in such places is not agreeable to the fly.
There they stand, heads down, feet stamping and hoofs
clicking. Their heads are all one way, their tails to
the wind. They leave an open avenue at intervals
which runs the whole length of the herd. Into this
avenue a beast will move when he can’t restrain himself
any longer, and then re-enter the herd at another point.
I think this formation in columns is perhaps peculiar
to the reindeer. Does the cariboo, I wonder, do the
same? I wish some hunter would tell me.

I went nearly mad myself with the musquitoes while
I was skinning my white brent.

One unpleasant result of the reindeer herd coming up
so close was that the whole camp was smothered in
hair which flies off the beasts with every twitch of
their skins; and when the fly is about they are always
twitching.

In the evening we moved off, going up with the idea
of crossing the Pesanka and reaching a new goose-
ground. Verrmyah had been off in the morning to visit
his choom and get some necessaries.

And when we reached, after some hours, a hill some
three miles from the river, we waited for him. Here I
first gathered some plants of the pretty Arctic raspberry
(Rubus arcticus). And here occurred one of those small
simple scenes which well illustrate the happy, good-
tempered character of these child-like people.

THE GOOSING 243

The girls were most anxious to get on and pitch the
tents. ‘It is no good,’ said Uano, ‘Pesanka deep.
High tide.’

‘It isn’t,’ says Us-
tynia. ‘Is it, Yeli-
sei?’

‘No good; very
deep ; yes, yes,’ says
“Yelisei.

Old Yelisei was
so very old that in
an ordinary way he
was an _ ultimate

appeal. But the

girls were not to be
done, for they had

ARCTIC RASPBERRY (Rudus arcticus)

made up their minds, though all the men were against
them with one voice.

‘You men are cowards. We will go anyhow, and
you will come, mother, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs. Uano, she would go.

‘And you, Tinyah, you will come?’

The duchess didn’t seem as if she much took to ,the
idea of this deep water, but she couldn’t stand out when
all the women were going, so she said rather glumly,
‘Yes, yes,’ too.

‘That’s right,’ laughs Ustynia, the ringleader. ‘Now
girls’; and in a second they had whipped up on to their

244 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

sleighs and were off in a bunch, amid great laughter and
shoutings from the men, and loud cries of ‘ Arkhoh,
arkhoh ’—‘ Deep, deep.’

This trivial incident is worth mentioning because it
shows so well the absolute equality and freedom of the
Samoyed women. Just fancy, if you can, an Indian
squaw taking an independent line like this!

We waited perhaps an hour for Verrmyah, and then
after a short journey suddenly there arose a roar of
shouts and laughter
from the men, for there

re , were all the women on

ae ac a little hill at whose
eae y Of course they had
7

ae
+t foot the Pesanka ran.

not been able to cross.
Only poor Ustynia, who
had really tried the
passage, was drying her things at the fire, for they
were very wet.

Nothing could have been more good-humoured than
the way the women took the joke which was now turned
against themselves. I am not so sure about the duchess,
who was fat, and I fancy was a bit disgusted at having
been bustled for nothing.

I sketched a little ‘psi-itz’ or blue fox ; and was much
amused at the way it behaved to the dogs. They quite
understood that they must not touch it. But old

THE GOOSING 245

Ni-arr-way would come up and stand proudly over it
with his tail moving slowly, and very stiff, as big dogs
are to a puppy. Then the little fox would lie over
on its back and mew in a deprecatory way. Besides
this it made two other sounds—a little snarling grunt for
human beings, and the regular night-cry of the fox, not

unlike the noise of a bantam who has just laid an egg.

July 21st.—I have not properly described the ‘yier-
serk.’ It really consists of nothing better than some
coloured cotton stuffs, obtained from the Russians in
exchange for skins, and stretched over a frame of
rough sticks. The wretched contrivance is far from
waterproof. And as we had rain nearly all night, my
poor friends were by the morning in a most deplorable
plight. As for myself, I was comparatively comfortable
under my boat, and during the night made more than
one little journey round, listening to the cries of the
foxes, and gathering mosses and plants. Finally, as
the rain came on in torrents at about half-past eight,
I turned in and went to sleep. About mid-day the
rain lessened a bit, though the wind blew very strongly
from the north-east. Then some of the men crept
round a little, looking very miserable. It was useless,
said Uano, to go to the goose-catching, for the boats
could do no good with the wind from that quarter; and
that there it might remain for several days. I knew

from experience that this was true.

246 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Now, though I was greatly tempted to remain and
follow the goose-catching, two considerations influenced
me in the contrary direction. In the first place I was not
easy about Hyland; I was afraid he might be having one
of his attacks, and I knew too that he would be wanting
bread. Nor again could I feel that I had a right to
amuse myself until I had done all that lay in my power
to help the Saxon should she come. So, very reluctantly
I determined to return to-day.

Before I left, Mrs. Uano gave me three small loaves of
bread, and a little flour with which to thicken our soup.

I left at six in the evening, and Uano came with me on
a second sleigh.

He surprised me very much by the way, for he asked
me to look through my glass at a white object in the
distance and tell him whether it was not a reindeer. I
knew perfectly well that it was a snowy owl, for I had
been watching it for some little time. And a snowy
owl it was. But it seemed odd that a pair of native
eyes should have been so deceived.

After crossing the Baroshika, which was again very
deep, we stopped to bait the deer. It took them exactly
ten minutes, I found, to clear the lichen which lay around
them without moving from where they stood.

When you want the deer to eat their fill, you lay the
‘toorr’ down in front, as I have before described, and
then, when they have fed up to it, move it farther away,
and so keep moving it,each time as they draw up.

THE GOOSING 247

The amount reindeer drink at this time of year,
while they are growing new horns and shedding their
coats, is perfectly astonishing. The whole way along
one or the other is either trying to drink or else is
snatching mouthfuls of snow.

About midnight we reached Scharok. Hyland had
just finished his supper. He was very well.

‘Well, sir,’ says Hyland, ‘I am glad to see you back.
It’s pretty lonely down here by yourself, especially with
these divers always screaming.’

‘They certainly are the most melancholy birds,’ I
replied. The red-throated diver, you must understand,
has a cry much like a woman’s wailing.

In addition to a female Siberian herring-gull, a pair of
glaucous gulls, and a female snowy owl, Hyland had
obtained, while I was away, a sanderling in summer
plumage.

I had brought with me four geese, which we boiled,
and Uano and I had supper together. Then at 2 a.m. he
jumped on his sleigh and galloped off across the creeks.

Hyland had one bad little bit of news for me, for the
turnstone had escaped and the waiter had died.

There had come an evening when the fog fell heavily
and threatened cold. Yet the waiter was making a
good supper off his store of equisetum when last seen
by Hyland. But the fog changed to frost; there was
no warm wing of a mother to run under, and I suppose

that did it—the cold.

248 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

For the morning was white with frost of an hour
when the sun looked into the kraal of moss. And there
on his back lay the poor little waiter dead—there was
no doubt of it—dead.

CHAPTER III
SCHAROK AGAIN

Sunday, July 22nd.—Soon after Uano had left us
last night, or rather this morning, the wind got up
very wildly from the north-east, and was accompanied
by a heavy drizzle of fog. As I did not feel sleepy I
sent Hyland to bed, and then went for a two hours’
stroll down the coast. The ice looked more promising,
for it had moved out to sea, and between it and the
sand-banks was quite a wide bit of open water.

It was not a cheerful walk, and at five o'clock I was
back and ready to sleep.

I was up again at six, and after an eight o'clock break-
fast went to sleep again till eleven, for it was such a
wretched day that this seemed the best thing to be done.
There was a good deal of skinning and writing to be
finished, so we did not have luncheon till 6 p.m., but
then, as it was Sunday, we finished the last of our little
tin of dried vegetables, which we had been eating once
a week.

Hyland told me the following interesting story :—

‘The day before yesterday I was up by the lake when

a cock snowy owl came by and began cutting down at
249

250 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the young of a pair of white-fronted geese. Both the
old birds protected their young. The gander flew right
at the snowy.’

‘How do you mean a¢ the snowy?’ I asked, anxious
to get the facts correctly.

‘Well, sir, says Hyland, ‘he rose clean off the water
and struck at the owl with his wings. After this the
owl flew off.’

Although it seems that the snowy does not nest on
our island, they come there much on migration; and a
day scarcely passed now without our seeing one or more
of these fine birds sitting on a hummock of the peat.
As there are no lemmings or other small mammals here,
it follows that the bird is obliged to make its dinner of
fish and birds.

In the evening I went for a long walk round by the
lakes, and returned in a dense fog.

We found our first young Lapland bunting to-day. I
lay up for a long time by the big lake looking at the red-
throated divers. There were seven of these birds on
the lake, and they were all at play.

We were now growing rather anxious about our
water-supply. For the snow from which we got it was
rapidly going.

July 23rd.—Another horrid day. It was not in reality
so very cold, for the thermometer rose at noon to 44° in
the sun. But a gale from the north-east and a soaking

SCHAROK AGAIN 251

rain made it most unpleasant. Nothing could be gained
by going out, for you could only struggle miserably along
half-blinded. Hyland complained of a bad pain in his
back. ‘I’m all right when I lie still,’ he said, ‘but
whenever I move it shoots all up my back.’

It did not seem to be rheumatism exactly, but still the
tent was soaking wet and everything inside it. So I
made him move up into Uano’s hut, which was, at all
events, more or less rain-proof, while I did the cooking
for the day. The white-fronted goose came as a pleasant
change from long-tailed duck, on which we had chiefly
lived.

For the first time I noticed at midnight the sun’s
lower limb below the horizon.

‘The ice is all back again, packed right against the
land.’

July 24th.—With a change of wind to-day to the
south-west and then to north-west, the ice began
cannonading as usual.

Found all the biscuits wet, so turned them out to dry.
‘We have now exactly forty-five of them left, which puts
us on an allowance of three a day for a week, by the end
of which time the Savoz or else the Russians may have
come.’

The snow-water had failed us. But we found a hole
filled by yellow water from the bogs, and down to this
we moved the tent.

252 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The male snow-buntings were now changing to autumn

plumage.

July 25th.—\ had become tired of this inaction. The
time was slipping on, and as yet we had done so little.
So after breakfast (fried brent, salt pork—the remains of
that we gave the Samoyeds—soup of grey plover, long-
tailed duck and sanderling) I made up my mind we must
patch up the old boat and go out that we might sound
the channel and make ready for the Saxon.

The wretched old craft leaked so badly that it took a
very long time to plug and patch her up. And even
when that was done we were in much the same fix as
Robinson Crusoe with his fine new boat. For she was
lying high and dry among the grasses. However, we
stuck to it. Our great want was rollers. There was
nothing for it but to use the wood of some of the fallen
crosses—we could not help ourselves. With these and
an old oar or two, gradually and with infinite exertions
we worked the boat inch by inch over the snow and mud
(into which we sank deep at every step, and in which we
had to probe for our rollers) till we had it at last by the
water’s edge.

We put our guns, some cord, a broken kedge, and old
Sailor into the boat, and finally got under weigh at half-
past ten at night. The tide was running strongly out—a
three-quarter ebb—and the moon was in her last quarter.

The tide was running out so fast that Hyland’s chief

SCHAROK AGAIN 253

concern was to keep the boat’s head straight, I steering
and sounding along with a hammer tied to a cord.

The depth, on the whole, varied from six to ten feet,
but even at that was crossed by a shoal in two places;
and here, before we were aware, we ran aground. I got
out, hauled the boat off, and then waded on for some
distance towing the boat and sounding with a pole.

The main channel after two sudden turns opens on the
entry by a deep reach. On the southern side of this
entry we landed on the outer sand-banks.

Here we succeeded in hauling the boat up to the very
top of a high sand-bank, where it would lie quite safe in
any event but a north-east gale.

This is that outer ridge of sand which separates the
mud-flats from the sea.

We found the ice grounded some half a mile to sea-
ward, and thence stretching away as far as the eye
could see.

I walked off to inspect a big lump which stood up
from the sand about two and a half feet. I found that
it was deliberately built up of weeds’ and hydrozoans,
round which sand had collected, and in the hollowed top
was a single egg of the glaucous gull. The pair of these
birds were flying over my head.

We walked along the ridge. We came upon a whole
row of glaucous gulls’ nests, but none of them held any

1 They included the following species :—
Fucus vesiculosus, Fucus serratus, Ceramium rubrum, Corallina officinalis.

254 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

eggs, though all had been newly made up. There were
many old sleigh tracks about the sand to show the reason
why young gulls of this species were so rare at Scharok.

Three handsome goosanders were fishing off the bank.

July 26th.—We got back to the boat, which we found
well out of reach of the tide, at 3.30 a.m., and collecting
a few little sticks and bits of dry seaweed, managed to
make a tiny fire with which we warmed some Liebig.

Then with sunken logs we improvised some extra
anchors for the boat, and with food, guns, and old Sailor,
travelled south once more for further explorations.

The sun was brilliant, and the glaucous gulls looked
lovely as they sat about the nests. One Arctic morning
such as this repays you well for the gloom and unkind-
ness of many days.

Two miles along the bank we found a large pine-tree
drifted. Here we made a fine fire and went to sleep.
Soon after 10 a.m. I woke to find a chill fog and the sun
fighting it. I roused Hyland, and while he made up the
fire and warmed some brent goose, I walked back again
to see to the boat; for I had been fearing she might
have been lifted by the tide. But she was safe.

A large flock of common scoters were diving in the
tideway. They preserved the most perfect order. First
the leading bird dived, then the next, and so on till all
were under water. Then rising they would all crowd

up together, and again string out and dive as before.

SCHAROK AGAIN 255

Many medusze had been left by the tide, and at
the head of a small inlet some mollusca’ were very
abundant.

The -boat I found quite safe, although the tide had
been unusually high. Now, I thought, we can walk
down until we reach the Pugrinoy on the gulf. Not so;
after another mile or so of the sand-banks we were
suddenly brought up by an absolutely impassable river
estuary.

But we followed up the bank by its various windings,
until at last, in spite of very deep mud, we were again on
the mainland.

Here I found a reeve with two little downy young
ones.

So I walked on to the south-west until all of a sudden
we spied three sleighs coming over the tundra from the
north. We sat on a hummock and waited.

The sleighs hesitated and stopped short. After a
pause one of them came on alone. It arrived—our dirty
little Shabla driving four reindeer cows.

He was far more pleased to see us than I to see him,
for I had never cared much for this tiresome, sly little

1 These included the following widely distributed Northern forms, viz. :—

GasTRoPoDA—Chrysodomus despectus (Linn. ).

Buccinum scalariforme Beck.

Natica grenlandica Beck.

Margarita undulata Sowerby.
PELECYPODA—Cardium grenlandicum Chemn.

Mya truncata Linn.

Macoma balthica (Linn.).

Mytilus edulis Linn.

256 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

man. Seeing him in conversation with us, and taking
no harm, his companions started also to come up.

It appeared that Shabla had paid us a visit at Scharok,
had found the camp deserted and the boat gone. This
was the way in which he told us about it :-—

‘Shabla to-day Scharok. Sun so,’ pointing to the
sky to show the sun’s position at that time. This was
the regular way of the Samoyed when trying to explain
the hour. ‘Choom there shut. Ahnglia? No. Hylum?
No—Where? Then see boat—arnoh—not there. No,
no. Boat where? Not good. Much ice. Go see.
Yes, yes.’

The two new men were the brothers Bulchikoff.
Dirty, good-looking, silent men; very proud to be
sketched, and posing themselves in an amusing way on
hummocks for that purpose. They said their camp was
on the lower Gobista. Old Marrk, they told me, had
the upper waters, and I found out later this was so.

So I told Shabla I was walking to the Pugrinoy.
‘Pugrinoy,’ says Shabla; ‘no, no. Bad, bad. Much
river. Much marshes. No walk; soon go boat; no ice.’
He was dead set against us trying it. And indeed there
seemed much force in his remarks.

The dirty brothers Bulchikoff gave us a bean goose,
of which they had five on the sleigh. Then they rounded
about and were off at a gallop, Shabla’s little cows?
getting over the ground at a capital rate.

1 See note on Mammalia.

SCHAROK AGAIN 257

We were back at our fire on the sands by 11 p..,
and after eating the bean goose lay down to rest.

July 27th. woke at 3.30 A.M. to find a north-east
wind and freezing fog. After a good long walk along
the sands, during

which I saw many eH a Var ACA.

aE O0ug | se

brent and many san-
derlings, I returned FF
at seven and woke
Hyland, and back we
walked to the boat.
We had anything

but an easy time of

SAMOYED BELT, WITH KNIFE,
it getting home ; and FLINT-POUCH AND HONE-CASE
had I not recorded

the bearings very carefully when we came out we should
have got into a mess. Any one who has tried to navigate
the creeks in an unknown estuary with tide at ebb
knows what that means.

On our return I reproached myself much for having
taken Hyland out when I heard him say, ‘ Well, sir, I do
feel bad. My back is all aching, and the pain shoots all
about.’ I imagined it was liver, so sent him to bed
with physic. At 4 p.m. I went up to Hyland’s hut. He
was fast asleep. When I visited him again at 6 p.m. he
woke up at my entering, and said he was worse.

However, I made him eat when I had cooked a brent
R

258 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

goose and obtained some first-rate soup. At 10.30 P.M.
I left him in his hut fast asleep.

That night I had to write my diary ae the eu of my
little pocket lantern.

It is easy to see from the observations we had. made
that the Saxon, drawing her twelve feet of water, could
not hope to enter Scharok harbour. But ‘at any
rate her boats could come in well enough if the ice
allowed, and the next step was to mark out the channels

for her in some way or other.

July 28th.—So at 1.30 this morning, just as I had
finished my writing, instead of turning in to sleep asa
wise man would have done, I must needs go walking out
to consider this question.

The tide had all but run out, the little creeks were
sinking out of sight one by one, and soon there would be
nothing south of our channel between the mainland and
the outer sand-banks but two miles or so of black ooze.
It seemed to be my chance.

I set to work. I carried some beams down from the
huts, and falling to with a will, chipped away with the
axe till I had reduced them sufficiently for my purpose.

First I drove one into the ground opposite that point
where the main channel, after coming straight in from
the flats, turns suddenly north to run under our camp.
Then I set out bearing the axe and a couple of long
posts across the mud.

SCHAROK AGAIN 259

A little rhyme kept running in my head. ‘De blind
hoss stickin’ in a big mud-hole,’ it began.

I admit it was not a very wise undertaking without
mud-pattens, and more than once | nearly paid for my
rashness. However, I went staggering along with
my load, drawing my feet out of the treacherous mud
as best I could, and counting every pace. I knew I
had time enough for my job before the tide turned if
only I could keep myself from sinking. A heavy man
would not have stood a chance, and as it was, the load I
was carrying handicapped me much. Once I was all but
checkmated. For I came suddenly to a creek into the
edge of which I sank above the knees, and seemed to be
going altogether. But pitching my posts down on the
firmer mud, I managed to scramble out on them, but
what with the scrambling, and what with the fishing for
the posts again in the black, smelling mud, and the
loading them on my shoulders, I was a most unpleasant
body. But I stuck to it, crossing the creek a long way
up, and coming down its further bank to the same spot
to take up the record of my paces.

At last I reached the first point where the creek turns
to the south. Here I drove in one of my tall posts,
which I judged would show some three feet for guidance
at high water. Of course I couldn’t hammer it in
straight, but I got over this difficulty by driving it in
slantingly, and then shoving it up till it stood straight and
fairly firm, the foot well blocked about with mud. It

260 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

would stand, I judged, in spite of the tide, long enough
for my purpose. This was just five hundred paces from
the start.

Then I pegged away to another point eleven hundred
paces off and did the same thing.

The whole distance was not very great, but when |
turned to go back the tent looked a great way off, in the
knowledge of the mud I had to re-cross.

Relieved of my load, I went more quickly, but also
with less care. And twice I was caught in a sort of mud
quicksand, and got out by a narrow squeak, my feet
being sucked back with each attempt to extricate them.
Then the rhyme ran quicker than ever, ‘ De blind hoss
stickin’ in a big (suck) mud (plunge) hole—(suck again,
and at last) Doodah, doodah,—dey!’ I was out. I
laughed as I thought what a very blind hoss, not to say
an idiot, any one would think me who could have seen
me then. It was a poor business, but I got back all
right, and after proudly surveying my handiwork went
to bed.

I was up again at five o'clock this morning, and went
to the hut to see how Hyland fared. He was sleeping
heavily, and I left him so. The day did not look very
inviting, with a thick white fog and north-east wind ; so
I went to sleep again.

I paid Hyland several visits during the morning, but
always he was the same, scarcely able to move, and com-

plaining bitterly of acute pains across the loins.

SCHAROK AGAIN 261

This was the day on which the Saxon was due, but
obviously she could not have got in. I kept an eye to
seaward all the same, for how wide our ice-belt actually
was we did not know.

But there was never a sign of a sail nor a steamer’s
smoke on the horizon.

We were now fairly settled down to the full idea of
camp life, and although I never ceased to regret the want
of many scientific necessaries which had gone away with
the yacht, still as regards the means of existence we
were fairly well supplied. It is true that the food we
had brought with us was all but exhausted, and though
we managed to make a few things—our ham, for instance
—struggle on for a bit longer, this was only by not
eating them, or by taking but an odd mouthful in the
day. But we could always shoot a long-tailed duck, and
though we didn’t like it, it proved sufficient. We had
wood, and though it was not easier but harder to cut up
than before, for we had long since burnt all the easy
pieces, we were better hands now with the axe. We
had water, though we had to boil every drop before
drinking, Even dear old Sailor was comfortably housed ;
he now lived in the barrel which once had held our
food, rat-traps, and other appliances. My capital rat-
and mouse-traps were useless—there was nothing to
catch.

By this time we had proved to demonstration the
absence of all native terrestrial mammals except the red

262 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

and the blue fox. Nota hare, not a lemming lived upon
the island.

But we badly wanted an oven; something that would
economise our fuel and keep the pot from the cold, which
made the meat take far too long in the cooking. I
had quite determined that an oven we must have.

Now there were lying out on the mud some big slabs
of sandstone and conglomerate. I put on a pair of india-
rubber long-boots and went for these. Those I wanted
most I could not lift, but the next in size I tackled, and
after incredible back-breaking exertions, managed to get
them out on to the bank. Once the mud pulled off my
right boot, and while I was hopping round on the left leg
trying to keep the right foot dry, I lost my balance and—
squish squash—in went the. right foot and down, down,
sending up a squirt of liquid mud and smelling bubbles.
You would have laughed if you had seen it. I didn’t.

Inch by inch I got my big stones up the bank, and
built in a hollow quite a first-rate oven. At any rate, it
would take our only pot and the little kettle.

I cleaned and cut up some duck, stuffed the pot full,
lit the fire, and was delighted to find it roar. I was
squatting by it rejoicing in the white heat that showed
inside, when it suddenly went off like a cannon, blowing
the pot out to the entrance and smothering me with
bits of stone and ash. A big stone had flown to bits.
However, I got another, and by heating it more gradually
all went well, and we had no further blastings.

SCHAROK AGAIN 263

I made a little geological excursion after that, hunting
up a river for sections and fossils, but that was all I.could
do, The wind had goné to the east; it was drizzling and
blowing half a gale, and at high tide the ice for the ‘first
time came right in at the harbour mouth till it grounded
all about on the mud, the biggest bits floating up the
channel under the tent.

Sunday, July 29th.—Any one would have thought
that we might have rested content with having once
taken out a half-rotten boat and come back in safety.
But we were hungry men. There was only one wretched
long-tailed duck in the larder; we wanted geese, and
geese we saw on the sand-banks away out on the ice.

‘What a pity we can’t get one of those old geese!’ I
said to Hyland. Esculapius could not have done it
more quickly! He had been ill and unable to move
beyond a crawl till then.

‘We can get one, can’t we, sir? I can pull the boat out.’

I knew very well he couldn't, with his bad back, but
the tide was running out, so it was only a question of
keeping the boat straight. I thought I could steer her
through the ice.

’ Well, we started. » The ice did not look very pleasant
at times; it could easily have knocked a. hole in our
ancient craft. Some of it was in very pretty, light-topped
pieces ten. feet or so above the water, with hollows and
green caves in'them, and-gulls sitting on the spires.

264 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

We managed to dodge it, and landed near the harbour
entry, but at such a steep spot that we couldn’t get the
boat up. So I left Hyland there to fend off the ice while I
took a walk.

I could not come at any geese, and after a long walk
returned to find the tide just making. Such a body of
ice was coming up that I really felt it was not wise to risk
it. The boat would move in a bit out of the ice’s reach
as the water lifted; so I concluded that I had better run
home and bring some food.

I set off carrying gun, axe, and camera, tried to cross
a creek three times and failed, ran and splashed and
tumbled through the mud, perspiring for the first time
(‘I have it in my notes’) since we landed on Kolguev.
Finally I waded across, and walking three miles up the
coast reached camp, cooked long-tailed duck, and left
again at midnight with my companion’s food.

But I had not gone two miles before I met him coming
wearily along to meet me. The tide had lifted the boat,
and he had been able to haul it up out of harm’s way.
Then he had walked south along the sand-bank and had
crossed at the head of the creek I had waded.

The glaucous gulls, he said, had mobbed him most
persistently, actually touching his cap. He was afraid
they would strike and hurt him, so he had to shoot two
in self-defence.

And so ended. our second boat adventure. But the
boat was now far away on the sand-banks.

SCHAROK AGAIN 265

July 30th—No sooner were we back in camp this
morning early than the rain came on in torrents, and a
gale sprang up from the north-east. The rain held on
till three in the afternoon. Then we went out to the
lake, and shot an eider duck that was there with her little
young ones. Wealso picked up a well-fledged little stint.

On the way home we shot two willow-grouse out of a
pack of eight cocks. The first pack we have seen.

The rain came on again in the evening, and my tent
was flooded as usual.

We were just cooking supper at 10.30 when up came
Uano and young Yelisei, bringing me my geese; forty-
six brent and three bean.

Then they came and waited by the tent, in the silent
way that many natives have, waiting for us to open a
conversation.

I pointed out to him the boat away on the bank beyond
the creek. Such a tempest was raging, and the water
broke over the ice so furiously that at that distance it
looked as though the boat must be lost.

‘Propalo’ (spoilt or lost), says Uano.

This Russian word did duty with the Samoyeds for
many ideas. A dead dog or deer was ‘propalo,’ a fly-
blown goose was ‘ propalo’; a mislaid axe, a rotten cord,
a worn-out coat,—these things were ‘propalo.’ Only a
dead man was not ‘propalo’; for him they had another
word, a word of their own, which fact perhaps pointed

to a belief that he was still going on somewhere.

266 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘No, Uano, not propalo. Very well,’ say I. For I
had seen with the glass that the boat was well protected
by a barrier of grounded ice.

So then we cooked a goose. Our friends were amazed
at and enraptured with our oven.

‘Ah,’ they said, ‘you all stone. Yes, yes. House
stone, trail stone, fire stone. You very good. Yes, yes.’
For we had astonished them much by describing our
English stone houses and roads.

The Samoyed word for ‘ yes, yes’ seemed always to me
the best affirmative I knew. The Russian ‘da, da,’ or
‘yah,’ or ‘oui,’ or our own ‘yes,’ none of them seemed so
clinching and so final as the Samoyed ‘drem, drem,’ said
as they could say it.

So they ate the goose: and when that was finished I
made them as dry a seat as the wet tent permitted, and
gave the old man a pipe, which was always his great joy.

And then, ‘ Uano,’ said I, ‘what news?’ For I knew
perfectly well from his face and manner that he had not
come only to bring the geese.

‘Ahnglia, Hylum, stay with Uano all winter. Yes,
yes—choom,’ said he.

‘No, no, Uano, steamboat come, or Russians come.’

‘Steamboat no, no, steamboat gone away,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes, far away, all ice. Yes, yes’; and he waved
his hand across the sea.

There was something more in this, and after much
patience I wormed it out of him. It appeared that five

SCHAROK AGAIN 267

days ago—that would be Saturday, the 26th instant—he
had seen a steamer off the northern end of the upper sand-
banks. She was there, he said, all the morning, but in the
afternoon was gone. Of course he had fully made up his
mind that she was our boat, and as he always hoped we
should be with him all the winter, so now he felt that sure.

But I was of a different mind. The date was too early,
and I knew quite well that if the Savon had succeeded
in coming so close as that, she would not have gone off
so quickly.

Now came the question, what were we to do? We
had no vegetables, no bread, and only a few biscuits in
the bag. I attributed much of Hyland’s aches and pains
to want of vegetable food. Round our present camp
all was bog or peat; but up with Uano there were
grassy banks where sorrel grew. I knew also that from
Pesanka camp we could keep an eye on the sea. So
I told the old man that he must come down to-morrow
and bring us sleighs so that we could return with him.
Of course he was delighted.

July 31st—So we sat there talking and talking, in
the hope that the wind would fall or the rain stop.

Is it in Dean Ramsay, or where? I forget. But the
rector says to the old clerk—

‘This is getting very serious, John. We must have
on Sunday the prayers appointed for rain.’

‘Yes, sir, very good,’ says old John; ‘prayers ’pinted.

268 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

But, bless you, sir, ‘taint no manner of use so long as
this east wind lasts.’

And our rain wouldn’t stop. So at 2.30 a.m. the
Samoyeds went off in a real pelter. We had never seen
the deer travel so fast before. For now they were clean
moulted. I must confess I envied Hyland his hut. It
is true that the wet would trickle down the walls in
places, but I was flooded. There was just one dry
corner in the tent, and here I curled up. But sleep was
out of the question. Every moment I thought the tent
must go. But it stood wonderfully. That is the best
point about these ‘Whymper’ tents, and a very strong
point it is. But to pretend that they are waterproof is
not even reasonable humour.

The rain did stop at five o’clock. I contrived a gutter
to carry off some of the water. Immense flocks of gulls
had come in and were sitting out on the bog at the back.

I wrote a note explaining to Powys our movements.
This I put in the chapel in a most conspicuous place.

‘We are moving up about .twenty-eight versts,’ I said.
‘We shall be in full view of the sea. I shall send a team
down here every other day. The Saxon cannot get in,
but either boat can enter well. Sound carefully. Keep
the two posts you will see on the land in line for three
hundred yards. Then five hundred yards N.NW. by
compass (be careful here of a shoal and a sunken head-
land). Then, bearing due west, you can reach right in
to the post one hundred yards below the southernmost

SCHAROK AGAIN 269

hut. Be careful to avoid the first creek on the north as
you enter. It is a cul de sac. You will do it best at
three-quarter flow. If you see nothing of us, keep the
steam-whistle going, and make plenty of smoke.’

The ice had swept away the posts I had been at so
much pains to fix up. This was the best I could do;
and it seemed not impossible that the boat might land
higher up, and Powys walk down to the huts, where he
would find the note.

The Samoyeds, Uano and Onaska the Prophet, turned
up with added sleighs at six in the evening. Wesent them
down to bring back the old boat while we packed up. The
geese we cached in the Samoyed manner, and all was ready.

Everything we had was soaking wet, and the wind
and rain could only fitly be described as raging.

We reached the Pesanka camp at midnight. And so
for the present we had done with Scharok.

HEADS OF SAMOYED WOMEN
Wrapped round with two of my * present handkerchiefs

PART V

Peaceably and with little event our life with the
natives goes on—Reindeer are killed and
wild swans are shot—We have a visitor
from the mainland of Arctic

Russia

CHAPTER I
DAYS IN CAMP

August 1st.—The month opened miserably, for a per-
fect hurricane raged, accompanied by torrents of rain.
We indeed managed to get the tent up with all hands
at the work, and extra guy-ropes to keep it standing.
Even so I had to prop it up from within, the wind
pressure was so tremendous.

No one ventured out; our whole time was taken up in
fighting the wind and water.

This went on till five in the evening, when in a lull
of the storm out we crept like half-drowned rats, to shoot
with bows and arrows, and throw the di-zha at a mark.

Samoyed bows are very interesting. Like every other
S

274 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

wooden thing these people have, they are made of drift-
wood. A special plane is used for that purpose, which
the figure will help you to understand. The wooden
gauge has a slit into which the -triangular knife is fitted.
This bow belongs to those known as reversible bows,
or bows which turn inside out. But it seems to be
peculiar in this, namely, that it is a simple and not a
compound bow. That is to say, it is neither spliced, nor
whipped round with string or skin. None the less, it
retains its elasticity in a remarkable way. But always
before it is used it is dipped in water, and then rubbed
with the hands, which gives it suppleness and spring.

We fixed up a bit of stick for a mark, and began to
shoot at fifteen paces—Kallina, Marrk, Mekolka, Hyland,
and I. It was a competition.

The men threw themselves into a curious attitude
when shooting. They used the bow horizontally, not
perpendicularly as we at home. As they pulled they
rose on tiptoe and then almost crouched till the bow
was on a level with the eye. We held our own pretty
well at this game, but Mekolka was champion; he was

always best at everything. The peg was removed stage

Slt asng sony :

VHZ-1d GHL HLIM GIXH UAAANIDA V

DAYS IN CAMP 275

by stage, until at last it was about forty paces away. At
this distance Mekolka made very fair practice. Whether
the peg was hit or no, his arrows were nearly always
sufficiently near to have transfixed a goose had one been
there. Of course it was absolutely nothing in the way
of archery; but one could quite understand how a
prowling Samoyed could creep upon his quarry, and
secure it by these simple means.

Then we threw the di-zha. They were far and away
better than we were at this; and shouts of laughter
greeted my feeble efforts to entangle the stump. Nothing
could exceed the patience with which they tried to teach
the proper method ; the gathering it up in the hand; the
swing, the throw, the drawing tight. Just as a cowboy
at the moment of noosing a bullock turns his broncho
to resist the strain, so in many cases the Samoyed turns
his back to the struggling deer, bringing the di-zha across
his thigh. But not when he has a very wild or strong
beast to tackle. In this case he yields very gradually,
contesting every inch and letting out the six or seven
yards of the spare end of the di-zha, which always trails
on the ground, until one of his fellows comes to help.

At last I caught the stump.

‘Good, very good, yes, yes,’ cried Mekolka; ‘Hylum,
Ahnglia soon very good. All winter in choom on Kol-
guev. Hylum, Ahnglia soon Samoyed. Yes, yes.’

‘No, Mekolka,’ I laughed; ‘soon leave Kolguev. Go
with Russians; England very soon now.’ At which

276 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Mekolka looked quite sad. For they are a simple folk,
and make no pretence of concealing their emotions ; and
Mekolka had quite made up his mind that they would
have us with them all the winter. But now he returned
to the attack.

‘Kolguev winter very good. Yes, yes very, very
good. Walrus—bear. Samoyed shoot bear. Pesanka
mountains. Mekolka go his sleigh quick, shoot many
bullets. Bear dead quick. Yes, yes. Big moon.’

The Samoyeds did their best to prevent their wretched
tents from blowing away by piling boats and sleighs
round them. Also we had a boat behind our tent, which
broke the wind a little, or I think it must have gone.

Onaska went down to thé creek, and brought away
two sleigh-loads of brent
from the cache, which our
friends set to work to pluck.

August 2nd.—The gale,
which raged all night, fell
off a bit during this day,

and Verrmyah drove away
to get his choom. With
this he returned in the evening, and the whole Uano
family moved into it.

SAMOYED WOMAN'S WORK-BAG

Kallina came and sat in my tent door to make his
arrows. The shaft is of drift-wood winged with grey
goose feathers, split in half, but not trimmed. The

DAYS IN CAMP 277

heads he worked out of old knife-blades, old files, and
bone. These points are not barbed. The whipping of
the feathers and heads was partly of sinew-thread, partly
of split quill. Kallina took a great fancy to my butcher's
knife.

‘Very good knife, yes, yes. My knife now; Kallina
knife, he said. These people have a sudden light-
hearted final way of appropriating your property just as
children have.

‘No, Kallina, my knife.’

‘Oh!’ said Kallina so sorrowfully, and with such a
world of disappointment in his voice, that I could not
choose but say, ‘Yes, yes; when my ship comes, then
Kallina knife.’

You should just have seen his delight. He stroked
the knife, and ran his fingers deftly along the edge; he
came and shook me by the hand to seal the compact ;
the knife was already his, and he was skinning his seals
by anticipation.

When I went for a long walk in the evening with old
Sailor, I found the yellow Tromsé viola out (V. dzfora),
and that geum or water-avens (G. vzvale) which grows on
our Hampshire water meadows, and is so common on
the Solovetskii Islands. But the common Artemzsza,
which was in bud a fortnight and more ago, was not yet
out in flower.

All the Yelisei family were hard at work preparing
geese for the barrels. It was a fair sub-division of

278 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

labour. The old man led off by splitting them with his
axe, the women and elder girls gutted them; then they
threw them on to the children, who took out the gizzards
and chopped off the beaks. These were carefully pre-
served threaded on strings. Some were then used as
necklaces and ornaments for the hair; some as beads for
the little dolls, or, as they call them, ‘ooquoh.’ These
are made to imitate fathers and mothers of a family,
sons, babies, and so on.

Why does Nordenskidld put these Samoyeds at the
bottom of the Arctic Mongol group? He makes them
the lowest. And why does Carlyle, casting about for
an instance of hopeless barbarity, pitch on the poor
Samoyed? This book, if it shows anything, will surely
reveal the Samoyed as an extremely intelligent man, far
and away more so than the Red Indian.

Take Mekolka. Mekolka had been born and bred on
Kolguev. He was now about seventeen, and until last
year had not known how to read or write. Then with the
Russians in the summer crossed the Prophet, Onaska, who
had learnt in the Archangel school. Through the winter
he taught the boy Mekolka, and now this lad could not
only spell out Russian slowly, but write quite fairly well.
‘His father, who had always used the notched stick for
his calculations, now trusted much to Mekolka’s powers.

I used sometimes to have a sense (which I never had
with the Indians) that these were, so to say, our own

natives, just English yeomen families, or so. The very

DAYS IN CAMP 279

laughter of the children seemed to have an English ring,
and the tone of their voices was not very different as it
came down to us from their choom. And often as I crept
round the camp of an evening and lifted the flap of their
choom, I used to ask myself :—‘Now, how are these
people in any way essentially different from ourselves ?’

Softly came the voice of Katrina crooning to her baby.
She had a little song for it, just as any mother here will
have. ‘Adski, adski, pi-sing-a Adski, arki hu-wi-ni-
ti-an,’? this is what she sang. I don’t think it sounds
very pretty to you, but it means this: ‘Laugh, baby,
laugh. Baby will soon be a big man.’ And then she
would play hide-and-seek—‘hunyan hordah’ she called
it, covering its face with a bit of soft skin. ‘Hunyan,’
where is it? and ‘hordah,’ found.

And the children in the corner would be having a
tea-party for the dolls. Nyabkutni, the curly-headed,
would work the hosts, the father, mother, and their family,
and the other girls would introduce the guests. The
choom they represented by three sticks. They used to
go through most elaborate performances, and shout with
laughter, but I could never gather a single word from all
their chattering, and whenever I asked them, they only
laughed the more.

Hyland was very wretched yesterday, shivering and
ague-like, and did not move all day, so this morning
when I went out about five o’clock I did not disturb him.

1 Laughter. 2 The day after to-morrow.

280 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

August 3rd.—When I came back at 8.30 he was still
sleeping heavily; he had been to sleep so many hours
that I thought I ought to wake him up; but as he still
complained of feeling very unwell, and was asleep again
in a moment, I let him lie. Later on in the day I

oN

THE HEADS OF THESE DOLLS ARE MADE OF THE BEAKS OF BRENT AND
WHITE-FRONTED GEESE

persuaded him to take a walk, and after an hour’s stroll
he came back feeling better.

To-day we caught and killed a young reindeer.
Mekolka went out ‘adliurgo’ with the dogs, and brought
the herd up. The herd was then gradually divided, so

DAYS IN CAMP 281

that between the two halves stretched the width of the
sandy platform on which we were camped. Then, while
the mother and calves galloped across from one side to
the other, Uano pronounced which calf he would have
caught. Immediately all eyes were fixed on the victim.
It was a fine grey-coloured calf, and ran nobly with his
head well up.

Then every man gathered up his di-zha and crept away,
half-crouching, like a stage conspirator. It was very
difficult to take this calf, because he kept in the thick of
the crowd, and more than once the wrong animal was
caught and then set free.

At last Mekolka, creeping behind a group of bucks,
with a sudden rush and a toss of the di-zha had the
calf by the horns, for he had velvety horns some foot in
length. Even then he took a lot of holding, but a second
di-zha was thrown round him, and the men advanced on
him, hand over hand. At once he was hit between the
eyes with an axe-head and stunned. Then, with a
rapid movement of the knife, the axis and atlas vertebrae
were separated, and the poor creature’s heart stuck under
the lifted leg, so that no blood escaped.

After the women had flayed him, which was the work
of a few minutes only, the ribs were cut away, and then
every person in the camp came round to a dinner party
of raw reindeer.

I can’t say I admired the performance, though it would

make a very striking picture done in colour. You can

282 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

fill it in for yourselves. For scene you have a raised
plateau of the tundra, a line of red-and-blue cotton gipsy
tents, a birch-bark covered choom, a troop of quarrelling
dogs, a confusion of boats, sleighs, tubs, and nameless
paraphernalia, a herd of deer scattered round over the
waste, and a team or two of five fastened up. Put in the
middle a circle of men, women, girls and boys, standing
or squatting round the dead body of a fresh-killed
smoking deer, cutting, tearing and feeding, and then you
have all.

They were astonished beyond measure that I did
not join them. Hyland ate some and pronounced it
excellent, and I really don’t know why it should not be
so; but I prefer my food cooked. The Samoyeds were
especially fond of the windpipe, the sinews, the lungs, the
outside of the bones, and the velvety vascular part of
the horns. All these they dipped in the blood before
eating.

‘Good, very good,’ says old Ustynia, offering me a
most tempting bit of lights, fresh from the blood. I made
a face which expressed disgust, but they only thought
it meant that I wasn’t hungry. ‘Oh, not hungry,’! they
said; and ‘Oh, not hungry,’ went the round of the ring,
in a series of intermittent ejaculations between the
mouthfuls). They were hungry, it seemed, for they
gorged away. If any one in this country could have
eaten so much at a go he would have fallen asleep. But

1 Yangho ormingawum.

DAYS IN CAMP 283

they danced—a silly dance, with a song to it, ‘like a
broken-backed Gregorian,’ as I said in my notes at the
time.

Then we played ‘meitz hans&anquoh’ (meztz, a ball),
which is rounders, or baseball, with slight differences.
We saw no other outdoor game. Pretty nimble they
were on their little bowed legs, though of course we could
run away from, and all around them. Hyland recovered
in time for the game, and played very well indeed, wear-
ing out his sealskin ‘pimith’ in his efforts. He was a
much better shot with the ball than they, and though he
was so big they very seldom hit him.

In the evening the wind dropped, after eighty-four
hours of gale.

August 4th.—A warm day; thermometer up to 61°
in the sun; very calm, very pleasant.

The Yelisei family packed up to leave, the eldest
Yelisei girl, who was nice-looking, but very silent,
excepting in her circle, had such a fine head-dress, with
a beautiful native-made star on the forehead, and many
rows of beads in the hair, that I wanted to buy it. I
hadn’t the courage to ask herself, but tried to explain to
her brother. This was much worse, for he immediately
concluded I wanted to marry her, and in a moment I
was the centre of a delighted group. They all chattered
at once, and all pointed from me to her, and from her

to me. The poor girl—I cannot remember her name,

284 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

and don’t think I heard it—blushed, and looked so
confused that I was quite sorry for her. I failed hope-
lessly to make them understand ; they had so completely
jumped to the conclusion that wanting her head-dress
meant wanting her hand, that I found it useless to try
and explain. So I bolted into the tent. And when
I came out presently with my sketch-book, and tried
to take her picture, they concluded that I had only
meant that. I never got the head-dress. I had not
courage enough for the task. It seemed like asking a
lady to hand over her diamonds.

The Uano family were used to my ways, but new-
comers like the Yeliseis never got over the feeling
against being sketched. Onaska too hated it, and once
when catching him asleep on the ground I had succeeded
in doing a rapid study of his face, Mekolka woke him
up, and told him. He was mad. He jumped up, and
ran round and round in a circle, which worked off the
evil influence in some way, I suppose. And the sketch
of the camp which I give here was done under great
difficulties. For always I had a reporter looking over
my shoulder, and no sooner did they suspect that I was
drawing one or the other than the word went forth, and
the subject dived behind the first screen that. offered.

‘I dabbled about in the river Tinyan to-day, and
would have caught a little fish, for I ran him on to
the shallows, but dear old Sailor got so excited about
it that he mudded all the water at the critical moment.

tgz aSng avy

QVALWId VUNVSGd AHL NO dWVO ASOOD AHL AO YANYOO V

DAYS IN CAMP 285

I caught one of them later. It is something like our
bullhead, and the Samoyeds call it ‘har-mur-gai-ly-i.’

‘The cloudberry fruit is now developing. It is green
at present, and tightly wrapped up in the calyx.’

Sunday, August 5th.—A wonderfully clear day. All
the Samoyeds and Hyland went down to the sea mean-
ing to catch geese. I remained in camp, for I had
much flower-pressing and other work to do. They left
eight dogs in camp, who never stopped yelling the whole
time.

Old Sailor nearly brought down his doom to-day.
He has no teeth; but there is something in his English
growl—a rolling bass—which answers as well. No
matter what dog, however fierce or big, comes up with
the intention of eating Sailor, as soon as he, Sailor,
stiffens his back and speaks the enemy incontinently
draws off. But he is a rash old dog. Absolutely fear-
less, he will go prowling round the choom, intruding on
the others’ ground. I always felt that he would do it
once too often. And to-day he deliberately went and took
a bone from the middle of a group of three dogs. There
was a moment's pause of sheer astonishment, and then
like a flash the three were on to him. Another second,
and Sailor was in the middle of a pack of screaming
demi-wolves. Ni-arr-way wasn’t there, thank goodness!
nor the big brindle ; they were at the goosing ; but there
were quite enough without them. I actually saw one

286 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

biggish dog catch old Sailor and shake him from side to
side. Well, I picked up the tent mallet, and shouting
the Samoyeds’ word ‘wenquoh’ (dog), let into them right
and left. At the first chance Sailor was out of the mélée
and into the tent through the fly in a twinkle. They all
but followed him in, and a pretty mess we should then
have had; but there was lying there a prop, with which
I slipped into them with such effect that they retreated.
Well, will you believe me, old Sailor had never a mark,
excepting one on the muzzle? Think of the toughness
of him; but then he had a coat on him that it would
take a long tooth to get through. I wasn’t bitten
either, and yet I would no more have ventured in cold
blood into the middle of that pack of devils than
into an active crater.

A cock willow-grouse I shot to-day was changing its
plumage to winter dress.

August 6th.—‘ When the goosing party returned this
morning at one o'clock they brought with them only
twenty brent, bean, and white-fronted, all told. They
had only three boats, and the geese defeated them.

‘Uano tells me he saw a Russian sailing boat, and that
the ice was much looser.

‘Our sugar, jam, and butter, which we have eked out
by pinches, is now finished ; one doesn’t often make two
pounds of butter last so long, nor a ham either, for that
matter. [And to make a ham last from June 21st to

DAYS IN CAMP 287

August 7th was pretty well, you will admit.] It, the
ham, is scraggy now.’

August 7th.—We found this afternoon several willow-
grouse broods. The chicks of unequal size, the oldest a
fortnight old perhaps.

You won’t want detailed accounts of our shooting.
We never shot but for the pot, or for skins.

The other day I noticed a pair of Arctic skuas hanging
round a pool, and they were there again to-day. Hyland
walking round found a fine young one in the rushes.
We took it home.

The Samoyeds, who go by the sun, have supper
earlier every day. I heard such peels of laughter from
the choom this evening that I went in, and found them
playing with one of my india-rubber paper-bands. Their
delight was marvellous. They put it over each other’s
necks in turn, and snapping it passing it round the
circle. But when Mrs. Uano’s turn came it suddenly
broke, and snapped her on the nose. She looked so
startled at the unexpected attack that I laughed, but
the others only said ‘Ah,’ and a sudden great quiet
fell on them while they reviewed the wreck.

All this seemed to me so natural. Which of us would
not be just as much delighted on seeing such an extreme
example of elasticity for the first time?

August 8th.—With a south-west wind and sun to-day

288 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the thermometer in the tent registered 68°, and it felt
oppressively hot.

Hyland went down to Scharok with Mekolka, and
brought up the news that the ice was gone, and even
the gulf looked clear. But that there was no sign of
the Saxon.

I picked the first flower of Veronica alpina.

August 9th.—We had such heavy rain last night that
most of my time to-day was taken up with drying our
things.

But one most important event must be put on record,
because it was the occasion of at least as much interest
as a christening in England. I refer to the piercing of
the baby’s right ear. Katrina did it with a needle, and
then put in a metal ring. There was quite a gathering
in the choom. The child which was held by Ustynia in
the centre of a ring of observers protested very little.

I remarked, when speaking of the admirable way in
which Samoyed children are brought up, that they are
controlled by kindness. It so happened that on this day
we saw for the first and only time a child punished.
Little Wanka’s father, Verrmyah, .wanted the boy, for
some reason; but when called he was playing with an
old pet reindeer and would not come. His father called
in vain three times, and then, without a sign of loss of
temper, went up and ‘spanked’ the boy for disobedience.

Hyland and I were both much struck with this solitary
instance of punishment given or needed.

6gz pun ggz sasug usamgag

aansjoy uo ‘pakowuns ayg vysvug hg unps
( ey 4 1S 9Y7 DYSDUC Ag T
suvissny juasaidas 0} papuajut are soin3y ayy,

«GTLVOITAOUd AHL, JO NOISYTA ATAOWVS V

af eash

a er agit OR 4

C> 95 7
a ADR VAG GY:

~3php upl pure ‘ottact, LOIRE

CHAPTER JI
BACK TO SCHAROK

August 1oth.—A day with the swans.

I drove off about mid-day with Onaska and Mekolka.
Onaska, by the way, was not only a good scholar, but
could draw a little. The native-drawn pictures in this
book are by his hand.

He was an ugly but kind-hearted man, who seldom
laughed, though some of his pictures betray a real sense
of humour. He always seemed to feel the cold severely,
and had a way of standing about with his hands tucked
under his ‘ malitsa,’ which I was unkind enough to mimic
one day, so that it remained a standing joke against
him.

We first followed a sleigh trail to the north-east. This
trail, covered with grasses and clearly visible even in
the sandy soil, was evidently very old, and seemed
to point to a time when Kolguev was far more thinly
populated than it is to-day.

We passed many old beaches. Some of these, under
denuding influences, had been broken down, so that
only little conical hills were left. On the top of each

of these a fox-trap was set. As in all I visited, the
ay

290 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

old seal-fat bait from last winter still remained. The
adequacy of the summer supply of natural food is well
enough shown by this fact.

At last turning to the seaward we came upon the
Swan lake. It was a fine big lake, about a mile long
and a mile inland from the sea. Round it were flying
several lots of grey plover, young and old, and ruffs in
winter dress. And away on the other side I could just
make out a pair of old swans, and four grey cygnets.

All round the lake it was very marshy, with deep
slews, filled with mare’s tail (Wzppuris). But the actual
bank of the lake was firm for the space of a sleigh and
ateam of five; so that we could comfortably stand or
uncomfortably lie there, as I did.

Here I found a new and very conspicuous plant—a
gigantic fleabane (Czzerarza palustris) growing in dense
bold clumps. Out across the koski was a little ice,
looking very loose.

The lake lies north and south. As we drove the
sleighs round to the farther bank the swans moved away
and swam northwards. We halted and laid our plans.

Onaska was to stay with the deer, I was to hide up in
the grasses with my gun, while Mekolka with his bow
and arrows was to take the boat which we had brought,
and scull after the birds.

So, after much difficulty in wading through a deep and
muddy creek, I found a place well screened, and squatted
down.

16c aSvg av

ONILOOHS NVA\S

BACK TO SCHAROK 291

I watched Mekolka with much interest. A strong
wind was blowing against him, yet he held on his course,
sitting with his face to the bows.

Turning a corner he was out of sight, but presently I
heard a ‘honking,’ and peeping out, there was Mekolka,
who had turned the. swans, and was pulling after them
down the lake and gaining every moment.

Now he stopped, and picking up his bow he slipped
an arrow at one of the cygnets (they were quite big
birds) at about twenty yards, as near as I could guess,
and with such effect that the bird beat the water wildly
for a moment, and then lay still.

Now he was opposite to me, and the way he had lost
in shooting and picking up his bird he was rapidly making
up.

He loosed another arrow, and I saw one of the young
swans flap along for some ten yards, drop its head, and
lie still, while Mekolka rowing up pulled it into the boat.
I was astonished that so large and strong a bird should
succumb so quickly from an arrow wound.

Then followed an in-and-out chase after the old birds.
They led Mekolka a pretty dance, but after a time one of
them headed right for the end of the lake, and ran out
on to the tundra.

It was a very long way from me, but I could see it
running, and after it the two dogs; but well used as they
were to catching birds they could make little of this, and
though they turned it once or twice it still ran on. I

292 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

scrambled across the creek, and followed the chase as well
as I could over the boggy ground. At last I came up to
find the bird had taken refuge in a little lake. Mekolka,
who had left his bow in the boat, was waiting for my
arrival. He had not thrown his parlka because I had
told him not to damage the feathers.

I shot the bird. It was a Bewick swan, in full moult.

I was glad to get these birds by way of proof. For
before this I only had the eggs we obtained on the
Kriva.

The very bow Mekolka used to-day he had made this
morning from a bit of driftwood. I have it now, and his
curious little plane.

When we reached camp little Wanka was playing
with his reindeer. There is an old reindeer, a capital
animal in a team, who is a perfect slave to the child.
He will follow him about like a dog. And Wanka
spends most of his day bullying this old deer.

First of all he swaggers out, imitating most comically
his father’s walk. Then with his little di-zha he makes
many shots at the old deer (who does not protest), until
at last he manages to get it by the horns. Then he
harnesses, unharnesses, and generally maltreats it hour
after hour. The boy is not strong enough to lift the
deer’s legs (and that is a very important part of reindeer
management), but this matters little, for the old deer well
understands the game, and at a touch from Wanka lifts

its Jegs itself. How many times this performance is gone

BACK TO SCHAROK 293

through in the course of a morning it would be hard to
say. Yet the good old deer never loses patience.

There is a savage black dog also who came with
Verrmyah, Naryan by name, who bites every one else.
But to-day little Wanka was bullying him, harnessing
him like a deer, and Naryan stood there enjoying it.

August 11th,—To-day we moved our camp three
versts further up the hill, to try and escape the reindeer
fly, which has become an intolerable nuisance.

We pitched on an old camping ground, where for the
first time we found a genuine spring of good water at a
point where the sand meets the clay. Unfortunately
from this point we cannot see the sea; but in the even-
ing I walked off to a hill from which I had a view of the
whole coast from Pesanka mountains to Barokoska Nos.
I saw no sign of a boat, and only a little ice.

I came upon many packs of willow-grouse cocks,
varying in number from fourteen to twenty-three.

Mekolka brought in to-day a red-throated diver in the
down. He said that he was after geese in his boat,
when the little thing, after diving in front of him, ran out
on to ¢he dank, when he caught it. A strangely undiver-
like proceeding.

Hyland has been given a sweet little puppy which
answers to the name of Tyamuk. A most sagacious little
-creature, though only six weeks old; it is most quaint to
see it coming across all alone to our tent from the choom.

294 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Sunday, August 12th—To-day I went down to
Scharok with Uano. We each drove a team of five.
As I think I have never properly described a reindeer
team I may do so now.

First the names. Reckoning from left to right you
have Niasminta, Niasminta Gei-o-hu, Yierrkha, Warrii
Gei-o-hu, Warrii.

There is only one driving rein, and that is attached to
the head-band of the Niasminta. The off-side of this
deer’s head-band is then attached to the near side of the
girth of the next, and so through the rest of the team.’
From this it is clear that the Niasminta gives the cue
to all the others, and should be the best trained deer.
As a matter of fact, he is not only this, but always the
finest that can be found.

Driving is a comparatively simple matter. Let us
watch a Samoyed off.

Whenever the driver leaves his sleigh he throws the
long driving pole down in front of the team, and turning
the team itself round till it is facing the back of the
sleigh, fastens the Niasminta’s head by the rein to the
side bar of the sleigh.

This driving pole, which is some ten or twelve feet
long, is called by the Samoyeds the ‘toorr,’ and by the
Russians the ‘hareh.’ It has a button of reindeer horn
at the point.

Now the driver unfastens the long rein (the ‘ moi-ty-

1 This arrangement is sometimes reversed, so that the Niasminta has more freedom,

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BACK TO SCHAROK 295

nia,’ as he calls it), passes his thumb through a slit in the
end, takes a turn or two round his head, gathers up the
remainder in coils, picks up his toorr in his left hand, and
then, turning the deer straight, runs his eye over the
team to see that all is right. For each deer is attached
to the front bar of the sleigh by a single long trace run-
ning from the collar. The Niasminta on the left or near
side, and the Warrii on the off-side, generally ran clear
of this trace, one to the left, the other to the right of it,
but it passes between the hind legs of the three middle
deer of the team.

The following diagram will give more clearly than a
description the parts of the harness and the Samoyeds’
terms for them.

It is all worth giving for the sake of future travellers,
for before this it would seem only the Russian names
have been given in the books.

With the exception of the saddle and collar, which are
of tanned leather, all this is made of raw seal hide.

So before our Samoyed can start he must see that the
‘sach’ is in its proper place, and there is usually a good
deal of leg-lifting before this is satisfactorily so. Then,
leading the Niasminta by the head, he starts the deer at
a walk, which after a pace or two becomes a trot. He
then stops, letting the rein uncoil from his hand, and as
the sleigh flashes past him he throws himself on to it,
sitting with both legs to the 4f¢ side. He sits facing
his team, the left foot either on the runner or hitched

296 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

between the uprights, and the right leg either resting on
the left knee or on the rim of the sleigh; the rein held
in the right hand, twitched
up over the ‘howlsug’ or

button as a rest. The

a
r cL
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. ]
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ss long toorr held in the left

\. hand is balanced on the

Bul = RF igh d during th
Us. = Put- nia N

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aaa whole journey is kept

waving up and down, now brushed down over the

7. Howl. scag [ear 3. Vas claruide
2 e-ne~auk- mudd 4. Sack,
[or Yo-% -nca} S. Moy- lpia

6, Stirinia

DIAGRAM OF REINDEER HARNESS

rump of one deer, now over that of another. Occa-

BACK TO SCHAROK 207

sionally, when a deer is very sluggish, it is prodded
with the button (‘toorr-mahl’), but usually a touch is
enough. Also a wild cry resembling ‘Hooah’ helps to
urge them on, and sometimes a hissing sound, such as
elderly ladies in a basket-trap address to the pony. If
an extreme of speed is required then the driver raises
both arms, a signal the deer know well.

This generally puts them to a gallop. Are they to go
to the left—then the rein is simply pulled; if to the right,

DIAGRAM OF SLEIGH

1, Sid-der-nla-dit-sa. 4. Han lata, 7. Han gaz.
2. Hannin, 5. Poy-nid-du-dn-durr. 8. Sit’n-di-ek-nya.
3. Tchdy-dtrr. 6. Hanwano. g. Ni-arrt.

the rein is drawn sharply across Niasminta’s quarters,
and the whole team turns that way.

It is easy enough to do all this; but one thing I could
not learn. It is—how to make the reindeer slacken
speed. I never could understand the Samoyeds’ own
explanation; I never could determine how they did it
themselves. So any reader who has learnt this secret
(and doubtless many have who have travelled with the

Lapps) can do me a kind turn by making the point clear.

298 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

A Samoyed has not room on his little sleigh for very
much besides himself, but three things he never moves
without—his rifle, his axe, and his sovik.

His rifle is bound to the sleigh. Every Samoyed has
an old flint-lock rifle besides his bow and arrow. The
bullets he himself makes in an ingeniously-made mould
formed of stone set in a wooden pair of scissors. His
axe is of the Russian pattern, with a nail extractor on it.
The sovik I have described. He sits on it, and wears it
at night when sleeping on the ground.

So Uano and I went down to Scharok. I was driving
by far the finer team, none the less Uano, as the better
Jehu, more than held his own. He could get more work
out of his deer, by some silent skill I could not com-
prehend, than I out of mine, with all my prodding and
noise.

Arrived at Scharok I was delighted to find the ice
entirely disappeared. I fixed high up on a pole the two
yards of red flannel I brought for a faja or kummerbund,
and there it waved, a noble flag. Also I wrote a second
note to Powys, and nailed it on the flag-staff, where I
thought it might be better seen.

Visiting the site of our camp I was disagreeably sur-
prised to find that a fox had scratched a passage into the
cache and dragged out several of the brent. I did not
mind that, but was sorry only that he had let in dorn-
daftsa, the blue-bottle fly. So I set two traps to take
him there.

962% a5vg 220.7

(2ancjoy uo ‘vysnug fg unpicg)

UALNIAM NI SHXOI ONILOOHS GAAONYS

(aansjoy uo ‘vysvug dg umviq)

Aooap & SB poxy aie suIOY Jaapuler Yor ur jin} Jo dwmy e puryaq pousasos st uvut ayy,
NAUAGNIGUY ONILOOHS GaAONVS V

BACK TO SCHAROK 299

As we were passing Solnoi Toh on our way up, I
picked for the first time grass of Parnassus in full
flower.

We made many halts on the journey, both coming and
going, and once I tried to stalk a fine cock snowy owl;
but creep as I might, before I was within gun-shot off
he grandly skimmed.

And while Uano and I were smoking and taking snuff
the old man told me many interesting things, some of
which I noted down.

I asked him about the white reindeer, how they came
to be white; for I told him wild reindeer were not
white. But old Uano was never very good at reasons.

They were white, he said, because their mothers were
white. ‘Wazanka white, Teliurnok’ white, yes, yes,’ was
how he put it, and I could not get him further back than
this. So then I asked him which were best. ‘ Both best,’
he said; ‘yes, yes, white legs strong, black legs strong,
yes, yes. Both best.’ He always called grey black.
But pantomime was Uano’s forte. He had been saying
to me over and over again, ‘Black eyes no good, no
good; white eyes good.’ And I couldn’t imagine what
on earth he meant. So he sat on the ground studying
and studying a long time to himself, evidently quite
distressed at his failure to make me comprehend. All
of a sudden off he ran on hands and feet, scuttling over

1 ¢Teliurnok’ is of course Russian for a calf. ‘Wazanka’ is a corruption of the
Russian Vashinka. It is always used by the Samcyeds for a reindeer hind.

300 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the tundra like some old badger. ‘Troobka, troobka’
(telescope), he shouted. ‘Uano black, yes, Uano quite
black, yes, yes, no good.’

Even then I could not form an idea as to his meaning.
With that he comes up, impatiently seizes my glass and
says, ‘Now Ahnglia reindeer, yes, yes.’

So off I went in turn at this strange game; I was to
be the reindeer this time. Then he shouts, ‘ Reindeer
black, no good; eyes no good, many tears." Now rein-
deer white, good eyes, very good, yes, yes, laughter,
Verrmyah’s adliurs. Yes, yes, reindeer come quick.’

And then I saw it all, as of course you will by this
time. Translated it only means, ‘White is a much
better colour to see than black. So white deer are an
advantage when Verrmyah goes out to find the deer.’
And this was quite true, for a grey reindeer is very hard
to see against the grey peat.

Many other things Uano told me that day ; where the
fish were, and how the salmon trout only ran up two
rivers, the Gusina and the Kriva, to wit. He told me
that the Kriva rose in a big lake. The lake (‘toh’) he
called it. He told me of high mountains,’ so steep that
reindeer could not pull the sleighs up their sides. Many
things he told me, but one he would not tell. He would

not tell me where the brent geese bred. This was a

1 This word ‘yarrn-ga’ is literally fears. It is used to express the watering of the
eyes from the smoke of a wood fire, but also they use it to express any defect of sight.
So ‘ pisinga’—laughter—is used for happiness or success,

” Sowandeyi and Siecherhur.

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BACK TO SCHAROK 301

point of honour with the Samoyeds, and I could not get
him to lend me a team of deer so that I might go right
away. All the deer were wanted for the goose catching.

August 13th.—At half-past one in the morning we
came again in sight of the encampment, and we made a
race of it as we drew near. My fine team seemed to be
doing all they knew, but at any rate Uano’s team did
more, and I was a bad second at the post.

Then Uano invited me to drink tea—my tea—in his
choom.

I noticed that we sat down with rather more ceremony
than usual, and Uano, who generally sits on the other
side of the choom, made me take a place on the tub by
him. And then I found the reason. As I had given
them real tea, Mrs. Uano was giving us real tea-cups.
Out they came, two Norwegian and three Russian cups
and saucers. They had been a present from the wrecked
Norwegians.

Then Uano told me how every year he bought a
hundred pud (a pud=36 lbs.) of flour from the Russians,
and that for this he gave two roubles per pud, and that
his Russian’s name was Alexander Samarokoff, merchant
from Okshin on the Petchora; that this Russian and
another came east in his boat every year, and that had it
not been for the ice they would have been here ten days
ago. And he brought me his wooden calendar on which
the dates were ticked off.

302 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘They will never come now,’ he said; ‘very much ice,
ship lost, yes, yes.’

I got to bed at 3.30, and slept right away till 9 o’clock,
an unusual feat for me.

And it does not seem that I did much of interest this
day. I caught a great quantity of epkemeride by a pool,
and-I found the crop of a young willow-grouse full of the
buds or spores of saxzfraga cernua. Also, I opened my
beetle box, and found to my sorrow that a beetle I had
believed defunct had recovered and had eaten all the rest.

August 14th.—Hyland still suffering from headache.
I went round a small chain of lakes by myself, but saw
little of importance.

Little Wanka was very comical—the whole day he
went stumping around in his father’s long boots, saying,
‘Ahnglia, Ahnglia,’ every time he passed our tent door
He meant he was like me, with my big boots.

Two notes from my diary are—

‘A barrel full of salted geese contains 300, and sells for
ten roubles. The value of the barrel is two roubles.’

‘The two largest calves here are 34 months old, ze.
they were born the first week in May. When ten
months old they are entered to sleigh work, the five

BACK TO SCHAROK 303

going straight into training together without any older
beast to steady them; Verrmyah said this was great fun,

27%

‘“much laughter.

August 15th.—| fear if I make more digressions this
will run into a very big book. So now for diary pure
and simple.

‘Wind SE.,, light till evening, then strong. Heavy hot
shower at 2 p.M.; thermometer, noon 67°, midnight 52°,
bar. 29°7 in. I went out early for a walk by the sea;
it is a lovely morning, and I exactly determined our
position, having good fixed points in Pesanka range,
Barakoska Nos, and Swan Lake. Collected some snowy
owl pellets from a mound, on which one, a male, was
sitting. There are, I believe, no mammals’ bones among
them, excepting in one, very old and bleached. Here I
found a few bones, probably of a lemming. The deer
have eaten the place clean, and are now breaking away so
far that Uano said we must move to-day. At 5.15 there-
fore we left, and at 6.45 we reached our present camp.
Very slowly we came, winding in and out of the hills,
till we rose 150 feet to an excellent little hill. South-
east of this is a rise in the ground, from which you can
see the sea all round, and even the huts at Scharok. [|
went up there with my glass, but could see no sign of a
boat. They killed a cow (wazanka), and I bought
three funt (about 3 Ibs. 144 0z. go to the funt or foont)
of fat at 10 kopek per funt.

304 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘There was a very curious effect this evening, and a
beautiful picture as the moon rose; for the moon was
huge and red and oval, all its mountains and hollows
sharply defined. In the foreground the tundra, with the
mist filling in all the hollows, and the reindeer just
visible as they walked off feeding to the skyline, com-
pleted a picture which I stood and admired long. My
wretched sketch gives no idea of it. Hyland shot a
titlark, one of a flock.

‘Old Ustynia has been very hard at work making a
bridal dress or panitsa for young Ustynia, for she is to
be married to On Tipa’s eldest son. The dress was
constructed of many small bits of reindeer skin, stitched
together with sinew. The sinew is saved from the back
of the deer, hung up to dry ; it is afterwards torn in strips,
and each strand before being used is rolled between the
hands as cobblers at home roll their thread. The
women use sometimes a bone thimble on the thumb.
And they stitch outwards, that is to say, away from
themselves, as sailmakers do. They stitch very nearly
as quickly as Englishwomen, in spite of their contrary
way. Their needles, which they get from the Russians,
they keep with various odds and ends in prettily orna-
mented skin bags.

‘Old Ustynia begged two pieces of wire to-day for
knitting needles, and her delight was tremendous when I

also gave her a pair of woollen stockings.’

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‘ h J L t ys Ns ny :
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ih

BACK TO SCHAROK 305

August 16th.—This was our record day for heat.
The diary runs :—

‘Wind S., very light—thermometer, 7 a.M., 70° in
sun; noon, 76° in shade, 86° in sun; midnight, 54°, bar.
29°9 in. Clear all night, which is most unusual. The
hottest day we have had. I went into flannels. The
dogs dead beat, lying about just as they did last Wednes-
day, and yet the heat would not compare with that of a
hot English summer day. Even the Samoyeds felt it,
and opened flaps in their choom. They lit their fire
outside for the first time. The girls came out to-day in
red skirts and belts; the men also. They wear the
shirt-tail outside in the Russian peasant fashion. (Baby
was hawked about all day without its cradle or its
clothing.)

‘The bulls’ horns are now beginning to lose the velvet,
but the steers retain theirs.’

‘In spite of the heat we had no musquitoes to-day, no
doubt because of our high position. But the fly was
very bad indeed.

‘While Mekolka was out adliurgo to-day his dog
caught a young red fox. It was little hurt, and he
brought it back. He had tied its legs together, and
muzzled it also with a leather thong. I was sketching it
as it lay on the ground, when suddenly it slipped the
thong from its feet, and was off down the snow ravine at
the back. Instantly every man, woman, child, and dog

1 The majority of the gelded deer never lose the velvet.

U

306 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

was after it. Mrs. Uano stood near the bottom of the
gully, where she had been getting snow for water.
Hearing the hubbub, and seeing the fox coming, she
dropped her pot and stretched out her arms to receive the
iox (who ran straight at her), made a grab at it, missed
her footing, and went such a sprawler down the hill that
all the field screamed with laughter. In a second the
dogs had caught the fox, and there was a fine muddle.
I stood at the top and laughed, for it really was comical.
The bottom where they caught the fox was all mud and
snow—a fine mess. You could have covered the whole
thing with a sheet, and what with the mud and the snow,
the dogs and the fox, the question was, which was Mrs.
Uano? However, she was very good-tempered about it,
poor old thing! The unfortunate fox was badly pinched,
and does not look like living now.

‘Verrmyah has been working hard all day making me
a model sleigh.

‘Uano and Ustynia went off to call on On Tipa, and
returned in the evening, Ustynia looking very grand in
her new panitsa, sitting on her father’s sleigh. She
brought back with her a sack filled with curious odds and
ends of mouldy bread and finery.

‘IT had a long walk, taking the hill twice to look for
Saxon, but the mirage was hopeless; even the Scharok
huts seemed like some immense fortification.

‘It has been such a lovely evening—a blood-red moon

opposite the setting sun. The moon again very curiously

BACK TO SCHAROK 307

refracted. For, rising as it seems in quite a clear sky,
its slope is oval (depressed above and below), and its
upper and lower edges all jagged. As it rises this con-
dition gradually changes, till you have a circular moon
with clear-cut rim. Seen through my little telescope it
really seems that you could just step down into its valleys
—they are so sharp. Behind our tent the gully’s sides
are covered with snow, much of which is pink with
protococcus nivalis.

‘A merlin flew close by the tent this evening, turning
its head, and looking in at the door as it passed.

‘They trimmed some calves’ ears to-day (z.e. cut off
the tips for marking purposes), and the women forth-
with skinned and ate the bits.

‘A yellow-ringed humble-bee stunned itself by flying
against the tent rope.’

Ustynia, I should explain, did not drive her own
sleigh to-day, but sat behind her father on his because
she went to her betrothal. Young On Tipa, whom
she was to marry, was not a bad young fellow, but
consumedly conceited because, as his father was the
richest man in Kolguev, he had been the catch of the
island.

The curious part of this Samoyed courtship was that
we never saw the man and his girl together. I never
saw On Tipa the younger inside Uano’s choom, and I]
cannot remember that I ever knew him and Ustynia

to exchange three words with one another.

308 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

August 17th—Now here is an odd fact. The
musquitoes were about to-day, yet they did not worry
me at all. But Verrmyah, who was working at my
sleigh, was bitten and bothered very much. A native
might have been expected to be musquito-proof.

On Tipa was to choose three young bulls from our
herd as part of his son’s settlement. One would have
supposed that he would have just jumped on to his sleigh
and come across to look over the herd, as a farmer would
at home. Nota bit of it. This was not consistent with
his dignity on such an occasion. So Verrmyah and
Mekolka had to round up the whole herd of five hundred
beasts more or less, and drive them twenty versts away
to On Tipa on the head of the Veliki river. This they
did to-day, and brought them back.

Hyland took my glass up to the hill, and coming back,
reported a sail at Scharok! This Mekolka also had
seen in the morning. Uano was very cunning about
it. He didn’t know that we were aware of it, and so
he had made up his mind that he would slip off by him-
self and see his Russians. I think that he chiefly wanted
the pleasure of telling them all about us, and of talking
us over with them before we met. So I did not even
know he had started until he was two miles off. Then
I went for Verrmyah, who said, ‘My adliurs Ahnglia’s
adliurs. Ahnglia go quick, yes, yes.’ But I had no
intention of pounding all the way to Scharok for nothing.

. -
For of course we knew the sail was not the Saxon’s.

BACK TO SCHAROK 309

So I wrote a third note to be left in the chapel,
and sent Verrmyah galloping off with this after his
father.

This was a memorable day because of a great thunder-
storm. At one time it was pouring rain and flashing
lightning on every side. Only where we were was a
single clear spot.

Our poor Samoyeds were very frightened by thunder-
storms. They were good Christians while it lasted. At
every extra big flash or peal they crossed themselves
religiously. Mrs. Uano brought out a little ikon (a
picture image) on a stick, which she stuck in the ground.
When first we came we saw a good deal of this little
ikon. (1 think it was St. Vasili of Solovetsk.) For we
were then supposed to have come from the Governor of
Archangel. But in the familiarity of these later days
poor little Vasili had been kept in the bag, and now he
was only brought out for thunderstorms.

To-day Mekolka brought me in wonder a common
earthworm—just lumébricus terrestris to all appearance—
which he had found lying on the ground. But I had no
spirit for its preservation. It interested me much. When
one considers that the ground for seven months out of
twelve is frozen solid, it seems strange that a creature so
highly specialised as the earth-worm, a creature too,
whose development is direct, should be able to survive.
But Mekolka had never seen a worm before, and this one,

oT suspect, had been brought over in the crop of a gull.

310 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV
August 18th.—‘ This has been a day.’

I was sitting at the tent-door at five this evening,
making a sketch of pi-liuh, the reindeer fly, and his
larva, when suddenly away on the tundra rose a most
extraordinary yelling. It gathered force as it came on,
and lo! it was Uano come back from Scharok.

He was ‘half-seas over’ now, and had evidently been
right across the ocean.

‘My Russmann come,’ he screamed at the top of his
voice, and again ‘My Russmann,’ and a hundred times
the same burden, till at last he pulled up and tumbled
off the sleigh, quite helpless.

They helped him into the choom, where he soon
recovered, and volubly gave an account of his visit. I
could hear it all going on, but had not the spirit to go
in; it was so depressing to see our kind old friend come
to this pass. Now and then he would shout for me, but
I would not go. At last he came stumbling across to
my tent, and plopped down in the entrance.

‘My Russmann,’ he says between crying and laughing.
‘Uano’s Russman come Scharok! My Russman very
good! yes, yes. My Russman say, “I wish Hylum
and Ahnglia, no, two Ahnglia—here—tea, sugar, tobacco,
yes, I give all.” My good Russman! yes, yes.’

‘Two Ahnglia’ (two England) showed that the Russian
had tried to explain. to him who we were.

But he was. such a nuisance that I made his wife

come down and drag him off.

BACK TO SCHAROK 311

Poor Hyland, who was out, had a second performance
on his return all to himself. I am afraid he took it
much more good-naturedly than I.

Later on came little Wanka to my tent, bringing the
first written invitation I had received on Kolguev. It
was evidently Mekolka’s effort, and it ran thus:

‘Ivan zalaht choomoo,’ which composition meant, ‘Ivan
(Uano) desires your company in his choom.’

Hyland and I went. It was a tea-party. They
put me in the place of honour on Uano’s right hand.
We had real tea in real tea-cups, sugar, mouldy white
bread, little rings of bread containing carraway seed (the
Russians call them kallatch) and vodki. It was a great
time for them ; though the vodki caused a good many sad
things to happen that evening. But I noticed Mekolka
was not there. I myself had taken one glass just to try
the vodki, and please these poor people, and Hyland
told me afterwards that Verrmyah had said I was just
like Mekolka—for Mekolka would never have more than
one glass. This we found to be true, and it was very
remarkable in a semi-savage. But then Mekolka was
quite a remarkable chap.

Truth to tell, this vodki was so abominable that had
either Hyland or myself been fonder of spirits than we
were, I think it would have choked us off. But Hyland
was one of the most temperate men I have ever met.
He often sighed for a gallon of beer, poor fellow! but
sigh you might in Kolguev.

312 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

I left very soon on some pretence, for I longed to
escape from the pitiable into a purer air. So I walked
north a long way till I found a little gully, where I stayed.

One side was all snow, the other grassy and ablaze
with flowers.

Here I found a double red raspberry, and a beautiful
tall veronica (V. longifolia). And there was a ringed-
plover evidently with young.

‘A dense fog came on,’ says my diary, ‘while I was in
a perfect labyrinth of gullies. But I think I must be
getting the homing instinct better developed, for I walked
straight back, though I could not see the choom till
within a few yards.’

Sunday, August 19th.—Our friends spent to-day in
recovering from yesterday.

We caught a wazanka with the di-zha for the
Russian’s food. I got old Ustynia to milk it for me,
and thought the milk exceedingly good. It was like
cream. But the Samoyeds kept saying ‘no, no, not
good. Very bad, yes, yes.’ It is strange that these
people never use reindeer milk, for the Lapps, we are
told, drink much of it.

Mekolka comes in every day for a lesson in English.
The English he writes phonetically in Russian characters,
and remembers it quite well. At present we are hard at
work on the numerals, and it is very funny to hear his
attempts at pronunciation. The only one which really

VERONICA LONGIFOLIA

314 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

defeats him is six. He goes over this again and again,
but always with him it is ‘ sikkus.’

August 20th.—At last our stay with our simple friends
was over. We were to share their society and that of
the Russians from to-day.

We went in a fine procession down to Scharok. There
were two sleighs laden with our things. Katrina was
there, and baby, and Mrs. Uano in a brand-new scarlet
cotton Russian dress. The effect of this was striking, for
as she had pulled it on over her old skin panitsa, not
a button of them all would meet. Really she did look
very funny—something like a toad in a cactus flower.

Verrmyah’s warrii was bogged on the way, but we
managed to get it out.

We raced into Scharok. I was driving my old team
of five, and beat them all but Verrmyah. I never could
quite catch him.

The appearance of the huts was already changed.
Fires were burning, and odds and ends of tackle lying
all about. From the mast-head floated the red flannel
flag.

The principal person who came out to meet us was the
trader himself, Alexander Samarokoff. I admit I was
agreeably surprised. I had expected to see some low
ruffian trader, and instead here we had a handsome,
bronzed, black-bearded man, with clear, keen grey eyes,
and a manner absolutely self-possessed.

BACK TO SCHAROK 315

I said little to him at first, for I intended that he
should have the idea that we were entirely independent
of him. Poor old Uano was wofully disappointed. He
had evidently set his heart on showing us off. But
caution is wise until one
knows one’s ground. And
it seemed to me that, as
it might possibly come to
a question of compelling
him to take us back, it
was better to keep the
high hand till I knew

my man. So I said,

‘How d’ye do?’ as though
we often met. Then I introduced Hyland. Hyland's
fine big figure and fresh English face evidently took
his fancy very much.

But I immediately set to work to move our belongings
down to the site of our old camp.

Before going I asked but one question, ‘How long
do you remain on Kolguev ?’

And Alexander Samarokoff answered, ‘One month.’

PART Vi

Texts of the Holy Hills and of household
gods—Of Samoyed labour and of traders’
ways—Of the lamp of St. Nicholas and
the bringer of storms—We leave
Kolguev, and after much painful
effort reach the main-
land, and finally
home

CHAPTER I
TO THE HOLY HILLS

August 21st.—-Now it is time to explain something of
these Russian merchants with whom we were to live.

Years ago—fifty years ago—in the days, perhaps, when
the priest had visited Kolguev, there had been quite
a considerable traffic between the up-country traders,
men of Mezen, Indiga and the Petchora, and the Samoyeds
of Kolguev. The Samoyeds had lived there always, I
believe. I could never learn of a time in their traditions
when they were not dwellers on the island.

They were very useful to the Russians traders. Not
only did they supply them with skins of polar bear,
walrus, and seal, the feathers and down of ducks and
geese, but also they were pasturers of the Russians’
reindeer. They entirely owned a proportion of the deer,
but also they tended many herds which belonged to the
Russians solely, or in which they had a half interest.
In those days there were, according to Alexander
Samarokoff, no fewer than 25,000 reindeer on the island,
of which 10,000 were owned by one man, Alexis, a
Russian.

Then there fell the first of those terrible reindeer
319

320 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

plagues which were to bring such havoc into all those
parts. The reindeer succumbed by thousands, and the
trade with Kolguev was paralysed and died. To-day no
Mezen or Indiga traders can tell you anything of Kolguev.
They know not whether Samoyeds are there or not, or
if there, whether they are only visitors, going and
returning in the summer months. They know nothing.
That page in their history is clean wiped out.

But it chanced that two brothers Samarokoff, merchants
of Okshin, a little town or gubernia on the Petchora,
continued going. Why should they not? There was
less competition now; at least they could get from the
Samoyeds all the produce of their hunting in exchange
for their cotton goods, or snuff, or tea.

They were dead long since, but their sons, Alexis and
his cousins Alexander and Ivan (now dead) kept the
practice alive; and Alexander it was who was here
now. Alexander came first to the island with his
father as a child of ten years old thirty-five years ago.
Not for a single year since that time has he missed the
voyage.

On this evening we received from Samarokoff an
invitation to tea. It was brought to us by one Yakoff
Popoff, his servant and factotum. This Yakoff was a
quizzical sort of character. He had a prickly snub nose,
small twinkling grey eyes, and long straight reddish-yellow
hair. He had served as a soldier, and was extremely

proud of his personal strength, though he was not very

TO THE HOLY HILLS 321

strong. He had a great deal of the oracle about him
because he had been to St. Petersburg.

Alexander received us in his hut, where he fed us on
raw salmon, raw flounder (which they had taken with their
nets from the creek), some milk and vodki; and after-
wards with flounder cooked, cooked reindeer, rum and tea.

We stayed long with him, and he told us many things.
He said that he feared his cousin Alexis was lost in
the ice, for he had left the Petchora in the beginning of
June, and had not been heard of since.

August 21st to 24¢2.—Well, all these days passed
without any event of moment. On the first we picked a
tin-full of cloudberries, not ripe, but nearly so. The
next day Mekolka came down, and brought with him my
little sleigh and a complete set of miniature harness. On
the following day the blue fox came back for another
look at the geese, and finding the spot occupied sheered

off, and came cantering jauntily past me within ten yards.

Aug. 25¢h.—On this day it was arranged that I should
go and visit the high mountains. Alexander, besides
having a part share in Uano’s deer, had a herd of some
two hundred or so away in the hills near the rising of
the Gobista river. These deer were under the charge
of a second Marrk (not our old goosing friend) whom
we had not yet seen. And in the course of the afternoon
he turned up with reindeer—with two teams,

Hyland, who was ill with a chill, was not able to get
*

322 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

up all day. I sometimes had an idea that, with a little
resolution, he might have shaken off his complaints. I
had told Alexander that he was not well—had a chill. I
did not know what chill might be in Russian, but
explained that the cold and wet had affected him.

‘Ah,’ says Alexander, ‘I know, “ pros-to-deelsa,” yes,
yes, “pros-to-deelsa.”’ (The Russians often used this
word; it means, I take it, ‘with a cold.’) So down I go
to Hyland, and coming into the tent with a very serious
face, I say, ‘Hyland, you are very bad. There is no
doubt about it. What you have got is nothing less than
Pros-to-deelsa\’

‘Pros—what, sir?’ says Hyland, in much concern.

‘ Pros-to-deel-sa,’ I repeat, ‘a Russian complaint.’

‘Good gracious!’ says poor Hyland, looking wofully
blue, ‘ you don’t really think so. How ever could I have
taken that ?’

‘Well, say I, ‘I don’t know how you took it, but
you've got it. Now I’m going off for a day or two, and
there will be no one to nurse you, so you must shake
yourself together. What you want is a good sharp walk
every day. That will put you right.’

So I left. We went S.W., crossing the Barakova,
through a marshy country, and gradually rising some
hills. Here we were overtaken by a thunderstorm, and
old Marrk often stopped to take in Dutch courage from
a bottle of vodki. I tried to give him a little lecture
on temperance, ‘Marrk,’ said I, ‘vodki not good.’

TO THE HOLY HILLS 323

‘No,’ answers Marrk; ‘Russmann’s vodki xo¢ good,
not good,’ and with that he swigs again. And thereafter,
as often as he might drink the vodki, he would shake
his head and say profoundly, ‘Russmann’s vodki ot
good, no, no, zot good.’

Mine was such a vile team that I gave up driving,
made Marrk take my toorr and hitch my sleigh to his.
My warrii was a heavy, hornless, sulky bull. We
tied him afterwards to the back of my sleigh, where he
did his best to choke himself in his efforts to hang back.
He moved with a heavy rolling action, very distinct
from the pace of the younger animals.

So we kept rising and rising until at last we came
upon a single yierserk by a little lake. Inside this I
found the old woman had arranged for me a fine white
reindeer skin, and insisted that
they should sleep in the open.
It had rained so hard during the

last two hours that everything

was flooded. However, when J = MARRK’S BELT; SHOWING
INGENIOUS BUCKLE OF BONE

crept out to see how the old

people fared, I found them both snoring, completely

smothered in skins.

Sunday, August 26th.—The morning broke so clear
and fine that I turned out early and walked all round,
taking stock of the country, which was all of the same

formation; stony ridges with peat in the hollows and

324 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

levels, and a river winding through. It was curious to
find one’s-self alone with these two old people, away on
so desolate a spot.

When I returned from my walk they were bringing in
the reindeer. Mrs. Marrk was really a remarkable old
woman. She and her old man managed a herd of 300
reindeer every bit as well as we could have done with all
our hands in Pesanka
camp. The old lady
was a miracle. She
did all the business
of the adliurs, gallop-

ing round with the

dogs, and jumping on
and off her sleigh
like a young thing.
Here is a picture of
her taken on_ the
spot, as she sat in

Alexander’s hut with

a pooziri bottle in her
hand. These pooziri bottles are glass globes, which
the Scandinavian fishermen use as floats for their nets.
They are picked up on the Kolguev coast, and then
serve the purpose of vodki bottles.

Marrk’s Niasminta cut up rusty just after we had left,
and the old man was all but hurled over a precipice,

sleigh and all.

TO THE HOLY HILLS 325

We crossed the Pugrinoy river, 21 versts from the gulf
and 3 versts from its source. Soon after this we came
to Honorohur mountain, which the Russians call Lodka
(the boat), for that is the appearance it presents to them
when seen from the Pugrinoy mouth, where their boats
sometimes lie.

I walked to the top; it is about 100 feet high, and
had a fine view over the surrounding country. Away to
the west were the Gobista mountains, and shining in
the sunlight to the south was the great lake Promoine,
looking as if only a mile or two away.

Here I found a lovely delphinium (D. eZatum): identical,
it seems, with the old-fashioned blue one of our gardens.
Some were dark violet, some were blue ; some with more,
some with less white in the eye. So that which I had
always supposed a gardener’s creation is really a natural
feature.

An hour later we had reached the mountain So-
wandeyi. Here was a really remarkable view down
into a water-formed crater. But no rock was visible,
only landslips of sand. A peregrine falcon was flying
round here and crying.

We left at noon, going south-west, and dropped down
and down till we reached the Gobista river running west.

Three versts from this we reached the Kriva lake. I
looked at this with much interest, as the source of the
Kriva river, the stream by which Powys and I had first
landed on June 16th. But the lake was not beautiful in

326 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

itself. It is too square in shape. I calculated, as we
drove round it, that it was about 1 mile wide and some
mile and a half long.

We found here drying grounds for fish, And when
we were about half-way round we came upon the eldest
of the Bulchikoff brothers, come to fetch away a barrel
of salted fish. He said they were quite good; but they
smelled horribly. These men will not take the trouble
to salt their fish before it gets bad. The fish were sik,
a kind of bream, and besides this, they told me, the lake
held only goletz, which ran up into it from the sea.
Goletz is a species of sa/mo or of coregonus. Iam not
quite sure which.

I inquired of Bulchikoff how deep the Kriva lake
might be. He said, ‘My toorr—more big, yes, yes, —it
was deeper than his toorr. But I wanted to know
exactly. At last he laid his toorr down, and walked
away from it two or three paces, and said, ‘ Two toorr—
no, my big toorr, my little toorr, yes so, yes, yes.’ His
was a twelve-foot toorr, and the small toor would be a
ten-foot one. This would make the depth about twenty-
two feet.

So we left, and crossing the head of the river where it
leaves the lake, wound round the lake itself. I saw a
glaucous gull hammering at something by the side. It
rose as we approached, and flying off left behind it a fine
sik dead on the stones. It had its guts torn out, but

was quite fresh and clean, weighing, I should say, two

TO THE HOLY HILLS 327

and a half pounds. Marrk said it was very big for that
lake. I was much struck by a curious adaptation of the
upper lip. This is modified into a horny-looking beak,
which appears to be extensible, and is evidently designed
for rooting among the stones. It had several pebbles in
its gullet, two of them larger than hazel-nuts.

So, winding round the lake, we took again to the
mountains, crossed the Gobista twice, and headed for
Siecherhur, one of the four sacred spots on Kolguev.
The others are Bolvana mountain, the Pesanka moun-
tains, and Pesanka lake.

This mountain, the highest in Kolguev, is a conical
hill, situate some 150 feet above the sea, and rising sud-
denly to about too feet. Its sides are steep and sloping,
and it is formed as regularly as an ancient camp. On
the top are two very old wooden bolvans,’ too large to
carry away, and many remains of reindeer.

You heard in the saga how the dying man bids his
son carry the little sleigh and the spoon to the Holy Hill,
where is the sacrificial place of Nim. I believe that this
Nim is the ancient god of all the circumpolar races ; that
he is common to the Eskimo, the Chuckches, the Ostiaks,
and the Samoyeds. Originally,? when a Samoyed died,
he was laid out straight on the tundra, and some of his

1 Bolvans are wooden images of the god Nim. A face is carved on a bit of wood,
and cuts representing ribs are made in the side. Thisis all. The Samoyed name
for a bolvan is ‘ shyadey.’

2 So Uano told me when explaining the saga, and the traders afterwards confirmed
the statement.

328 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

personal belongings were taken to the sacred spots as an
earnest that he was really dead. Old Marrk was wofully
alarmed that I, an unbeliever, should visit this place. I
think he feared that the wrath of Naim would fall
upon me, and perhaps on him, as he had brought me.
So, reining up the deer at the foot of the hill, he flung
himself flat on the ground and buried his face in the
moss. As I climbed slowly up the hill I often turned
and looked back, but always the old man was in the
same position.

When I reached the top, which is flat and round, and
some fifty yards across, I first examined very carefully
the two old bolvans. Then I turned to the view. It
was very striking.

On the south rose Somandeyi and Honorobur ; to the
south-west lay the Kriva lake. At the mountain’s foot
the tiny Gobista stream went trickling away among the
grasses. Immediately below me were the two reindeer
teams, and old Marrk lying there as still as an old grey
stone, face downwards in the moss. He did not stir till
I was again by his side, and I had to poke him up.
Then he never turned his head, but, with face averted
from the sacred hill, he mounted and drove off.

When we returned to our little camping ground young
Kallina had arrived with his wife and his baby. They
pitched their little yierserk alongside ours.

We had a lot of trouble on this evening; for several

of the bulls had their horns clean and were fighting and

TO THE HOLY HILLS 329

bellowing. Marrk had foolishly left two teams un-
watched. In each of these was a bull with clean horns,
and suddenly they began fighting. And before we
could intervene there was a fine muddle. The two
teams were all entangled up in a most perplexing manner.
This would not do. So we had to throw three of the
bulls, and saw off their horns.

Marrk and Kallina threw the bulls, and by a very bad
device, as’I thought. First of all the fore-legs were tied
together, and then Kallina, taking the thong, pulled the
fore-legs forward, while old Marrk hauled away at the
near hind-leg. The bull did fall at last, but not before
he had scrambled about all over the place. I explained
how much better was our plan of bringing all four feet
together, but they didn’t see it.

Such a saw as it was too—home-made and villainous.
I really think Kallina must have been half-an-hour in
sawing through two horns, while I held the beast’s head
down.

The Marrks’ evening meal was a very fair sample of
our feeding under the catering of the Russians. We had
five courses: 1. Tea, cloudberries and kallatch. 2.
Raw, bad salt-fish. 3. Roast ribs of reindeer (very
good). 4. Boiled, bad salt-fish. 5. Boiled reindeer and
black bread.

August 27th.—\ had a lovely walk very early up the
Pugrinoy. The morning was one continuous sunny

330 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

sparkle. I collected many new flowers—a large ranun-
culus, a very pretty pink (D. superbus) and a gentian in
seed (G. verna).

At noon we left and and drove back to Scharok,
where I was
sorry to find
Hyland still ill
with pains in
his back.

It was so very hard to

make these Samoyeds give
you the veasons for things.
We happened to be talk-
ing in Alexander's isba
about the birds, and I
found that the Russians
too call the snowy owl
Koa \ ‘snuff’ (sowah). Alex-

x | ander said he didn’t in the
pass \ Vy 7 least know why it was, un-
less it was from some noise
THE SPLENDID PINK (Dianthus superbus) they ial: I, wake knew,
of course, that it would be because of the snowy’s
hissing noise, tried hard to get the Samoyeds to explain
why they also called it ‘snuff,’ or ‘sneezing’ (heinib-
chur in the Samoyed, as I have said before). I did not
succeed, though Uano was evidently quite satisfied that
he had given the only explanation when he answered

TO THE HOLY HILLS 331

that ‘his name was Uano, and mine was “ Ahnglia,” and
a fox’s name was Tchuornia, and a bird’s Tierrtekoh,
and this Heinibchur; and if everything had the same
name, how cou/d any one tell whether you were a man
or a bird!’

August 28th.—This day, too, is worth recording.

It was very wild and rainy, and my second ther-
mometer was broken by swinging against the tent. So
good-bye to all my records. Also it took me three-
quarters of an hour to light the fire for breakfast, and
when it was lit, fine sand blew into the pot and made
things gritty.

Alexander, after having lent me a team for the
Pugrinoy, determined to go too. So I made young On
Tipa, who was there, drive me, for I had found it hard
to use my surveying instruments and write my records
when I had to look after a team.

He proved himself not only conceited, but what was
worse, a conceited fool. For, although I warned him
that the tide was up, he drove clean into the river, and
not only soaked himself but me, my gun, and everything
I had.

After seeing the country I felt that dirty Shabla had
been kind in his warning about the creeks. For there
were many places we could really not have crossed on
foot.

We crossed the Pugrinoy about four versts from its

332 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

mouth, and then moved down to the southern extreme.

Here we found three old isba and three ombara. One
of the isba had a fine brick oven. The bricks for

COMMON WINTER-GREEN
(Pyrola minor L.)
Found by the Pugrinoy.

this, Alexander told me, had been
brought the whole way from the Pet-
chora by his brother who was dead.
Alexander is now guardian to the
brother’s little boy, whose reindeer
are those tended by Marrk.

But the feature of the Pugrinoy
mouth is a very nice little chapel
which was set up many years ago by
Alexis (who owned the 10,000 rein-
deer).

Now Mekolka had come with us,
and he, On Tipa, and Alexander
spent a whole hour in lighting candles
before the ‘ikona’ and in getting the
incense to burn. The candles, which
were stuck on by their melted bottoms,
kept tumbling down, and then Alex-
ander would cross himself many times
and say a prayer of apology, the two
Samoyeds standing behind him like

acolytes, and copying his every movement.’ At last all

went well and the place was thoroughly censed.

1 There was something singularly grotesque in this Rimmon-worship—something
quaintly child-like in the idea of these poor Samoyeds, with their little idols all the

TO THE HOLY HILLS 333

So we left.

Now Mekolka was driving a team of whites. And
presently his Niasminta turned rusty and lay down. I
thought the poor beast was tired, and said so to
Alexander, but he answered, ‘No, he is not tired, only
he is bad.’ That being so, he was a very bad rein-
deer indeed. For, do what we could, he wouldn’t
budge.

Then Mekolka turned him over on his back. You
know that if you turn a beetle or a tortoise over on its
back when it is ‘shamming dead’ it will come to life and
try to turn over. Well, the white niasminta did the
same, and jumped up on to its legs. But as soon as ever
you tried to make it move down it dropped again. Many
times we did this, but it always collapsed. So then they
passed a thong round his neck, and the team dragged
him along for, I should say, a hundred yards, I thought
he must choke, but he didn’t, nor would he come to
life. After this we turned him over again, and when he
tried to rise we prevented him, and so on many times.
At last up he jumped and stood. We were afraid to
try and drive him, so we tied him to the back of a
sleigh and towed him home.

August 29th.—‘ Great bartering going on to-day. All
the inland Samoyeds came down and exchanged their

while hidden in their clothes, going gravely through this function. I really believe
that in their poor confused way they felt they were doing their best to keep in with
both the Powers.

334 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

skins for tea, snuff, stuffs, and the girdles, or rather

garters, called ‘“ poi-ess,” made of woven crimson wool.’

August 30th.—Yesterday’s gale raged all night, and
the rain fell in torrents. It really beat us. The whole
tent was flooded. It is useless to dig a trench round
these Whymper tents, because the rain comes clean
through the canvas of the walls. So we moved up into
the empty isba, which belonged to Alexis, Alexander’s
cousin. Here I spent three or four hours in plugging
up the cracks, and greased a bit of paper, with which |
covered up the open window hole. I did not seem to feel
the wet and cold, but Hyland complained always, feeling
pains in all his joints, and was either in bed or shiver-
ing over the fire outside the huts, and I feared for him
rheumatic fever. However, we got reindeer skins and
made ourselves pretty comfortable in a dry corner.

They were shooting young bucks all day, and were
very anxious that I should help, but after shooting three
I had had enough. It was poor work. They shot
seventy-five to-day, and the bellowing of the cows was
most distressing. The women slipped off the skins and
cut up the beasts ready for packing with remarkable

rapidity.

August 31st.—Again we had rain and a gale. I was
out very early, long before any one else was moving.
Marrk drove all the herd back to the Pugrinoy last

TO THE HOLY HILLS 335

night to feed. But here were nineteen poor cows come
back by themselves, wandering about and _ lowing
piteously. To-day the remainder of the herd was
brought back, and the twenty-five calves shot or caught
with the di-zha.

Alexander's second man, André, brought an old
broken accordion, a ‘garmonia,’ he called it, into the
hut, and played frightful tunes on it. Then Yakoff and
he sang discordant nasal songs to it till the noise was
truly diabolical. is

September 1st.—We had a fine fire outside the huts,
and I spent the greater part of the day drying our
wet things, a work of some anxiety, as one. had to
hang them right in the smoke, and if not watched the
sparks took hold of them. Hyland looked so wretched,
creeping about the fire, that I chaffed him at last into
taking a walk. So he went up by the creek, and
returned in an hour saying he was warm, a very unusual
case with him.

The three brothers Bulchikoff called on me to-day.
Walking straight into the hut they sat down in silence,
taking snuff. I went on with my writing, and not a
word was exchanged for probably half an hour. At the
end of that time I closed my book and asked to what I
was indebted for the honour of this visit.

‘Bolvana gorah’ (Bolvan mountain), said the eldest
son.

336 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘ Bolvana gorah. What about
ie

Then it turned out they had remembered how old
Marrk had taken me to Sieycherhur, and that they
thought I might like to go to see Bolvana mountain.
To this I agreed. We would go to-morrow. I would
sleep in their choom, and the following day we should
go on to see the bolvans.

I was very much astonished at this, but it seemed
clearer when Alexander looked in for a moment and
explained that these Bulchikoff were exceedingly poor,
that they had looked to do a little trading with his
cousin Alexis, who now, it seemed, must have been lost
in the ice; that they hoped, by taking me to their
choom, to catch me for a bit of trading. So I made it
clear that I should not trade, but that, if that was it, we
had better make a bargain at once. I would go, I said,
on one condition, and I would pay them five roubles (for
it was a very long journey, and it did not seem fair to do
less). My condition was, that they should give me, or
sell me, a little bolvan, one of those they wore under
their clothes. Now, at this juncture old Bulchikoff, the
father, came in.

‘Bolvan,’ said he, ‘my son no bolvan. My son
Christian.’

They were always suspicious of me, because of the
Governor's letter; they connected me somehow with the
ruling powers, and feared I would report them for idolatry.

TO THE HOLY HILLS 337

‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘of course they have bolvans.
Every Samoyed has bolvans.’

‘My son’s bolvan buried! Yes, yes, buried. No
good,’ persists the old man.

Oh, very well, I told them, then all engagements were
off.

I need not continue. Those who know anything of
the ways of savages or native people can fill in the
details for themselves. It was along palaver. Then I
said good-day and turned to my writing. I suppose I
wrote on for half-an-hour in a dead silence, then they
began to mutter among themselves, and the old man left.
At last it seemed they had come to some agreement.
The youngest son—I saw it out of the corner of my eye
—fumbled about in his clothes and produced a little
coloured doll, which he brought to me, and said, ‘I good
Christian. My bolvan, your bolvan. Yes, yes.’ I
looked at it. There was a shiver of protest when I
raised the hood from the face. It was apparently quite
new, but he said he had made it twenty years ago.
‘No,’ I said, ‘too clean; I want dirty bolvan.’

Well, after an incredible time and much jabbering, the
eldest son brought me a second bolvan. There was no
doubt about its dirt or its antiquity. The face, although
it had always been covered up, was so worn that the
features were all but lost. The wood, originally light
coloured, was now quite black. He told me that his

father gave him this bolvan thirty years before; that
Y

338 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

his father’s father had owned it, and he did not know
who first had made it; but it was so very old, ‘oh, more
than a hundred years!’ ‘A hundred’ with these people
means some immense in-
definite age, past all calcu-
lation. He said it had had
many dresses, so many had
worn out. 1 could believe
it all; it looked like some
little dirty old mummy.
Well, they struck a bargain,
they were so hard up, and
I got my bolvan, and my

friends left. The picture
THE OLD PERSONAL BOLVAN: IN AND gives a fairer idea of this
OUT ITS CLOTHES

than any words.
At tea this evening Alexander offered me as a donne
bouche the boiled eye of a reindeer. He was astonished
when I refused it, but not disappointed, for he ate it

instead.

Sunday, September 2nd.—At last a six days’ gale has
moderated. As it is Sunday, the Russians lit up candles
in the chapel and burnt much incense ; the poor muddled
old Samoyeds going through most wonderful contortions
and genuflections behind Alexander’s back, for he
officiated. Then we cooked pancakes of flour and water,
and thought them very good.

TO THE HOLY HILLS 339

I find that I never told you of our old cook Anna,
Anka, Anaka, Ananinka—for she answered to all these
names according as you were angry with her or pleased ;
Anna being the term of command, Ananinka of wheed-
ling or entreaty, and the other means between the two.
She was Mrs. Uano’s eldest daughter. She was a widow,
and lived in the service of Alexander at Okshin on the
Petchora. An old woman in appearance (though she
could not have been more than thirty),’ she ruled the fire
and the pot, and I found her kindness itself. There
was nothing the old creature would not do for Hyland
and myself, and she was always full of laughter at our
ways. Every year she crossed to Kolguev to do Alex-
ander’s work and see her friends.

In the evening I left with the Bulchikoff brothers.
Their choom was only ten versts away. The first five
versts we did in twenty-five minutes, the last in thirty-
five minutes ; for the first we did at the lope or canter,
the next at a slow trot. This will give an idea of rein-
deer pace in summer.

Now I do not claim to have been very particular, but
I must confess I was disgusted this time. Such a choom
as it was! Dirty, full of holes and very small, it could
not have been more than twelve feet across, for when
1 stretched myself out to go to sleep my feet were in
the fire; so we had to send the boys out for water to

' People such as these, with whom the women are grown-up, in a sense, at about
thirteen, age so rapidly that a woman of twenty-five looks old,

340 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

put the fire out. In this wretched place were many
dogs and eight persons besides myself, namely, the four
brothers (a fresh one was there), the eldest son’s four
sons, and a little girl. For supper we had ripe cloud-
berries in tea, and boiled reindeer. They offered me
as a great delicacy some cold liver, but, as I never
touch liver, I refused. The man’s wife was dead, and,
as always happens when there is no woman, the family
were simply ‘pigging it.’

After the ‘salnik’ or lamp was lit (this was a bowl
of reindeer fat in which a bit of old fish-net served for
wick) they sang sagas, and then we lay down for sleep.
But I slept very little. It happened that my feet were
over some old fish-bones, at which the dogs kept pull-
ing. After a bit I let out, and caught one of them a
hearty kick. Whereupon the dog, believing itself at-
tacked by its fellow, set instantly upon it, and a furious
fight ensued. Also, no sooner was the light out than
it seemed a whole Noah’s ark of fierce invertebrates were

loosed upon me, and the attack went on till morning.

September 3rd.—As a consequence of all this I was
moving earlier than any one else. The bitter gale
of yesterday had died out, and the ground and all the
water was bound by a hard frost. We had breakfast

} Like all Samoyeds, the boys had a Samoyed and a Russian name apiece—
1. Ludi (Samoyed), Roman (Russian).
2. Nensika or Petrooska.
3. Moziik or Mekolka.
4. Tierrki or Simeon.

PO THE HOLY HILLe 341

at 7.30, and then left. For breakfast we warmed our
last night's lamp, pulled the wick out, and then ate the
grease with black bread. It was not a vecherché meal,
but it was economical. Then Abeiloh, the eldest brother,
left with me for the bolvan hill.

After a journey (uneventful except that I picked a
harebell bloom, and that we passed the Bulchikoff’s
winter seat—an ombara or hut, set in mouldering
relics of Samoyed dirt of every description) we reached
Bolvana Mountain. Sahbor—the cathedral — the
Samoyeds call it, using the Russian word.

Here I found nineteen bolvans or idols. They were
not stuck up, but were lying side by side in arow. A
few were comparatively new, but the majority were very,
very old, and grey with lichen. All had the same
features and the same ribs. Also there was a little
broken sleigh, a spoon, and the remains of a flour-tub
—propitiatory gifts from dead men’s friends. I was
naturally very anxious to secure some of these, but
found it difficult.

Abeiloh’s behaviour was very different from that of
old Marrk. Instead of lying prone he came with me
to the very spot, and there, standing face to the sun,
with much bowing and extending of the arms, he ran
on in a continuous stream of words, of which I could
not gather any sense. But I felt he had his eye on
me all the while, for whenever I moved a hand towards

the bolvans he turned quickly round with a cunning

342 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEY

intelligence on his face. But I was one too many
for him. For I offered him a cigarette which I had
made from a leaf of my note-book. And while he
was stooping down to light this I managed to slip a
small bolvan and the spoon into my pocket unperceived.

On the return journey my sleigh caught ina hummock,

and the whole of one side broke off. But Abeiloh had

a

BOLVANS OF THE HOLY HILL

mended it in fifteen minutes with seal-thong lashings,
and we went on.

We reached the ombara, or hut, again in a blinding
snow-storm. But here I picked up a capital little adliurs,
on which I could sit astride, and came along in fine
style, riding over all the hummocks delightfully.

I had had enough of the Bulchikoff brothers and their

choom, so went straight away back to Scharok. Here

TO THE HOLY HILLS 343

I found Hyland better; and he accepted an invitation
from Verrmyah and Katrina to spend the night in their
choom, now pitched by the Baroshika. At Scharok
also I found the whole of the Uano family, who had
taken up their abode in a small lean-to. That day
seventy-six of Uano’s calves had been killed, and
Hyland told me that four men had skinned seventy-
eight calves in six hours; which, said Hyland (who
had had some experience in that line), was very good
work.

There was great rejoicing in Alexander’s hut; for
at the harbour mouth had appeared a sail, which could
be no other than Alexis’. So he had not died after
all. And this was proved later on when the vessel,
having come to an anchorage in the creek a mile and
a half away, some of his men came ashore. It appeared
that, since his departure from Okshin in June, he had
been slowly coasting along, bartering with mainland
Samoyeds.

This evening I came across for the first time a
character destined to play (though we did not know it
then) a considerable part in our story.

I was sitting in Alexander’s hut drinking tea (Uano
was there, and Mrs. Uano, dirty Shabla, who had
come up from the Gobista, and one or two more) when
suddenly the door opened and a most extraordinary
figure appeared.

No words of mine can possibly convey to you even

344 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

a remote idea of this man’s astonishing appearance.
One eye was large and white and sightless, the other
rolled round and round, as though it were attached to
a stalk, like the orbit of a cuttle-fish. His retreating
forehead, with prominent gorilla-like orbital bones, lost
itself beneath a skin hood, from underneath which
appeared long locks of straight black hair. His mouth,
enormous and wide open, was hedged by a bristling
row of ape-like teeth, and altogether there was some-
thing so ogreish and strange about this apparition that
I stared speechless, at which they roared with laughter,
and then arose a shout, ‘Tima Fé! Tima Fé!’ It
was Tima Fé, a Samoyed from the other boat. He
grinned at his reception, and when he grinned he really
seemed to lose himself behind his mouth.

This Tima Fé was sort of henchman to Alexis, and
had been sent ashore to get the isba ready. He sat
down, was given some vodki, and
then we became, as usual, the sub-
ject of an up-and-down conversation.
Tima Fe listened to all they had to

say about us; how we had lost our
ship, how we had lived with the

Kolzuay py .
Samoyeds, and how we were hoping

to get to England, which was an island lying beyond
Norway right across another sea. On all this he
made no comment. But when they had told him all
they could he was silent and pondering for a_ bit,

TO THE HOLY HILLS 345

and then, turning round, looked me straight in the face
for quite a while, and then in a hoarse cracked voice,
like some old crow, said twice over and very slowly,
‘England, impossible! England far away ; far, far away.’
(Ahnglia narlzah ! ne mozhnah. Ahnglia dalyoko, otchen,
otchen dalyoko), and then relapsed into silence.

There was some touch in this man’s face that told one
at once that he was not all there. He was, in fact, a bit
soft. An excellent workman, a recognised authority on
many matters (they all accepted him as the weather-
prophet), he was one of those curious twisted phenomena
one sometimes comes across, where cunning is combined
with warped wits. He wasa natural, and a very uncanny
one at that, with a curious influence over all the Samoyeds.
I think even the Russians in their hearts feared this
strange creature, for they were always most careful not

to round counter to him in any way.

September 4th.—‘NE. Bitter cold. Snow. Gale
again. Young Uano—‘ Uano droogoy,” as he calls him-
self, who sat long in tears in my hut yesterday saying his
Russian was dead, drowned, and he himself was broken
—rushed in this morning in great excitement, seized my
hand and cried, “ My Russian here, my Russian! my
Russian!’ as if he could not say it often enough. So
that, what between his tears and laughter, for he was
quite hysterical, I had all my work cut out to humour
him and get him gone. But his Russian, Alexis, did not

346 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

land to-day. Instead he sent Yugor, a curly-headed,
heavy Samoyed, to help Tima Fé in his work.

‘Hyland returned from Verrmyah’s choom, having
had great fun in driving “adliurgo” with dirty Shabla
after the herd, which they brought down. Our hut was
miserable lodging to-day, for the snow soaked in.’

September 5th—‘N.NE. Gale all day, with snow
and rain. Bitter cold. The curly-headed Yugor came
drunk into my hut, and after turning him out twice (he
was all liquid mud from head to foot from falling in the
creek) I had to fire my collecting gun over his head,
which scared him so that he crawled away crossing him-
self in terror. Yakoff Popoff brings in word that the
karbass (boat) is broken by swinging round on to a stone.
Alexander, much concerned, says it is the fault of my
bolvan.’

(This was the first sign of a grievance which developed
unpleasantly later on.)

September 6th.—E. Rather warmer, with gale and
driving rain all day. The whole area on which the huts
stood now resembled a slaughter-house. As you walked
about you had momentarily to creep under lines of flap-
ping wet raw reindeer skins; the ground was drenched
in blood and covered with reindeer paunches and skulls.
But I think the diary itself will give a sufficient idea of
this.

OUR QUARTERS AT SCHAROK

Face page 347

TO THE HOLY HILLS 347

‘To-day we cleared out of Alexis’ isba (dwelling-
hut) into a little ombara (storage-hut). A certain
amount of wet is kept out by a polar bear-skin stretched
over the top, but still the wet comes in so that the
planks or beds are all wet. However, we did our best
by packing the cracks to keep it out. There is no
window, but a hole over the door, and the approach is
filthy ; guts, blood, etc., lying all round the door, so
that Yakoff and I slipped and fell as we entered.
But I have brought a lot of moss, and have paved
the front with this, so that it is better. Yet the
smell is most unpleasant, and I am thankful the
weather is not hot. Supporting the planks of our beds
are barrels filled with I don’t know what, but it smells
horribly. The tent is still standing all wet. I spenta
good deal of time down there to-day, trying to get things
straight and emptying water out, but it rained hard all
the time. Alexis Samarokoff was towed in to-day. He
is a fine-looking Russian. He tells me the Governor
of Archangel, travelling to the Petchora in June, was
stopped by ice at Mezen and compelled to abandon his
ship and travel overland to Pustosersk, and that Sibiria-
koff brought him thence in his steamer.’

‘Gave Alexis the last drop of whisky, which has
remained all this time in my flask. He said it was
wonderful, and rubbed his stomach long after it had
gone down.’

1 Which I found afterwards was a fact.

348 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV
September wth.‘ NE. Blew hard till mid-day, when

abated, and evening was calm. With the exception of a
slight abatement on Monday last we have had ten days
of gale—not wind, but
gale. This has been a
woful day of Samoyed
drunkenness. It is a
point of honour with them
_ to drink fair. And as old
Yelisei was unable to
move from his position
face downwards on the
ground, the women turned
him over and poured vod-
ki down his throat. There

were, of course, comical

interludes, e¢g., an old

DRESS OF THE RUSSIAN TRADERS

woman crawling inch by
inch up the steep plank to Alexis’ karbass. Sketched
chapel and our ombara, but the wind was biting. The
stielka grass is only now coming well into flower.’

September 8th.—’W. Quiet in a.m., rain and wind
p.M. Alexander's karbass has swung on to the mud;
there was no water at high tide, so another good day
has been lost. It is very trying to see all this favourable
wind going by.

‘Alexis’ men killed a hundred young deer to-day,

TO THE HOLY HILLS 349

taking with the di-zha those the Samoyeds did not shoot.
The Russians are far superior to the Samoyeds at this
game. The Samoyeds use an underhand toss, but the
Russians throw overhand in cow-boy fashion. It is a
queer picture. You have the big herd divided into two,
a constant stream of cows and calves bolting from one
side to the other. The Samoyeds are squatting here
and there on one knee with their old flintlocks, and the
Russians creeping low about with the di-zha ready
coiled. The dogs bark, the cows and calves call or grunt
incessantly to one another, the cows always trying to
screen the calves by keeping them close at their side.
Every now and then a calf goes down, and the mother
stops for a moment smelling it and grunting, but the
calf makes no response, and she is soon hurried on by
the press. She will come back there presently and try
to move it with her head, and finding it does not stir she
stands over it for a moment or two, a sad picture of wild
sorrow, and then walks slowly away, stopping at every few
steps to call it on. At first the deer keep breaking and
trying to bolt, but, being always headed by the dogs, give
it up as hopeless. All the same, every now and then a
few will get together and creep off. If they manage to
get a hundred yards without being noticed they then stop,
lay their horns right back on their shoulders, break into a
swinging trot, and then into a gallop. When they mean
going like this they sometimes succeed in getting clear
off; and they would always, if they could only keep a

350 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

straight course and act decidedly. But too often, poor
beasts, they shift from point to point, and then the adliurs
(which to-day was entirely in the hands of Marrk’s old
wife) goes off with the dogs, and heading them by
creeping up some hollow, brings them back.

‘To-day a splendid young white-faced buck quite de-
feated them. The five men all laid themselves out to
take this beast. But he seemed to bear a charmed life.
Time after time they threw the di-zha over him, but
always he managed to escape. He trotted along right
in front of his mother, and did move splendidly. At last
they said he was not a reindeer, but the devil, and gave
it up. I shot two purple sandpipers. A couple of turn-
stones spend much time at our ombara, turning over the

deer’s paunches.’

Sunday, September oth.—'W.to N. To-day we have
had sun, snow, rain, hail, and frost. Everywhere on the
tundra the ice is now thick, and the edges of the creek
are frozen at low tide. The boat was floated off to-day,
but as it was Sunday, they said it was not right to finish
storing the barrels, only they might kill reindeer and
drink vodki; which they did. I went off in a boat
to the outer koski with Alexander to take observations
of the harbour. He was much interested in the pris-
matic compass, which he could not understand. While
the men were taking the young bucks to-day one of
them, caught by the horns, snatched the di-zha from

TO THE HOLY HILLS 351

Andre’s hands, and bolted into the sea. They got two
boats out after him, but to my great delight he swam
splendidly, clean distancing the boats against the tide.
When I last saw him he was galloping over the shallows
for Barakoska Nos.’

September 1oth.—‘ S., strong wind and snow, with hard
frost. Alexander's karbass ready.’

September 11th.—‘S. to S.W. Frozen up. Snowing.

‘] spent much time away on the tundra with the axe
cutting sections of moss heaps which much interest me.
The Russians would not go out to-day, as they said it
was not right to move on the Tsar’s birthday. This
evening, after a day of idleness and vodki, they have
been burning seal-fat barrels and shouting hurrah! They
put a 5-lb. tin of gunpowder into a barrel which they
stood on a bonfire. It went off and blew bits of burning

wood all over the huts, but no one minded.’

September 12th.—‘S., SE., E. This has been a day
of really tremendous rain. I have spent the day in
fighting the water with rags and tins, but have not found
a single dry spot to write in. Hyland went to bed in
the afternoon feeling sick—probably from want of vege-
table food. I also physicked Alexander, who complains
of pains and chill.’

352 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

September 13th.—‘ NE. Strong wind with rain showers.
(It may be worth noticing that the barometer in the
last three days stood 29°8, 29°3, 28°9, 29°5 in. These
extraordinary fluctuations boded no good.) Alexis, who
also has an aneroid, says he cannot understand what I
mean by saying it won't be fine, for the finger of his
glass points, he says, to “fine.” I tried, but without
any success, to explain to him how we calculate from
relative rise and fall. His answer always was that if the
glass said ‘“‘ wet” it must be wet, if it said “fine” it must

be fine, unless the glass was broken.’

September 13th.—‘ Now both the karbasses are ready.
Their holds are filled with barrels full of reindeer meat
and the seal-fat from last winter’s catch. Over these
are spread reindeer and seal-skins, and the pelts of two
walrus (all they have taken), and skins also are hanging
from the rigging to dry.’

Alexis’ karbass was rather smaller than ours, but the rig
was the same. My sketch will explain this better than
any words. So at six o’clock on this evening we made
amove, and sailed out till we were just inside the entrance
to the harbour.

» We had a visit from Verrmyah and Katrina just before
we left, and divided between them and their parents such
little property as we could spare—to Uano our saucepan
(the only cooking utensil we possessed), to Katrina the
red flannel flag (for Adski), to Mekolka the axe, and so

2) SEE. ERA OvEr rs 353

on. Also I gave Kallina his knife. He had quite made
up his mind that as our boat had not come he should not
get the knife, and was saying something sorrowfully about
it when I whipped it out and gave it to him. You should
have seen his face change! I was frankly sorry to leave
these kind friends, to whom we owed so much, and the

feeling, | know, was shared by them.

ALEXANDER’S KARBASS OR BOAT

‘Good-bye, Kolguev !’ shouted Alexander as we moved
off. He had long been practising this bit of English
under Hyland's tuition, and Hyland shouted it, too, gaily
enough. He was only too pleased to be off. We all
cheered. But I knew very well that we were not gone
yet. Everything in my view pointed to bad weather.

And at least one person took care that we should not
Z

354 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

plume ourselves too soon. Tima Fé, perched on the
cabin roof or poop of Alexis’ boat, lay to with his tiller
for a moment as he croaked back his answer to our cheer.

‘England far away. Far, far away,’ like the long-
drawn howl of some old prairie wolf.

The boat was thirty feet long, with a ten-foot beam,
nearly flat-bottomed, and drew six feet of water when
laden. In the stern was a little cabin, in the centre of
which was a table; on either side of which we lay—
Alexander and Yakoff, Hyland and myself. It was only
constructed for two persons, but with movable planks
we managed for all.

In the middle of the boat was a hold, where, above the
barrels and skins, slept the five Samoyeds who formed
the crew. Here, also, when she was not cooking, lived
old Anka, always sewing away at skins, and with her a
little red fox. She had also kept three charming little
blue foxes at Scharok, but all had died.

There was little to do on the boat, so I made a pack
of cards, with which Hyland and I played Nap.

September 14th.—NE. A very wild day, with inces-
sant heavy snow. These boats can only run before the
wind, so with this wind it was useless to think of moving.
For the idea was either to make for the channel behind
Sengenski Island, or to run for the Petchora mouth.

‘There was much excitement this morning, for the
karbass dragged her anchors; but after a bit we got

ELOQ° THis WOOLY tHITnIsS 355

out a third and steadied her, narrowly avoiding a collision
with the AZtchaed (Alexis’ boat).

‘September 15¢h.— To-day we had brilliant sunshine, and
at noon I was able to get sights and correct our watches.
‘We had to send on shore for water to-day, and
Hyland went with the boat. The snow was very deep,

and many tracks of foxes round the huts. Immense

ALEXANDER’S KARBASS

In which we crossed

number of glaucous and herring gulls, and one fulmar
petrel—the first I have seen here near the land.

‘To-day Alexander said, ‘‘ This bad weather is because
of your bolvan. Throw it away.” To which I answered

“Gammon” (poostoi).’

356 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Sunday, September 16th.—‘ The morning broke clear
with a strong wind, which increased in afternoon to a
gale with snow. To-night the gale is vagémg. In the
morning Alexander, Yakoff, Hyland, and I crossed in a
boat to the sand-banks, and walked down to our old sleep-
ing-place. A blue fox was hunting for molluscs along by
the point. Hyland, who had his gun, tried to intercept
it, but without success, for it swam straight across the
mouth of the river and escaped. We saw many flocks
of king eider and waders, chiefly sanderlings and dunlins,
I collected sea-weeds and hydrozoa from the gulls’ nests,
and picked up several nodules of stiff rounded ooze, which
formed with stones and shells an elementary conglomerate,
such as I have found in a complete state elsewhere on the
island. The storm increasing, Alexis’ karbass dragged her
anchors—we had to send four men over to help him—
and bore down on us so rapidly that we only just escaped
a collision. Alexander has been a great nuisance all
day. He talks and grumbles persistently about my
wretched little bolvan. ‘If you will burn it I will get
you many from the Timanskii tundra,” he says. Buta
“ Timanskii bolvan is not a Kolguev bolvan, and a bird
in the hand I stick to,” say I. But there is growing dis-
satisfaction about this; for the Russians and the Samo-
yeds sit and talk about it eternally. Both are afraid of
it, the Russians because, being Christians, they have
bolvan in their ship, and the others because a “ Turk”
has one of their gods.’

1 For when the Russians were catechising me about our religion in England they

TO THE HOLY HILLS 357

‘My glass has gone up so steadily from 29'2 in. to
29°6 in. that, taking that and the sky together, I felt I
might venture on a prophecy. ‘ To-morrow,” I said,
“it will be fine. Let the bolvan be.” And for that
time they were content. Only it blows at present as
hard as ever, and whenever I go on deck down the
wind comes the mocking long-drawn howl of Tima Fé,
“England far away. Far, far away!” till I could shoot
him for a raven.’

September 17th.—‘NW. Calm. Fog. Bar. 29°7 in.’ So
I had scored up to a certain point; the wind was fair but
the fog was thick. Alexander, who burnt much incense
to-day, seemed to have forgotten the bolvan. So they
hold this poor little idol responsible for storms, but not
for fogs. Reputations are easily won. I seem to be
suddenly established as a good weather-prophet. They
actually came and asked me to-day whether we should
be able to leave to-morrow. It is pretty risky to pro-
phesy about Kolguev weather, but thinking that, if once
we started, we should get to land somehow, and that
we knew as much about it as we were likely to know,

I answered boldly, ‘ Certainly.’

September 18th.—( Michaelmas Day, old style). Foggy,

with the barometer at 29°7 in., but showing a tendency

had said, ‘Do you worship St. Nicholas?’ ‘No.’ ‘Ah, not Christians.’ ‘Oh yes,
Christians.’ ‘Why, how is that? Have you God?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And Christ?’ ‘Oh
yes, of course we have Christ.’ Ah,’ said Yakoff, ‘Turks.’ This was a grand dis-
covery ; after that we were always Turks.

358 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

to fall. The wind to-day boxed the compass, setting at
mid-day N., and finally again at NW.—our best wind.
I wish I could give you a phonograph reproduction of all
that was said to-day. From early morning till mid-day
there was a continuous conversation shouted between the
two boats. I knew there was not the smallest use in
talking; I never argued with these people. I said my
say and settled down to my writing. This was the sort
of thing :—

ALEXANDER (from the poop of our boat). Much is
wrong. Nicholas’. lamp keeps going out.

AvExis (from the poop of his). The weather will be
terrible. Much fog. I do not go to-day.

ALEXANDER. But I am weary. I want to see my
wife. But this Kolguev is a bad island. I come no
more. My son comes.

Avexis. There will be a great storm. The wind is
NE., and my karbass likes it NW. I do not go.
What does the Englishman say ?

ALEXANDER. He says he thinks at sea no fog. The
wind and the sun go together. When the wind north-
west then we must go quickly.

Atexis. Does he say that ?

ALEXANDER. How? I cannot hear.

Aexis. Does—he—say—that ?!!

ALEXANDER. Say what?

So then they would have it all over again till they

were out of breath, when Alexis would descend to his

LO THE HOLY His 359

deck to confer with his Samoyeds, and Alexander to his
deck, to confer with his.

Presently they would be up on their poops and at it
again.

Avexis. Where is the Englishman ?

ALEXANDER. In the cabin.

A.exis. I want to see him.

ALEXANDER. He writes.

Avexis. Hah! Always writing. (They looked on
my writing so much as part of my uncanniness.) What
else did he say?

ALEXANDER. If you don’t go to-day you may not get
off at all.

Atexis. But this bolvan. Bulchikoff had a bolvan on
board last year and the ship was lost. You know it.

ALEXANDER. I know it. But he does not burn it,
though I speak to him so much. Many times.

Atexis. But my glass down goes. What does he say
to that ?

ALEXANDER. He says his glass down goes, but no
matter, so slowly. He says it must go down or up if it
is not still.

Auexis. Does he say that? Well, that is spoken
very well.

And so on a hundred times over.

You may imagine how I laughed at all this rubbish as ]
lay in the cabin. But I did not feel happy, though I was
quite determined to get them off if I could. I knew that

360 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

if they did start on my advice and the old karbasses
were to get into difficulties, they would round on me as
a Jonah. But I was sick of this. So presently, when
Alexander came down into the cabin and said his cousin
wouldn’t go, and he couldn't go without his cousin—what
did I think? I just looked him in the face and said as
follows :—‘ Alexander Samarokoff, I consider you a fool
(glupoi). You say that you have always been able to
find a good bit of weather by waiting, and that you have
never known the winter set in early like this. What
has that got to do with it since it Zas set in? If you
don’t go now—and you have a wind which will take you
quickly that little run—you will deserve to get caught in
a trap. How do you know that after this we may not
have a ten days’ easterly gale on shore as we had before ?
your wife may whistle for you then.’

He sat as though struck. All of a sudden this reason-
ing seemed to catch hold of him; he rushed on deck,
shouted out to his cousin that he was going with or
without him. Then Alexis surrendered, for he would
not be left behind.

So Alexander called all hands into the little cabin,
where they stood jammed tight (he turned poor old
Anna out ‘because she was a woman,’ he said) while he
said prayer after prayer to St. Nicholas’ ikon (image),
and swung the censer till the poor Samoyeds coughed
and choked again. Then out they all rushed shouting,

‘Now away, away!’ as if bound on some valiant quest.

TO THE HOLY HILLS 361

On the wood-work of the shelter of the companion
were deeply carved in block capitals the English words
TESS OF CROMER. Alexander could tell me nothing
more than that it was part of a bit of wreckage picked
up by himself on the Kolguev sandbanks twelve years
ago. Since my return home I have done my best to
trace this boat, but without success.

But to return. Alexander after this function betrayed
but one more sign of irresolution. How could he enter
the Timanskii Schar at night? ‘Well, you must hang
about till the morning,’ I replied, ‘but you ought to
have lanterns at these entrances, as we in England do.’
Whereupon says Yakoff, ‘Ah, he’s getting frightened now;
he says there ought to be a lantern.’ And they all took
it jeeringly up like a stage chorus, showing the curious
nervous state into which they had worked themselves.

So we weighed anchor and moved out one behind the
other. Over the bar we found eight feet of water, and
got safely out. Very soon we were clear of the fog,
which we could see, whenever we looked back, hanging
like a pall of cloud over the island. We had done it.
Kolguev was behind us.

Kolguev, with its kind hearts and its barbarous con-
tradictions, its many delights and many discomforts, its
treeless wastes and its charm of birds, its reindeer, its
sleighs, its careless existence—all these were things of
the past.

This time it really was ‘Good-bye. Kolguev!’

CHAcr Li Ko ih
THE LAMP OF ST. NICHOLAS

In the cabin hung three lamps before three ikona. On
the left St. Philip of Solovetsk, on the right St. Alex-
ander, in the middle St. Nicholas. These had each its
lamp; but that of St. Nicholas was the biggest lamp,
because his ikon was very old—(it had belonged to
Alexander's father)—and he is patron to all who follow
the sea.

This lamp was always the subject of much concern.
But to-day something surely ailed it, for it would not
burn. In vain Alexander stirred the wick with a pin,
in vain Yakoff warmed the holy oil and fed it afresh. It
would burn perhaps for half an hour, and then die down.
The oil had thickened with the cold; that was obvious,
but not obvious enough for Alexander. ‘ Your bolvan,’
he said, ‘is in the box right under the Holy Nicholas,
He likes it not. Can his lamp then burn?’

Had this happened earlier I would have shifted it
just to humour him. But now we were, so to say, pitted
one against the other : I was sick of all the nonsense, and
I vowed I wouldn't budge an inch. I knew that to move

the bolvan would be the first step to losing it altogether.
362

THE LAMP OF ST. NICHOLAS 363

But they tried all ways. They tackled Hyland when
he was alone on the deck, as he told me. They told him
he could get it if he liked. Of course Hyland was as
staunch as a rock—he only laughed at them and said he
knew nothing of it.

I nearly lost it once. I was feeling for something in
my long tin case, the lid open, when something made me
turn suddenly, and there, close over my shoulder, was
the face of Yakoff, the flicker of the lamp playing on his
features, and his eyes fixed on the contents of the box.
He couldn’t have seen the bolvan (for it was in a little
skin bag), or he would have snatched it. At the same
moment some one went out through the door in the
darkness behind him. I knew it was Alexander.

Now the following had happened earlier in the evening
before it grew dark. Hyland, who constantly had his gun
on the deck for chance shots, had brought it down to the
cabin, saying that Alexander had forbidden him to have
it there. This he considered very hard lines, as all the
Samoyeds had their loaded rifles. It was very unlike
Alexander, who took much interest in this deck-shooting
at seals. Well, my first impulse was to go and ex-
postulate, but after all, I reflected, he is master of his
own ship, so, though I thought it unfriendly, I let it go.
But I had been turning it over in my mind, and though
I could not see it clearly I understood intuitively that it
was somehow connected with the contra-bolvan spirit.
Now it flashed on me in a moment. They knew well

364 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

enough that we never kept our guns loaded in the cabin,
and doubtless they meant to have us at a disadvantage
should occasion arise. I thought it best to settle the
point. Yakoff couldn’t go; he was cornered, as it were,
so after his first surprise at discovery he tried to appear
unconcerned, pretending he had come ‘in about the lamp.

‘Now, look here, Yakoff Popoff,’ I began, ‘you re-
member the Governor's letters with the seal, and what
he said?’ I smiled to myself as I said this, my voice
sounded so innocent, like the quiet beginnings of Peter
Simple’s Mr. Chucks.

‘Yes, yes,’ says Yakoff.

‘Good. Well, the Governor can send you and Alex-
ander andthe lot of you to Siberia, unless I save him
the trouble.’ With that I opened the box again, took
out my revolver, slipped in six cartridges, Yakoff watch-
ing all the time, and put it in my pocket.

‘I am a soldier,’ says Yakoff with a fine show of
courage.

‘You may be a soldier,’ I answered, ‘for all I know or
care, but you look very like a fox.’

I used instead of the Russian word ‘lisitsa’ the
Samoyed word ‘tchuornia.’ You could not insult these
Russians more than by using Samoyed words of them.
Yakoff retired to the deck.

Then I thought I would make assurance sure. I took
out my bolvans, the one they knew, and the mountain

ones of which they knew nothing, and putting them in

THE LAMP OF ST. NICHOLAS 36s

my pocket turned the key of the box. ‘Now, my
friends,’ I thought, ‘you may chuck the box over, but
you don’t get the bolvans.’

Of course it was all discussed on deck, but when I went
up I found them all very quiet, and nothing was said.

Alexander and Yakoff both came down into the
cabin presently, and talked with us as if nothing had
happened. All seemed going well. The wind was a
bit stiffer, but all in our favour, the night was clear, and
St. Nicholas’ lamp was burning well, for the cabin air
was warm.

Hyland, who knew nothing of all this—I had not told
him, and he did not understand Russian—soon went to
bed, and we three went on deck.

The wind was certainly freshening, and we went along
at a fair speed. After stopping on deck for an hour or
more, I thought I too would turn in. [ could just make
out our consort’s outline, and, holding the cabin door in
my hand, I shouted out ‘Good-night’ to Tima Fe,
who, as I knew, was at the helm. Was there ever
such a Solomon Eagle as he! My voice roused him in
a moment. His muddled old brain pitched on the only
theme it could connect with me.

‘Bad bolvan, bad bolvan,’ he shouted back. And
then across the water came the inevitable dreary formula,
‘England far away. Yes, yes, far, far away.’

I stumbled down into the cabin. All was dark. The
Lamp of St. Nicholas had gone out.

Chace © Bak Dd

THE MAINLAND

Septentber 19th.—When I came on deck this morning
I found the wind high and a driving snowstorm raging.
We were just opposite to Timanskii Schar. We were
far in advance of the Michae/, but, dropping sail, we
waited for her. When within hailing distance they
wisely determined not to attempt the Schar, but ran on
some forty versts to the Kolokolkova (bell-shaped) gulf.
We ran in here with fourteen feet of water over the bar,
and after going aground and getting off again with the
help of long poles, we dropped anchor. Nineteen hours
and half since leaving Kolguev.

These long poles, divided into quarter ‘arsheen’ (seven-
inch) measurements, are called ‘pomorrna.’ Many of
them were on board. They are used for punting, and
have at the top a button which is pressed against the
chest.

A fine white whale rose right under the gunwale.

We celebrated our arrival by drinking vodki to the
toast called ‘Sprebuteum,’ which always celebrates a
voyage accomplished. Then they said I had great

wisdom. I understood all weather, and but for me they
366

THE MAINLAND 367

would not be here. I wasn’t so sure of that. It struck
me they would gladly have come without me had they
seen their way.

‘Yes,’ says Alexander, ‘Kolguev is an island, and
your England is an island. Very much sea. So you
understand all ships and all islands, and that is why your
Queen Victoria—your woman king—rules all the islands
of the world.’

So we were friends again. Only once was there any
reference to the bolvan after that. Just before they went
to sleep Alexander and Yakoff came to me, and smiling
said, ‘Look in your box. Your bolvan is not there.
The Holy Nicholas there ; your bolvan not there. Look
and see.’ What on earth they were driving at I never
could guess. Perhaps they had been exorcising it.
They had expected an indignant denial, but were dis-
appointed. For my little bolvans were all safe in my
pocket, so that I could honestly answer, ‘I needn’t look,
I know it. Quite right, the bolvans are not there.’ It
took the wind out of their sails, and much astonished,
while it flattered them in some way, for they beamed
with delight and went to sleep.

In the distance we could see a choom on the river
bank, and a man walking along.

Hyland was in high spirits at our safe arrival. He
looked forward with great delight to his return to the
little business which he had started in England a few
months before he came away. Other and more tender

368 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

considerations also weighed in his case, but these I will
leave to the reader’s fancy. Old Sailor, too, though he
had had the run of the boat and had slept at night in our
cabin, was in high feather at the smell of land. His
stump of a tail wagged incessantly, and, poking his old
nose out of every hole in the gunwale, he indulged in
sniffs as prolonged and sounding as though he were
some old snuff-taker.

Though we were now within two miles of the land, we
were not to reach it till six days later.

The gale blew hard all day, and we could do nothing.
This was very trying, because if we could not get quickly
to the Petchora (and we are now lying only a hundred
and twenty versts from Okshin) we might there find a
salmon-boat which would run us to Archangel in time to
take the last English trader before it left the port on
October Ist.

The gale died out towards 9 p.m., and then, as to-
morrow is a feast-day of St. Mary, Alexander filled the
cabin with incense till we all choked again.

The next day was quiet but disappointing. For two
Samoyeds crossed in a little boat from the left bank and
told us we should find water enough higher up, so that
we could land on the right or southern side of the gulf,
find chooms and reindeer, and go straight to Okshin.

We sent the boat out to take soundings, and they
returned to report plenty of water. So at noon, with the
rising tide, we began to punt the karbass up one of the river

THE MAINLAND 369

channels. For two rivers enter this gulf, viz., the Kam-
balnitsa and the Kolokolkova. But we grounded so often
that we gave it up, and with great difficulty worked our
way down again, and so lay with a foot of water under
our keel.

One of the mainland Samoyeds, whose name was
Pronia, crossed again, and returned bringing his wife to
call upon our old Anka. They both rowed, with the
baby on the bottom of the boat between them. I was
much amused with the women’s quaint politenesses to
one another. Mrs. Pronia wore earrings with bunches
of hare’s fur in them. These people brought kambola,
which our crew ate raw. They told me there are no
salmon here, but admitted they had never set nets to
see. On this evening, as our fuel is reduced to two logs,
we went by invitation to supper with Alexis.

On our return our visitors dropped the baby into their
tiny boat (which a man could easily lift on to his shoulder)
and pulled off across the dark river-mouth with a two-
mile journey before them.

The following morning opened fine, and Alexander
had quite made up his mind to run out with the tide and
make for the Timanskii Schar, behind Sengenskii Island,
which is only a hundred versts from his home. He has
never before been in our present harbour, and does not
like it. But just as we were off a fog came on, and then
the wind chopped to the north, and we were prisoners.

So there was nothing for it but to warp the boats to
2A

370 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

the shore. We worked very hard, Alexis’ men coming
to help. We sent the boat out to drop a kedge, and
then some hauled on the line while others punted with
the ‘pomorrna.’ I suppose most of us are happiest when
we have real hard muscular work to do; when one can
thoroughly let oneself out, so to say, until one can’t move
another finger. These poor fellows all worked in silence,
so I started a chant, which they tried to follow till we
were all howling different tunes like demons. Then |
wove the days of the week into a rough sing-song and
cheered when Sunday came, and, poor chaps! they got
very enthusiastic about this, and pounced down on
Sunday with such a squall, you never heard anything
like it. But this inch-by-inch work is very severe: we
only made some half mile, if that, and at last the wind
raged so wildly that eleven men on the rope could not
move her half-an-inch, and it really was not safe to send
out the boat. So we stayed.

Alexander was fairly astonished, and said more com-
plimentary things about Queen Victoria, and her islands,
and her wonderful Englishmen, than modesty will let me
repeat here. Frankly, I was glad to feel that all past
unpleasantness was now wiped out.

We did manage to get our boat off to the other
karbass, but she could not return.

And the following day a northerly gale raged, with
pelting rain. The capstan creaked so badly that we
feared it would go, and so the chain cable was wound

THE MAINLAND 371

round the mast. And all day, with three anchors out,
we could only just hold our position.

So Sunday came, and with it the gale from the north
continued, but with a furious blizzard of small hard snow.
The fire was usually made in an iron pan on the deck,
and as it couldn't be lit, we, Hyland and I, came badly
off for food. For, unlike the Russians and Samoyeds,
we did not care for raw stale reindeer flesh.

Also, as it was Sunday, little candles were lit in
front of each ikon, and before the pictures of saints, of
which there were three. They were one candle short :
and it was very funny to hear Alexander calling to
his men, ‘Hurry, hurry, Yakoff, get a candle! All the
others have their candles, but big Nicholas has not got
his. That is not good, not good. More storm.’

Monday broke with rather less of a gale, though the
snow continued unabated and the sea ran nearly as high
as ever.

Again we worked at warping. Hyland, whom I
would not allow to work yesterday because of the snow,
took it in turns with me to-day, for we had only one
tarpaulin coat between us. He worked spendidly, and
his weight and strength were of the greatest service to
them. In that respect he was of far more use than I,
who cannot pretend to much strength of that kind. The
plucky little Samoyeds were beyond all praise, for the
decks were slippery with snow and wet, and their seal-
skin malitsas and their soviks were soaking through.

372 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

It was well on into the afternoon when, having at last
cleared one long straight channel in the teeth of the
wind, we were able to set our foresail and mizzen, and in
fifteen minutes we had run in under the lee of the land.
Then the hands went ashore, and Hyland with them to
tow, while Alexander took the ‘pomorrna,’ I the helm,
and so we moved up a mile until we were under Pronia’s
choom, in deep water close to land. We took the poor
little fox ashore, who straightway made himself a capital
kennel in the bank. Old Sailor, too, was mad with
delight, recklessly rolling into the deepest snow-drifts he
could find.

We remained on shore three days, and then moving
up in a boat we walked over the tundra till we found
more reindeer, with which we went to Okshin on the
Petchora. The journey was full of incidents. Among
other things, I may mention that I found my fame as a
doctor had spread, I suppose because I had dosed them
with ginger and pills on Kolguev. One of my cases was
that of a poor old man who had badly cut his knee with
an axe. And after making him a poultice I turned to
go, when there came a voice behind me, ‘This is for
him who came to us in our trouble, this is for our friend,’
with which pretty speech his son offered me a blue fox’s
skin.

But I set out with the object of telling you about
Kolguev Island, and had certainly no idea it would take
so long in the telling.

THE MAINLAND 373

You will have had enough of us and our adventures
by this time, if indeed your patience has carried you so
far. We travelled from Okshin up the river to Ust
Tsilma, from there overland to Archangel, from there to
Vologda by sleigh, thence to Moscow, whence I sent
Hyland home by Riga, going myself to St. Petersburg,
where the Tsar's body was lying in state, and so to
England.

I arrived at Queenborough on November roth.

To tell you the details of this journey would take a
separate book by itself, for it opens a new chapter on
mainland Samoyeds and on Russian peasant home-
life.

If we had chosen to wait for the winter we should
have had no further difficulty in crossing the frozen
rivers and the snowy tundra than to sit on a sleigh, as
others have done before. But, if Hyland was to be home
for his Christmas customers (a serious consideration in
his little trade), it was very necessary to start at once.
And so it was that we fell on a time when not a reason-
able soul ever took that journey, because the rivers were
half-frozen and very dangerous, and the swamps im-
passable, as was supposed. So that even the Govern-
ment service stops during this season of ‘ Rasputa,’ and
all contracts are off for a month, and it is a time of
holiday, or, as the Russians say, of ‘ Stroke.’

But I have written enough for this time. If this book

should win as much interest as may serve to warrant it,

374 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

perhaps I may yet write the story of our travels from the
Kolokolkova gulf to old England itself.

How we lived with the natives, and the friends we
made, how we attended a peasant wedding, and of the
quaint ceremonies that followed on it, how we crossed
the Petchora and took the horses over the half-frozen
Tsilma river, how we wandered in the forests, and how
we slept at nights, how we crossed a deep stream on
trees which were thrown from bank to ice, how the
wolves came and carried off a pony, how a midnight row
came about on the ice of the Volga—all these and many
other incidents would be there particularly described.

And now I take my leave. My honest companion,
Thomas Hyland, is once more at home and happily
united to the girl of his choice, with my very best
wishes for his future success. It would take more than
ten thousand reindeer, I think, to get him again to
Kolguev.

Old Sailor, too, has done with travelling. Happy and
safe in an English kennel, he is doubtless proving a
mine of yarns to his poor untravelled companions.
Sometimes when he lies asleep he will yap and growl
amazingly, while curious twitchings take him. And
then I think he is holding his own with the wolf-like
dogs of Kolguev.

It is May in England as I write these closing words.
It would be hard to conceive a greater contrast than that

of Kolguev (with its fog-swept wastes, its wild life—half

THE MAINLAND 375

a freedom and half a shrinking from the fingers of the far-
reaching iron hand) and such a scene as lies before me now.

Through the open window is borne a scent which has
no name. Not from briar and violet alone it comes, but
from daisy, from willow-catkin, from the very turf of the
growing grass. With every passing shower it changes,
and with every touch of the sun.

Under a cloud of gnats the trout are rising, till the
pool below the cattle ford twinkles and glints again.

Further yet—where the beech wood cuts a line of
emerald across the hill—the hollow is billowed in
blossoms pink and white, and a jet of blue smoke feels
its way up among the trees. And faintly across the
meadows comes the barking of a collie; for the men are
folding sheep.

All this—the scent of May, and the softness, the
homestead and the quiet rhythm of its life—seems to
me the expression of a certain rest and confidence that
belong to the beauty of strength. I have wandered
among many people, but I have not elsewhere found
exactly this.

‘Dear old England!’ is a phrase which comes very
glibly to the lips. But to mean it I think you must be con-
tent for a spell entirely to sever yourself from the land that
is laid as a garden—the land where Victoria is Queen.

It is worth doing, because it teaches you, as it only
can, the perfect meaning of the old burden, ‘Home,
sweet Home.’

WD.

THE B

PART VII

An Abstract from the Saxon’s log—Remarks
on the Samoyeds of Kolguev—Note on the
Samoyed language—Note on the geology—
Note on the flora of Kolguev—List
of flowers— Note on the birds
recorded — List of birds—

Note on the mammals—

Remarks on the climatic
conditions

FROM THE SAXONS LOG

By M. W. POWYS

TO SHOW WHY THE SAXOWV DID NOT TAKE US OFF THE ISLAND

June 22nd.—Lovely morning. Sailed away from Kolguev at 1.30
A.M. ; our course west. At 4 A.M. steaming half-speed, with heavy ice-
pack to the north; much clearer to the south. At 10.30 A.M. began
to get clear of ice, of which we lost all sight by noon. From 4 to 4.30
P.M. were passing heavy pack ice to the south of us.

237a@.—Noon, lat. 70° 3’. Sea heavy towards night. At 9.30 P.M.
sighted land on our port-bow. A lovely day.

24th.—Anchored in Vardo harbour, 7 a.M.

27¢th.—Left Vardo 8.30 P.M., shaping course for South Goose Cape.

28¢#.—Dull moming. Fine afternoon. Heavy sea behind us.

29¢k.—Dull misty morning. Much colder. Position at noon 71° 4’
N., 45° 48’ E. At 2.30 P.M. (our course then E.NE.) came on loose
ice right ahead, and stretching to the north. We went through this
for about an hour ; then, getting clear of it, set our course again E.NE.

30¢4.—Dense fog from 1.30 A.M. to noon. Heavy ice to the north.
This ice, which seems closely packed to the east, we were dodging all
day.

July 1s¢.—With a dense fog the ice was as heavy as ever. About
noon we distinctly made out land (lat. 72° 1’) from which we were
separated by closely-packed ice. Abandoned our northerly course and
turned southwards. Heavy swell all day.

2nd.—Foggy. Dodged about the ice all day.

3va.—The weather a little clearer. We were able to stand in nearer
the land, but could not reach it.

4th.—Foggy. We followed the line of the ice; but it took us west.
As it was impossible to reach the land I decided to put about; so,

379

380 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

getting clear of the ice at 6 p.m., we shaped a course for Sviatoi Nos
(Kanin).

5th.—Heavy sea. Screw out of order. Reduced to sails.

6¢h.—Sea less towards evening. Got up a little steam.

7th.—Anchored off Solombola (Archangel), and made arrangements
for repairs.

8th to 23rd.—Detained during progress of repairs.

24¢.—Left Solombola for Kolguev.

26th.—Foggy. Sighted Kolguev at 1.30 P.M. Tried to land at the
Gusina, but a heavy surf made it impossible. Lay a course again for
Novaya Zemblya.

27th.—At 3.30 P.M. came to anchor in five fathoms off Meshdoshapsk
Island.1 At south-eastern corner of this island are two crosses—very
conspicuous. At 8.30 we got up steam, and had out the dredge, taking
sea-weeds, shrimps, and small starfish.

28¢h.— Anchored in five and a half fathoms some eight or nine miles
further up the coast. Here we landed and went to inspect a house that
I had noticed from the ship. We found it in good order, with windows
of glass. Inside were the remains of a white fox, and outside we found
similar remains and a great quantity of reindeer horns. We left in
afternoon. The soundings were very uneven. Entered Nechvateva
bay on the mainland at 4 p.m. Here we ran on a rock, but, getting
off again, let go anchor in nine fathoms, 200 yards off shore, and
landed. I saw reindeer tracks and ducks (very wild). The country,
which was very hilly and stony, contained several small lakes.

29t#.—Pulled about four miles up the bay, and then landed and
walked inland. Saw numerous tracks of deer. This was a country of
hills and valleys; the former stony and rough, the latter swampy and
filled with lakes. Ducks were numerous, but they and the geese, of
which we saw a few, were very wild.

30¢h.—Returned to the island. Saw six deer which I followed, but
unsuccessfully.

1 ¢Meshdoshapsk Island is very swampy, with low hills in the middle. It is
filled with lakes. In the northern part deer are numerous. Anchorage good. The
drinking water here is good. Careful] navigation is most important. In the Kosten
Straits the bottom is very uneven. The entrance to Nechvateva bay is dangerous.’

FROM THE SAXOWN’S LOG 381

31s¢—Moved up northwards for some six or seven miles, and then,
sighting nine deer, landed. I secured one.

August 1st—Blowing hard. Had hoped to get away, but the weather
was too bad.

2nd and 3rd.—Still blowing hard. Remained at our anchorage.

4th.—Wind moderated. Got away for Kolguev early, and at 9 P.M.
sighted land.

5¢h.—Anchored at 4 A.M. somewhere it seemed off the Baroshika
river, and about four or five miles out in six fathoms. Later on moved
in nearer till the soundings showed four fathoms. Then I went off in
the cutter to try and land, but could not, owing to the sand-banks,
which were separated from the coast by a stretch of open water. During
the day we cruised up and down trying to find an entrance. As we
could not find one, I returned to the ship and we again followed along
the sand-banks. At 10.30 P.M. ice was reported to seaward, drifting in
towards land. We edged nearer in, proceeding very cautiously, as the
soundings rapidly lessened from eight to six fathoms of water. At last
we were compelled to turn back because the ice began setting towards
the ijand. ‘If we go oz we shall be wedged between ice and sand-banks ;
if to seaward, get stuck in the ice; if to Zandward, on a sand-bank.’

6¢#.—Having retraced our way we rounded the north of the island,
and anchored off the Gusina river at 10 A.M. From then up to 2 A.M.
ice was constantly reported to seaward. I went ashore and found two
notes buried there in a tin by Trevor-Battye. In one of these he said
that he and Hyland, having found the Samoyeds, are going across to
Scharok harbour. We believed this to be the point from which we
were driven away the night before by the incoming ice. With the wind
E. by N. it would now probably be blocked with ice, and therefore
impossible to enter.

I therefore decided to go back to Vardo.

4th and 8¢th.—Dense fog nearly all the time. Got into Vardo on the
morning of the 8th.

gth and 10¢#.—Blowing hard.

13¢.—Tromso.

21s¢.—Peterhead.

REMARKS ON THE SAMOYEDS OF
KOLGUEV

THERE are at the present moment upon Kolguev fifty-nine Samoyeds.
Of males, twenty-four, of the opposite sex, twenty-six. These include
children, but children old enough to work. The remaining nine are
babies, or children of helpless age.

Most of these people—all I think but five—were born on the island.
But I was unable to determine at what period in their family history
their connection with Kolguev began. Some of them had Kolguev
traditions which seemed to reach far back. But all referred their
relationships to one or other of the mainland divisions of their race.
Thus Uano claimed to be a Timanski, Marrk a Kaninski Samoyed.

On the Timanski tundra one finds that the choom is the unit of
Samoyed life. Only abnormally are chooms grouped together, e.g.
near a village or town. In this case the Samoyeds are either beggars
or are labourers to the Russians. Temporarily on the tundra chooms
may be pitched in close relationship, as the owners pass in travelling,
or are drawn by some common object—a seal hunt, for example. But
each family by itself is the principle of existence, this or two together ;
but then one will hold the parents, one the married eldest son.

And on Kolguev it is just the same. For the purposes of life and
reindeer pasture the island is by mutual consent divided into districts,
as shown by the names on my sketch-map. Thus Uano has the Lower
Pesanka, On Tipa the Upper Pesanka (and, speaking roughly, the
north-wester part of Kolguev), Marrk the Gobista—and so on. They
scrupulously respect each others’ rights.

A father and his eldest son had on Kolguev their reindeer in common,
or rather managed together the family herd, for the deer belonged
strictly to the father until his death, when they would pass to the

eldest son.

382

THE SAMOYEDS OF KOLGUEV — 383

When a younger son desires to marry, his father gives him a certain
number of reindeer. This number is not constant. It is the result of
bargaining between the parents; and is determined by such considera-
tions as the advantages of the match, by the amount of property which
has previously been asked to the family by this son’s hunting, and by
other such points. The girl also brings with her a dowry. In the case
of Uano’s daughter, Ustynia, it was, as I have said, five young bulls.

All Samoyeds are compulsonly affiliated to the Greek Catholic Church.
The priest quoted before (#. supra) has told us how he went to Kolguev
to baptize. But it is many years now since any priest was there. None
the less the yearly visits of the Russian traders (who, though they demora-
lise these poor people with vodki, yet put them to religious exercises),
added to the vague sense of a compelling, though distant, control in the
Archangel Government, serve to keep alive in them a thin thread of
the Christian idea.

Possibly because of the isolation of their home the Kolguev
Samoyeds may lean to their own old faith more than those of the
mainland, though this I do not know. On Kolguev, at any rate, there
is but one family, that of On Tipa, who consistently keep the shona
on view in the choom. The remainder carry the bolvans—or, as they
call them sya-déy—which represent the God Num or Philibyam-
bierchi.

I remember to have read somewhere of a ceremony followed when
carrying the dead man out of the choom, but the Samoyeds’ traditional
treatment of their dying, according to Uano, was that of laying the
dying man on the moss of the tundra. He was not abandoned till
dead. Only towards his last gasp he was brought out and laid there.
As soon as he was dead he was stretched straight out on his back with
his hands at his side, the attitude in which these people sleep. But
now the dead are buried, and although the broken sleigh and certain
domestic utensils of the dead man are still taken to the Holy Hill of
Nim, yet a cross is set up over his grave. So is there a kind of dual
regard. Nordenskidld suggests that this practice has reference to the
future needs of the dead man. But, closely as I questioned the
Samoyeds, I could not extract from them any explanation but this,
namely, that the sleigh was broken to show the man was dead; though

384 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

it is true that Alexander’s explanation was different. He said it meant
that the man was now ‘like a broken sleigh.’

On the mainland, if, as I believe, I am credibly informed, it is the
custom for a Samoyed to take a girl as his wife on trial for a year. If
at the end of that period he is satisfied with her, the compact is ratified,
either by marriage by a priest or according to native uses. If not, then
the two persons are free to marry again; and if a child has meantime
been born the father is bound to maintain it. On Kolguev there is no
priest, and I do not think that this practice of a trial association obtains.
I believe that when a couple are once betrothed they remain constant
to one another.

One not infrequently sees half-breeds on the mainland, but of the
conditions of Samoyed moral relationships there zzfer se I know nothing.
But in the case of so small a community as that on Kolguev it is
obvious that, in this respect, it must strictly protect itself. And this it
does.

The Samoyeds are prisoners on their island. They have no boats
which could venture across that fifty miles of open sea. In the old
days, when there was traffic with Mezen and Indiga, they may have
passed more frequently; now it is only occasionally that one is taken
across. Last year but one returned, and he had only crossed with
Alexander the Russian the summer before.

The Samoyeds of Kolguev suffer from none of those complaints
which, introduced by the young Russian soldiers, sometimes disfigure
their people on the mainland. Every individual on the island appeared
to be sound and healthy, with the single exception of young Mekolka,
who had some lung trouble.

I was very much struck by the fact that the Samoyeds appear to be
able to live entirely without vegetable food, if we except the summer
berries (which they do not, however, preserve). I understand that the
Eskimo commonly eat the contents of the deer’s paunches. Our
Samoyed never did this ; they always threw it away.

Family affection among the Samoyeds is very strongly developed. It
would be impossible to find greater evidence of this among any people.
Another extremely marked character among them is family order. All
every-day offices and occupations are carried out by a well-defined

THE SAMOYEDS OF KOLGUEV | 38s

method and sub-division of labour. I never saw a single instance of
anything approaching a family quarrel. And I never on any occasion
knew a Samoyed man or woman lose their temper. My companion,
Thomas Hyland, often remarked to me what a fine example they would
be in this respect to many of us in England. I could not help
contrasting them in these ways with my old friends, the Indians of
North America, greatly, I fear, to the Indians’ disadvantage.

May I venture to add a few reflections called up by the subject ?

I have heard it said that the Samoyeds as arace are useless to the
state and to employers of labour. It is said of them by some, as of the
Indians, ‘they will not labour and cannot be taught.’ I venture to
believe this is a mistake. To try and make agriculturists of a pastoral
and nomadic people is a contradiction in experiment foredoomed to
failure. And I am sure that that no attempt on the part of the
government to take them away from their associations, and to make
them work as soldiers or sailors under masters who do not under-
stand their character, would be more successful. One bar to this, if no
other, would be fatal. I refer to the question of language. Very few
of the Samoyeds can speak the Russian language proficiently.
Always they mix up with it words of their own, or corrupt it to a
pronunciation easier to themselves. And though there results a pseudo-
tongue, intelligible enough to the northern traders, I doubt if any
Russian could understand them at the first contact.

But they are very handy sailors (if one may argue from those with
whom we crossed, and those we saw on the Petchora), patient and
successful hunters and fishermen, and admirable workmen with such
tools as they understand. No man can repair a damaged boat more
quickly than a Samoyed, and from the roughest drift-wood (which an
English carpenter would throw on the fire) they fashion bows, arrows,
sleighs, spoons, drinking-cups, bullet-moulds, and a variety of articles of
every-day use. I do not think that the Russian Government realises that
they are not a worthless people. The few traders who regularly employ
them appreciate them more fairly.” They know that in the Samoyeds
they have not only men who will bring them skins, but reliable work-
men, who go on at their barrel-making or boat-building, or what not,
regularly and steadily, year in and year out, when vodki is kept from

2B

386 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

them. Alexander Samarokoff assured me of this, and he is a large
employer.

In view of the Trans-Siberian railway, the Russian Government has
in the Samoyeds of its tundra an agency which, if allowed, will do no
small part in developing the resources of Arctic and Northern Russia.
As workmen they might be useful; as carriers they would be pre-
eminently so.

But one consideration demands imperative attention. The great fail-
ing of the Samoyed—one which he shares with the peasants of Northern
Russia—is a love of vodki. Unless the Russian Government will
make it a criminal offence to give spirits to a Samoyed, the Samoyeds
are doomed.

At the present moment the Samoyeds are I believe responsible, for
the purposes of taxation, to two overseers. Some extension of the
system with a view to supervision might be well, By men who under-
stood their characteristics, and who would treat them kindly, they could
easily be managed and become willing workmen. Anyhow, it will be
the wisdom of the Russians to nurse their Samoyeds and not to kill
them. And as trade advances these most useful and interesting people,
unprotected, will surely die.

NOTE ON THE SAMOYED LANGUAGE

THoseE who are inclined to make a study of the Samoyed language
will go of course to the pages of Castrén. It would be absurd for any
one but a philologist to attempt a serious consideration of it.

But it has seemed to me that just a few hints from one who spent
three months in trying hard to speak with the Samoyeds, may be of
some practical use to any other naturalist who shall go among those
people.

The first point, of course, is to get hold of the proper names. When
you once get these, then you can string them together with Russian,
and this is easy enough to learn to speak. I do not mean good Russian
(and they do not always understand that), but dad Russian, the
Russian of the peasants of the North. And the Samoyeds, even among
themselves, habitually use a good many corrupted Russian words. For
example, in mahisa (a coat), one sees the Russian malitsa; in soyuk,
the Russian sovzh.

Only bit by bit can one hope to put together a connected sentence
in an agglutinative language. And although I certainly did succeed in
understanding and in speaking a little, I am quite sure that I could
never write it down in an intelligible form. The Samoyed tongue is
largely breathings and inflections, which cannot be expressed in letters.

In the words which follow the vowels are, of course, as in Italian.
Perhaps this key will help :—

a=ar
7=ee et=1.
e=a rr=x rolled,
ey=a
er=air
w#=French u / final is like h in loch.

The pronouns are puzzling. Castrén, I believe, gives a large number.
I never could detect more than three :—
I and mine, mein.

387

388 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

You and your, puddrr (with a point of the finger at the person
indicated).
He and his, puddrr (without the point).

It. will thus be seen that just as the Samoyeds use no ordinal numbers,
so they use no possessive pronouns (properly so called). Instead of
this, the personal pronoun, when used as the possessive, has the function
in some, if not in all, cases of changing the word it agrees with. Thus,
‘sleigh’ is am, but ‘my sleigh’ is mein hando ; ‘knife’ is har, but ‘my
knife’ is mein hardo; ‘son’ is new, but ‘my son’ is mein neyddo.

I am, aware that a list of Samoyed words is given in Rae’s Land of
the North Wind. The reader can compare my list with his. I have
deliberately forborne from looking at that list myself, because I did
not want to confuse my recollections of sound. It is very possible that
other writers have been more etymologically correct, but this I can
promise my naturalist friend, that if he can pronounce the words as I
think my spelling will enable him to do, then the Samoyeds will under-
stand him; and this in a language where a shade of difference means
sense or nonsense. Of course there are different dialects, but the words
I learnt on Kolguev were always understood by the Samoyeds I met
with west from the Petchora.

SOME COMMON SAMOYED WORDS FOR FUTURE

TRAVELLERS.
ANIMALS.
Walrus, di2dieh. Blue-bottle fly, dorndaftsa.
Polar bear, Aevdii. Reindeer fly, pd/zih.
Fox (red), ¢chudraia. Musquito, xéanink.
Fox (blue), zoho. Seal, szh.
Dog, wengudh. - Grey seal, 202-z7s.
Foon.
Soup, yah. Dough, godsah.
Salt, sdx7. Goose-fat, yabtaw yoorr.
Bread, rieska. Bread made with fat, am-du-

Flour yah. dah.

The

THE SAMOYED LANGUAGE 389

ADJECTIVES.

Light, stvichin.

Heavy, sangova.

Hot, zbha.

Warm, /tyerpi.

Cold, di-ait-st; tichi.

Wet, schi-vir ; sa-noo-y.
Dry, ha-sdo-y.

Much, doo-tam.

Little (not much), ork-hoh.

White, férr-hoh.

Black, daridia.

Good, sow-wadw

Bad, we-o-dil.

Light (not dark), yarr-di.

Dark, Zimbia.

Hungry, ov-min-ga-wum.

Big, av+k-ha.

Little (not big), 2-dya, ni-out-sho.

PREPOSITIONS.

After, pod-noh.

Before, 72-0r-n2a.

NATURAL OBJECTS.

Grass, stt-el-ka.

Flower, om-doh.
Green-moss, éow-gwoh.
Reindeer moss, 77-a7-dey.
Bog moss, 2é-drt-si.
Wind, mz-errt-sha.
Rain, sdv-rz.

Ice, sdrlba.

Snow, Aardt.

Frost, Aecn.

Hail, svérrts-a.

Light, yorr-li.

Dark and night, 2mdzia.
Thunder, modvx-ta.
Rainbow, su-di-urr.
Dew, ywb-la.

River, ya-ha.

River source, ya-ha mah Z
Mountain, oy. ;
Island, mar-ra-dh ; awh.’
Cape, 206-11. ea:
Sea, sidrr-hoh ; yamh. ,
Lake, zoh.

Fog, suniaw.

Sun, heé-yarr.

Moon, 772.

Water, yz.

Fire, Zoo or tuh.

Stone, Zeh.

Bird, ¢-2r7-d1-hoh.

Fish, harr-dih:
Cloudberry, md-ra-ga.
Cranberry, jez-dey’.

TIME AND THE SEASONS.

Months—
August, Si-ér/¢z.
September, Z00-rditz

October, Mal-covmps.
November, Pes-o-dey.
December, Sidia Pet-o-ddy.

390

January, Limbia.
February, Yarrya.
March, Sz-2ss-nit.
April, Mun-net-i-nitz.
May, NMa-wich-y iri.
June, Mahng-tis iri.
July, Yad-to02 iri.
Spring, 2-2dy.
Summer, ¢ing-ir.
Autumn, 2772-0).
Winter, sirv-rey.

I, apou,

2, sidia.

3, ny-arr.
4, tierrt.

5, tet.

6, sem-la.
7, mot.

8, si-agh.

Q, siz diet.

10, Aa-bi-0g-you.

ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

A month, 777 or yir7.

Night, /émdia.

Day, yarr-li.

Morning, szen-nitz.

Evening, p2z-00-shim-bii.

To-day, ¢o-gut-a-lia.

Yesterday, d-yarr-l.

To-morrow, 4d0-in-ydn.

Day after to-morrow, Aoo-in-nt-
tyan.

NUMERALS.

11, dr-bi-0-go-nu.
12, sidt-egonu.
13, miar-ri-egoni.
14, tierrt-egonu.
20, you.
21, apot-you.
22, sidi-you.
100, yourr.
1000, you-br-na.

Domestic ARTICLES, ETC.

Knife, Zar.
Cooking-pot, yud.
Snuff, hei-2db-chur.
Buckle, x}-dss.
Axe, toov-ka.
Nail, yds-diep
Ring, o-dt-e-sa.
Net, heé-lim-bodr-ga.
Dog-lead, sdv-rdw.
Bow, urn.

Boat, av-ndh.
Oars, 2d-vy-éz.

Bighone, s¢-2itz-sim-pa.

Small hone, sz-¢7/¢z.

Case for hone, sé-2-z2a.
Skates or skiddor, lum-bah.
Hammer, mul-to-da-da.
Fox-trap, yes-den-go.

Tow, yern.

Rust, £00-rom-a.

Gun, /00-nya.

Horn, 2idmd.

Steelyard, ye-so-/o-ka.
Bread spatula, s7-2-gudh.
Float for net, fo-ddw-a-ha.

THE SAMOYED LANGUAGE 391

Girdle, 72-e-dz.

Child’s cap, schwoy-ut-sa.

Girl’s dress or panitsa, pani.

Men’s coat or malitsa, zarka.

Cotton covering to malitsa,
zarka imboot.

Dress.

Inner cotton shirt, ah-yi imboot.
Sealskin boots (girl’s), 2-07.
Sealskin boots (men’s), pimiih.
Gloves, odah.

Collar (fur), y-Rirr.

Parts OF Bopy.

Hand, wud-doh.
Finger, om-bya.
Thumb, s2k-chya.
Palm, Aya.
Neck, yeek.
Nose, pu-z ow.

Eyebrow, zeer-chéen.
Mouth, zy-dm.
Teeth, 2-dya.

Hair, ert.

Beard, moon-sa.

SENSE AND EMorTION.

Sight, yarr-ka.

Tears and sorrow, yarrn-ga.
Blindness, séy-yow.
Laughter, 22-s7ng-a.

Head and memory, ¢ez.

Whistling, shu-ga-ring-on.
Singing and song, hunts.
Pins and needles, #-e¢-s7.
Dancing, 22-rr-nia.
Jumping, 20w-0-/00.

RELATIONSHIPS.

Father, zz2a.

Son, zew.

Wife, 2i-otv, poo-hoo.
Husband, wa-stZ.

Baby, adskz.
Samoyed man, xya-niéz.
Samoyed woman, zya.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Hurry ! 00-¢an-hey /

Start sleigh, A2:-han /

To the left, ste¢ marguoh.
To the right, mdn-yi-drquoh.
Give me, ¢dlnya dahitt.

Tracks, oddh.

I am come (on foot), mein mingum.
I am come (on sleigh), mez doo-tam.
I know, mein ten-yoo-wam.

I do not know, mein ye-ha-rham.

NOTE ON THE GEOLOGY OF KOLGUEV

Kotcurv IsLanp lies between 68° 43’ and 69° 30’ N. lat., and reaches
from long. 48° 15’ to 49° 55’ East of Greenwich. Its greatest length
from north to south is about fifty geographical miles, its extreme width
from west to east is about forty geographical miles. Its distance from
Sviatoi Nos, on the mainland of Arctic Russia, is fifty miles. The
soundings between the island and the mainland are under thirty
fathoms. Though in a broad sense we might speak of Kolguev as an
extension of the continental tundra into the Arctic Sea, yet a critical
examination of the surface geology of the island clearly shows that the
modern Kolguev has not been connected with the mainland since its
elevation above the sea. The surface geology of Kolguev plainly tells
us the story of recent upheaval, so striking a feature in most Arctic and
Polar lands, and which geologists, who have made those regions of the
earth a study, are constantly impressing.

During my three months’ stay in Kolguev, in my many journeyings
and careful examination of river-beds and sections, both in the ravines
of the more elevated high-lands, and along the steep mud cliffs that so
generally fringe the sea-coast, I came on no rock surface 7” stfu, nor
on any section where there was an exposure of stratified rock. I may
at once say that I am completely in the dark, as far as my observations
go, in regard to the solid geology of the island.

The superficial area of the island is sharply divisible into two portions.
Speaking generally, the northern two-thirds are high ground, which
consist of peat-covered or of bare ridges intersected by gullies, and
enclosing small lakes and swamps, and the remaining portion to the
south is a dead flat of grass, bog and peat-levels reaching to the sea.

Of mountains there are on Kolguev none that fairly deserve that
name. Sowandeyi and Siecherhur, the two highest points on Kolguev
(named by the Samoyeds from hills of the same name on the Timanski

392

THE GEOLOGY OF KOLGUEV 393

‘tundra), are, as near as I could estimate them by aneroid, two hundred
and fifty feet above the level of the sea. They are essentially great
heaps of sand, terminating in peaks and ridges, carved into a curious
confusion of crater-like hollows and gullies by the melting snows. On
these hills the winter snow remained. longest, and had not all melted there
when I visited them on August 26. Siecherhur, a ‘bolvan mountain,’
is really a remarkable hill in appearance. Thickly covered with grasses,
almost completely circular at its base, it rises suddenly from the general
level—a conical hill, as smoothly and regularly formed as though an old
‘artificial camp. Another hill, Honorohur of the Samoyeds, is a very
conspicuous object from far round, and very characteristic in shape; so
that it is called by the Russians ‘Lodka’ (the boat), for that is the
appearance it presents to them when seen from the mouth of the
‘Pugrinoy.

There is not the slightest evidence to suggest that Kolguev ever
supported an ice-sheet. There is not, over the entire island, a trace of
a moraine, either lateral or terminal. I came across no beds of true
till, or typical boulder-clay. All the deposits are referable to wave
and oceanic forces, and Kolguev is essentially a water-and-ice formed
island.

It is not within my province to suggest from what river system the
material was derived which forms the modern island of Kolguev,
whether it was brought down by the Petchora or by other rivers, but
there can be no doubt that it represents the wearing down of the
adjacent continent, and the strewing of the sea bottom with ice-borne
erratics.

No better evidence to the formation of Kolguev could be obtained
than that afforded by such a point as the summit of Mount Sowandeyi.
This is indeed a key to the whole geological history of the island.

He who stands there sees before him to the north a wide high plain
of peat and lakes, studded with hills which have the appearance of
gigantic ant-heaps; a nearer examination of these shows them to be
formed of sand, clay, and débris of small stones. They exactly corre-
spond with the constitution of the hill on which he now stands.

This hill has the shape of a broken and hollow cone grass-clad on
three sides. The traveller who ascends to the top finds himself suddenly

394 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

at the edge of a funnel-shaped crater, corresponding to the three outer
sides of the hill. The walls of this crater are entirely formed of sand
and clay, in which no horizontal stratification can be traced, for all has
been washed by snow and water from above downwards into streaks
and runnels that lead to the foot. Here is collected a confusion of
large stones evidently washed out of the bed in which they lay. The
broken fourth side of Sowandeyi is open to the north, and by that exit
passes the water which streams from the meltings.

This double fact of peat-levels and of sandy or clay mounds and
ridges finds its exact counterpart on the eastern coast, and in the
results of the action of the tides to-day.

In the first place, you find the wide peat-levels reaching inland
fringed on the coast-line with a solid higher rim of sand and clay. And
secondly, the process by which these were formed is again repeated tide
by tide and month by month outside.

There is the harbour mud, partly brought down by the streams and
partly the result of disintegration of the clay banks by frost, lying—a
wide lagoon of mud—within the outer banks of sand. To the south
this mud passes insensibly into the peat-levels by a traceable process.
First, the mud or ooze, then this growing firmer, filled with roots and
covered with grass, and this again giving place to moss and lichen, till
the ‘ peat-hag’ itself is formed. Doubtless this rising is partly due to
superimposition of material, but to a far greater extent it is to be
attributed to the actual rising of the whole area, in agreement with
a condition known to be true of the tundra and of Scandinavia to-day.

The outer sand-banks of which I have spoken (which exactly corre-
spond in character with the sand we examined from the soundings
outside) are being periodically piled higher by the action of the waves.
So rapid is this action round Kolguev Island that the Russians told me
that, in the thirty-five years during which they had visited the island,
the general relationships of one channel to the other had completely
changed.

The time will come when all this region, now under the influence of
the tides, will be added (a new peat level and a new inland beach) to
the area of the island.

Surely therefore, this—taken in connection with the actual geological

THE GEOLOGY OF KOLGUEV 395

conditions of the interior of the island—is a sufficient index to the
growth of Kolguev as a whole.

If the question should further be asked, ‘ How, and from where, then,
has this dé/vis come?’ I think for answer one may safely say as much
as this :—partly by some great river system, and partly by theice. The
granite, sandstone and limestone (?) boulders found on Kolguev are
almost certainly ice-borne erratics from the mainland tundra and
Novaya Zemblya. Such a striking sandstone as that figured here,
which, lying now between the snow-banks, shows round its side striations
made by ice, may safely have come from the tundra, where no traveller
can fail to be struck with the sand-rocks which take there similar
eccentric shapes from the wearing of such forces long ago. But at least
some fossils in my collection taken from boulders on Kolguev seem to
point to a more distant source as kindly described for me by Mr.
Ethridge. They belong to the Upper Silurian period. Two are corals.
HHalysites catenularius and Cyathophyllum truncatum. One is a
gasteropod, probably Waticopsis.

Note.—I have ventured to incorporate with this part of a paper read before the
Royal Geographical Society, an abstract of which appeared in Zhe Geographical
Journal for February 1895.

A NOTE ON THE FLORA OF KOLGUEV

A GLANCE at the remarks on the climate of this island will show how
very severe the conditions are under which plant-life there exists. As
a consequence of the frosts of June, the frequent cold-driving mists,
the prevalence of northerly gales, and the exposed character of the
country, plants, in a majority of instances, tend to a dwarfed condition
and an abnormal habit of growth. Thus we find the common yarrow
(Achillea millefolium) reduced to a plant some three inches high and
tomentose. The woolly willow (Sa/ix danata), which on the mainland,
not ten miles from the sea, is as high as a man, grows nowhere on
Kolguev higher than the knee, and only reaches that height in the
most favourable spots.

Plants, again, are exceedingly late in flowering and in ripening fruit.
We left the twin-flowered violet (Viola diffora) in full flower at Troms6
on June 11. Yet on Kolguev it had only just come into bloom on
August 2. The cloudberry (Aubus chamemorus) was not generally
ripe with us till August 25. Yet the Russians told me that these
berries were ‘over’ on the mainland when they left the Petchora on
August 11. We saw no fruit of A. arcticus, and the Samoyeds all
agreed in saying that it bore none on Kolguev.

Of the ninety-five flowering plants found by myself on Kolguev,
some sixty-three are recorded as British. But of these, as one would
have expected, many are in Britain either rare or exceedingly local.
Thus Avadis Al~ina has only been recorded from Skye;! Draba
rupestris is ‘rare on some of the higher mountain summits of Scotland
and north-west Ireland.’ ?

Of the plants which are not British some have nevertheless a wide
palzarctic and some a circumpolar range. To the former class belong,

1H. C. Hart., Journ. of Bot., 1887. 2 Bentham and Hooker,

396

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 397

for examples, Delphinium elatum and Dianthus superbus (which reaches
through Arctic Europe and Asia to Japan); to the latter class, among
others, Valeriana capitata and Primula stricta.

Although, as was to have been expected in the case of an island only
fifty miles from the coast of Arctic Europe, the floral affinities of Kolguev
are with the mainland, yet there are some exceptions, which seem to me
worth noticing.

Tam glad to take this opportunity of thanking the following members of
the British Museum Staff for careful comparison of my plants with the type-
forms in that collection, and for much trouble in identification—Mr. James
Britten, Mr. Antony Gepp, Mr. E. G. Baker, and Mr. A. B. Rendle.

I find three instances of boreal plants which appear not to have been
recorded from Arctic Russia—S¢ellaria Edwardsii, S. humifusa, and
Antennaria carpathica. Both of these are said to be found on
Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemblya.!_ Finally, the apparent absence from
Kolguev of such well-known northern forms as Saxdfraga oppositifolia,
Mertensia maritima, and the beautiful azalea-like Ledum palustre (L.
dilatatum Ait.), so striking a feature of the tundra, is at least remarkable.

Since my return to this country I have been carefully through the list
of plants collected in Kolguev by Dr. Ruprecht. They will be found
in a work by him entitled Flores Samoyedorum cisuralensium.? The
work he accomplished during his short visit to Kolguev was admirable.
He collected flowering plants only. It was inevitable that he should
miss several of the plants which I have in my own collection, but, on
the other hand, he records several which I did not see. Dr. Ruprecht
defined as species certain plants which are now only regarded as
climatic varieties (e.g. he described and figured as new species no less
than seven forms of Foz). But of those which I believe to be accepted
as species, and which do not appear in my list, I give the following, as
a tribute to his work, and with the idea of making the Kolguev list more
complete, and therefore more useful to others :—

Ranunculus lapponicus L.
R. Samoyedorum Rupr.
Aconitum septentrionale Willd.

1 Cf. Nyman’s Conspectus.
2 Bettrage zur Phlangenkunde der russischen Reiches. St. Petersburg, 1845.

398 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Eutrema Edwardsii R. Br.
Draba muricella Wahl.
D. hirta L.
Viola epipsila Ledeb.

(Of this he says, ‘ Very rare, and all growth of leaves is wanting.’)
Parnassia obtusiflora Rupr.

(‘ Allied to P. groenlandica.’)
Sagina intermedia Rupr.
Cerastium arvense L.
Potentilla Comarum Nestl.
Epilobium lineare L.
Saxifraga foliolosa L.
S. hieracifolia L.
Pachypleurum alpinum Ledeb.
Adoxa Moschalellina L.
Senecio campestris DC.
Vaccinium Myrtillus L.
Pyrola uniflora L.
Androsace septentrionalis L.
Juniperus communis L.

(‘Nor is it absent from Kolguev, where it is to be referred to

J. nana W.’)

POLY PET AI
RANUNCULACE&

Ranunculus pygmeus Wahl. Pigmy Buttercup.

The pigmy buttercup was very common on the east side of Kolguev,
on damp clay banks, and on the edge of the mud-flats. It was not in
full flower till September.

R. acris L. Var. pwmzlus Hartm. Meadow Buttercup.

This dwarf form of one of our commonest English buttercups was
one of the earliest flowers on Kolguev. It flourished best on the sunny

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 399

side of the gullies among thick grass. I first saw it on our second
landing on June 17 (on a bank on which the snow was still lying
in patches), in company with Oxytropus and Myosotis. When in full
bloom the heads form a most brilliant cluster, on account of the low
growth of the plant.

R. Pallasii Schlecht. Var. 8. mznor. Rupr.

I have referred earlier to my first meeting with this plant on
Kolguev. It presented characters so distinct from any Ranunculus I
had before seen that I took the greatest possible interest in it. I
brought down a quantity of it from the Pesanka and from the Swan
Lake, and kept it alive by our Scharok waterhole till we came away.
Eventually I sent the plants to the Botanical Gardens in Oxford.

The petals (6 or 8), are white—not semi-transparent white as those
of R. aguatilis, but white as Parnassia palustris. The sepals are 3 or
rarely 4.

The flower is very sweetly scented—a point which seems to have
been quite omitted in previous descriptions. The plants I brought
from Kolguev exactly agree with the description of Ruprecht’s 8. mtnor.
It is smaller than the type, and the cauline leaves are all unlobed.
This plant grew only in the wettest moss bogs, in which its stems rami-
fied, rooting at the joints.

Mr. Baker, to whom I am indebted for identification of this plant,
has kindly supplied me with the following notes :—

The type, as figured by Schlechtendal in his ‘ Animadversiones,’ is
large and fistular, and with generally lobed leaves. JI have examined
the specimens both at the Natural History Museum and at Kew, and
find that this is apparently confined to the mainland.

The following seem to be fairly typical—

(a) Siberia Jenisei Nikandrovsky ostrov 70° 20’ N. lat. J. Sahlberg.

(4) Lapp. Ross. Ponoi. J. Sahlberg and A. J. Malmberg, and also
collected at the same locality by R. Enwald and C. A. Knabe.
(¢) Eskimoland. Seemann.

Ruprecht in his Sywbole plantarum Rossicarum, p. 18, records this
from ‘Ad promeno. Barmin.’

400 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The plant from Nowaya Zemblya is not nearly so elongate, but the
leaves are often 3-lobed—the stem is not so fistular.

(@) Nowaya Zemblya Nordenskiéld Expedition. Cap. Gusinnoi.
(e) Nowaya Zemblya. N. Kriwoschya.

Theré is a curious slender form from Spitzbergen in the Kew Herba-
rium, with always 3-lobed leaves.

(f) Joss Spitsburgensis. Th. M. Fries.

Ruprecht also describes a var. ¥? minimus from Kolguev with a
slender stem and deeply tripartite leaves. I have not seen specimens
of this, but the plant from Spitzbergen would almost fit the description.

Trollius europeus L. Globe Flower.

This plant, which is extremely local on Kolguev, for I only met with
it once, and then in seed—on August 27, by the upper waters of the
Pugrinoy—grows even there to the height of 1 foot.

Caltha palustris L. Marsh Marigold.

The Kolguev form of the marsh marigold is very distinct as a
variety from our own. It never forms a stout, dense plant as with us ;
but grows in a trailing decumbent way, and I 4e/eve roots at the joints,
though of this I am not certain ; also a copper-coloured underside to
the petals is the rule and not the exception. It formed large beds of
yellow in marshy places in August.

Delphinium elatum L. Larkspur.

That Ruprecht should not have found this lovely larkspur on Kolguev
is not surprising, for it is extremely local, and flowers late. I saw it for
the first and only time on August 26 at the foot of Honorohur Mount;
and on the banks of the head waters of the Pugrinoy, and also by the
Kriva Lake. Few of the plants were then in seed. The flowers were,
individually, as large as those in our gardens, though the flower heads
were not nearly so long, and the average height of the plant was some
ten inches.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 401

CRUCIFER/

Cardamine pratensis L. Cuckoo Flower.

This plant is distributed all over Kolguev where conditions are suit-
able, e.g. along the edges of streams. But it is smaller than our cuckoo
flower, and I never saw it lilac, but always white.

Arabis alpina L. Alpine Rock-cress.

On Kolguev this is very local. I found it only on the barest north-
facing clay banks in August and September. Such places had been
covered with snow till late, and with the melting snow the clay had
liquefied and slid down. Here A. afina grew. Connected possibly
with the extreme shortness of time thus left for fructification is the fact
that the seed-pods were far developed (sometimes to a length of 1}
inches), in all cases before the petals showed any signs of falling.

Draba rupestris R. Br.

Common on all the sand-hills.

D. alpina L.

This pretty little draba was quite common on the Pesanka plateau ;
elsewhere it was little represented, though I picked some plants on the
Pugrinoy.

Cochlearia danica L. Danish Scurvy-grass.

Abundant everywhere.

VIOLACE

Viola biflora L. Twin-flowered Violet.

I did not find this flower in Kolguev till August 2nd. It was
common on all high dry banks covered with light fine grasses,
eg. Poa arctica.

402 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

CARYOPHYLLACE
Dianthus superbus L. Splendid Pink.

‘A much reduced form of this plant.’

In the British Museum is an example of this plant which exceeds 15
inches in height. On Kolguev I found none over 8 inches, and this in
long grass. Its flower is loose and straggling, and at the first glance
from the marked ciliate petals, looks more like a ‘ragged robin’
(Lychnis Flos-cucult) than a pink. In Kolguev I only found it in the
Gobista mountains on August 26.

Wahlbergella angustiflora Rupr.

Ruprecht separated this Kolguev form from the Zychnis apetela of
Vahl—of which the type from Greenland is figured in Flora Danica, vol.
13—2173—on the ground that is was more nearly allied to Fries’ Wahiber-
gella of Finmarck. The specific name angustiflora points one difference,
and the calyx also is more tubular, less bladder-like than the Greenland
form. I found it first on July 12 at Scharok, where it was common on
the sand ridge. A plant brought from Novaya Zemblya by Admiral
Markham in 1789 is intermediate between the two forms, while in
specimens brought from Spitzbergen by Col. H. W. Feilden (1894), the
calyx is at least as bladder-like as in the Greenland form.

Stellaria Edwardsii R. Br.

Hooker and Hartmann unite this to S. dongipes. Goldie.
This little starwort flourished on the high ground wherever there was
enough grass to support it.

S. humifusa Rottb.
It commonly grew at Scharok in July, in damp hollows where water
soaked down from the clay level.

Cerastium alpinum L.

This was one of the latest plants in flower on Kolguev. I found it
always on dry sandy places, never in wet situations, where it is said

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 403

usually to flourish! Perhaps this applies to the glabrous form; on
Kolguev we had only the woolly variety.

Arenaria peploides L. Sea Purslane.

It is not a little singular that this, the sea purslane of our coasts,
should grow at one point only, as far as I am aware, on Kolguev. This
explains why Ruprecht missed it. That point is the southern outer
koski or sand-banks off Scharok. Here there were many lumps of it in
full flower (not in seed) on July 29. It covered heaps of seaweed and
hydrozoa on which were nests of glaucous gulls,

GERANIACE/®

Geranium sylvaticum L. Wood Geranium.

This geranium, which we left in flower at Troms6 on June 8, was so
much later on Kolguev, where it is very local, that when I found it on
the banks of the Gobista on August 27 scarcely a flower had dropped.
The tallest plant was perhaps a foot high.

PAPILIONACEE
Astragalus alpinus L. Alpine Milk-vetch.

Common on the higher ground.

Oxytropis sordida Willd.

This, with buttercup (2. acris), forget-me-not (ALyosotis arvensis), and
Nardosmia frigida was the earliest plant in flower on Kolguev. It is
perhaps the most abundant of all plants on high dry parts. It runs
through many varieties of colour. My note of June 17 runs :—‘The
bank above, facing the south, was a perfect flower garden. A lovely
little dwarf Myosot’s was in full bloom; a ranunculus very bright ; and
a very fine papilionaceous plant like a hairy sainfoin in three varieties,
pink, white, and purple. But none of these were higher than the very
short grass.’

1 Bentham and Hooker.

404 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

“ROSACEAE

Rubus arcticus L. Arctic Raspberry.

I first saw this lovely little pink raspberry on July 20, in the Pesanka
peat levels, and by August 18, when we were high up in the Pesanka
plateau, I met with a second form, and thereafter found this very
abundant and constant in places of the same kind.

The difference between the two forms is as follows :—

1. The type form. Petals 5. The leaflets oval, often nearly round,
bluntly toothed, deeply ribbed and veined. Stem tough and wiry.
1-3 inches. Grows in Kolguev always on peat, in company with 2&.
Chamemorus.

2. Petals in a double whorl. Larger, and curled at top. Leaflets
sharply toothed, inclined to heart-shape ; but obtuse to flatness at the
base ; with apex sharply pointed: not deeply ribbed or veined. Stem
weak and slender. 3-6 inches. Grows always among light grasses on
clay of river banks, where it forms large crimson patches. Both were
equally well defined, and grew in these distinct situations.

Rubus Chamemorus L. Cloudberry.

Professor Saweljew says in his paper on Kolguev: ‘ The Maroschka
(R. Chamemorus), the delightful product of the tundras of Kanin
and elsewhere, yields no fruit here.’ His companion, Dr. Ruprecht,
more cautiously says ‘rarissime.’ They must have been misinformed
by the natives. As a matter of fact the cloudberry does ripen every-
where on the island, but much later than on the mainland; though I
never thought the berries tasted so well as those I ate in Norway.

The flower, which was out in the second week in June, was all over
by the middle of August. On August 4 it had a small green fruit; on
August 13 they were big and red, but hard and sour; and by the 25th
we were gathering them by the bushel fully ripe.

Potentilla verna L.

This plant is generally distributed. I saw none with spotted flowers.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 405

Sibbaldia procumbens L.

A common plant at Scharok, forming dense masses on the sides of
our camp water-course.

Geum rivale L. Water Avens.

This pretty plant, which I have seen dwarfed in a Hampshire water-
meadow, and luxurious round a lake in the Solovetskii Isles, was fairly
abundant in the river-bottoms of Kolguev, where it grew to a plant of
some six inches high. It did not flower well till August.

Dryas octopetala L.

The white dryas of the Derbyshire hills was common on the Gobista
Mountains and the Pugrinoy, flowering in the beginning of August.

Alchemilla vulgaris L. Lady’s mantle.

This beautiful plant was one of the exceptions to the dwarfed
character of Kolguev plants. It grew at least as finely there as in
England. It often formed a brilliant green flooring to the damp passes
by which the sleigh tracks led from the gullies, where it grew so fast
that it kept pace with the melting of the snow. It did not flower till
the middle of July.

SAXIFRAGACEZ:

Saxifraga cespitosa L.
Generally distributed.

S. cernua L.

This is very widely distributed on the east side of Kolguev. I
brought back specimens nine inches high, while its average height was
six inches. This plant has little buds or bulbs in the axils of the leaves
on the upper part of the stem. I shot a young grouse on August 13
whose crop was full of these.

406 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Saxifraga rivularis L.

This was perhaps the latest plant to flower with us. It was September
before I picked the first flower by our water-hole at Scharok.

8S. Hirculus L,

The marsh saxifrage was abundant on all the damp places of Kolguev,
which were golden with it. Until the flower actually opens this plant
carries the head and upper part of the stalk drooping, but as the flower
opens the head becomes erect. When the petals fall the sepals turn
downwards, enclosing the stalk intimately, and the double-beaked seed-
capsule then in many instances changes in colour from a vivid apple-
green to a vivid crimson.

S. stellaris L. Var. comosa Poir.

This little saxifrage was very local. I found it on the Baroshika
banks only, I believe.

8. nivalis L.

Abundant near the sea.

Parnassia palustris L. Grass of Parnassus.

I was surprised to find grass of Parnassus extremely local in Kolguev.
I gathered it in the swamps of Solnoi Lake on August 12, and nowhere
else.

Chrysosplenium alternifolium L.

Grew all along the stream-sides—everywhere.

CRASSULACE
Sedum Rhodiola DC. Rose-root.

Very abundant at Scharok, chiefly on the dry mud of the estuary
sides.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 407

HALORAGE/E
Hippuris vulgaris L.

Abundant in the lakes of the Kriva district ; in fresh-water creeks of
Bewick and Solnoida Lakes, where it grows in water 2 feet 6 inches
deep.

UMBELLIFER/&
Archangelica officinalis Hoffm.

Having no works on botany with me I had entered this in my notes
as common angelica (4. sylvestris), but Mr. Carruthers points out its
differences. It is very local on Kolguev. I saw ‘the remains of a large
dead umbellifer’ by the Kriva on June 16; I saw one in the mountains
just pushing through the soil on June 28. And I found the plant
(since identified) in flower by the Kriva Lake on August 27.

‘The garden Angelica (4. Archangelica) a native of Northern and
Eastern Europe, long cultivated for confectionary, is not wild in Britain.’
——(Bentham and Hooker’s Flora.)

MONOPETAL
VALERIANE/=

Valeriana capitata Willd. Small form.
Circumpolar.

This small valerian was one of the most widely distributed of
Kolguev plants. It flourished by all the water-courses. It shared with
Ranunculus Paillasii the distinction of being one of the only two
Kolguev plants with a strongly marked scent.

COMPOSITE
Erigeron alpinum L. Var. wnzfloruim.

This charming little plant, which with us is confined to open high
mountains of Scotland, grew very locally and always on high ground.
It was most abundant in the Gobista Hills, when I visited these on
September 9, and at that time scarcely a flower had gone to seed.

408 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Gnaphalium supinum L. Dwarf Cudweed.

Almost everywhere.

Antennaria alpina R. Br. Alpine Cat’s-ear.

Fairly common on all the high peat-ground.

A. carpathica R. Br.

This plant is exceedingly local in Kolguev. I found it nowhere but
on Mounts Sieycherhur and Sowandeyi. The genus has been separated
from Guxaphalium as dicecious; the flowers of some individuals are
composed of filiform fertile florets without any tubular males, in other
individuals of only tubular male florets. It might easily be overlooked,
as its white cottony-looking head has a general resemblance to the
pappus of Z7igeron.

Matricaria inodora L.

This was not a common plant on Kolguev. The first specimen we
saw was growing in the turf on the roof of Uano’s hut at Scharok, and
I iater on found a few plants on the east coast.

Pyrethrum bipinnatum Willd.

This was immensely abundant on all the dry sandy ground.

Artemisia Tilesii Ledeb.

We found this in bud by the Pesanka, July 4, but it was not in
flower till a fortnight later. It was fairly common on the hummocky
peat.

Achillea millefolium L. Yarrow.

This tiny yarrow—2-4 inches—was very local. I found it only on
the side of some inlets by the sea on the eastern side. The plant
differs from the yarrow of our hayfields by being dwarfed and covered
with down.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV $409

Nardosmia frigida Hook.

This was not only one of the earliest plants to flower, but probably
the most widely distributed plant on Kolguev. It resembled the
Coltsfoot ( Zussilago Farfara) in that the radical leaves appeared long
after those of the flower stem. By the time the flower was in seed the
base of the stalk was surrounded by a mass of stout leaves. The nests
of the shore-lark were lined with the pappus of this plant.

Leontodon Taraxacum L. Dandelion.

The dandelion flowered very late on Kolguev, where it was generally
distributed. In very many cases it never seeded. It was one of the
few plants still in flower when we left the island under snow on
September 19.

Hieracium alpinum L. Alpine Hawkweed.

This fine hawkweed was exceedingly local on Kolguev. I found it
only on one gravelly ridge to the east of the Gobista Mountains.

Senecio palustris DC.

In Britain this interesting plant has become so exceedingly rare that
at the present time it is said to be found only in a single fen. As I
had never seen it before I was delighted when I found it growing to the
height of some 1 foot 6 inches in a fringe round Swan Lake. It
requires ud, and therefore is absent altogether from Lake Kriva, nor
did I see it by Soldonoida.

Saussurea alpina DC.

Common on hilly slopes in August.

CAMPANULACE:

Campanula rotundifolia L. Harebell.

I found but a single plant of the harebell, viz., on August 27, in the
Gobista Hills.

410 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEYV

VACCINIACE®

Vaccinium uliginosum L. Bog Bilberry.

Common on the peat-bogs.

It has a bluish-black berry. I did not know this bilberry when I
went to Kolguev, and used to puzzle much over its stout habit of growth
and woody stems. But we ate the berries, and they were excellent.

V. Vitis-Idea L. Cow-berry.

This was widely distributed over sandy places. It was common by
our Scharok camp. It may be distinguished from the preceding by its
red berry.

ERICACEAZ
Arctostaphylos alpina Spr. Alpine Bear-berry.

This bear-berry was very conspicuous on all sandy places in August
and September, where it formed bright crimson-scarlet patches as its
leaves withered.

Pyrola minor L. Common Wintergreen.

I saw this charming little flower only once on Kolguev. Three plants
of it were growing on a Pugrinoy gully when I passed on August 28,
the flowers pink, and the leaves edged with crimson. This specimen
resembles P. minor in that the style scarcely protrudes beyond the
corolla, and that the petals are concave and close over the stamens.
On the other hand, in the marked veining of the leaves, it inclines to
P. rotundifolia.

GENTIANACE/Z

Gentiana verna L.

This is so rare on Kolguev that I saw it only in one place, viz., in
the Gobista Mountains on August 27. But at that date the flowering
was over.

THE FLOWERS OF KROLGUEYV 41I

PLUMBAGINE®

Armeria maritima Willd. Common Thrift.

The common thrift was very abundant, both inland on sandy hills
and by the sea. The scaly calyx of this plant was in all cases of a
bright crimson-red ; so that in the middle of July the plant appeared to
be in the flower before it was really so. When the flower did appear it
was exceeding small and of a dirty pink; I never saw one which
reached the globular shape of our English thrift. Always the calyx
eclipsed it.

PRIMULACE

Primula stricta Hornem.

This little primrose was fairly common on the Pesanka plateau ; but
was little represented elsewhere.

POLEMONIACEZ

Polemonium humile Willd.

This, a dwarf, hairy form of ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ 3-4 inches in height,
was common on the dry sandy ridges by the sea and inland. I never
found it on the peat.

P. caeruleum L. Var.

This, taller and slenderer than the former, and glabrous, grew on the
peat, especially on the peat-mounds. It came out about the first week
in August, rather later than the last.

BORAGINE/E

Myosotis alpestris Schmidt. Mountain Forget-me-not.

I found this in the second week in June on the high hills we crossed
near the head waters of the Pesanka. I did not again recognise it.

412 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

M. arvensis Hoffm. Field Forget-me-not.

This, speaking generally, was ‘everywhere.’ It was among the
earliest flowers out.

Eritrichum villosum Bunge.

A common plant. Ruprecht separates it as /atifolium, but, as it
seems, on very slender grounds.

SCROPHULARINE=

Veronica longifolia L.

It is impossible to describe the beauty of this plant as I first saw it on
a bank of the Pesanka ablaze with sunlight on August 18. Later on I
found it by the Kriva Lake. But in these two places only. The
flowers are more loosely distributed than in our garden form of the
same plant, and therefore I think more elegant.

V. alpina L.

This came out with us on August 8 in the Pesanka hills, growing
among the grass.

Bartsia alpina L.

This mint-like plant was very local. The floral leaves were tinged
with purple.

Castillejia septentrionalis L.

A peculiar-looking flower. It was growing in dense tufts a foot high
on the Pesanka on July 4, and a fortnight later it was in flower by the
sides of a little stream high up on Pesanka plateau.

Pedicularis lapponica L.

This, which may be recognised by its yellow flower, was abundant.

P. hirsuta L.

This, which has a pink flower, was fairly common in damp places.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 413

APETAL A:

POLYGONE
Rumex domesticus Hartm. Dock.

This dock was pretty generally distributed ; but in single plants, not
in clumps or masses.

R. Acetosa L. Sorrel.

The common sorrel was abundant, growing finest by the sides of the
streams. But even here it was of a much reduced character. We
found this, until the cloudberry ripened, a very useful form of vegetable
food, as we had no other, and it was often difficult to find a leaf more

than an inch long. It never seemed to me to be nearly so acid as in
England.

Oxyria reniformis Hook.

This unpretending little plant was exceedingly common on the dry
mud-banks at the sides of the creeks. By the end of August the flower
had given place to seed; and the plant was then more noticeable and
very beautiful, as each seed was surrounded by a broad thin scale,
varying in colour from yellow to crimson.

Polygonum viviparum L.

This in Kolguev was a very insignificant little plant seldom more
than three inches high. Only the flowers at the extreme tip of the
flower-head were developed. The place of the lower ones was taken
by little brownish bulbs.

BETULACE:

Betula nana L. Dwarf Birch.

This creeping birch was widely spread on all the higher stony or
sandy ground. Wherever a wide patch appeared in the distance
coloured in brightest emerald, it was found on a nearer view to be
covered with this plant.

414 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

SALICINEA:
Salix lanata L. Woolly Willow.

This willow, which grows on the mainland to the height of six or
seven feet, is nowhere on Kolguev higher than a man’s knee, and
reaches this height only in one or two places.

S. Lapponum L. Downy Willow.
More local than the last.

S. Myrsinites L. Whortle Willow.

S. reticulata L. Netted Willow.

S. herbacea L. Dwarf Willow.

This little willow was in the catkin at one spot or another from the
time we first landed, June 18, to the end of August.

S. polaris Wahlenb. Polar Willow.

EMPETRACEZ

Empetrum nigrum L. Common Crowberry.

This on Kolguev was confined to high dry hills. It was in berry at
end of August.

MONOCOTYLEDONES

JUNCACE
Luzula hyperborea R. Br. Northern Woodrush.

L. Wahlenbergii Rupr.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 415

CYPERACE
Carex rigida Good.
C. stricta Good.

Eriophorum vaginatum L.

Generally distributed ; making sheets of white in the damp places.
I picked the first bit fully out on July 24.

GRAMINEAE
Alopecurus alpinus Sm. Alpine Foxtail.

Aira flexuosa L.

This grass was exceedingly late in coming into flower. ‘Flowering
heads only now developing’ is my remark on this species on July 27.
It is this grass which is used by the Samoyeds under the name of
Stielka as a padding for their skin boots against the cold.

Trisetum subspicatum P. de Beauv.
Poa flexuosa Wahl.

Poa flexuosa. Var. prolifera arctica.
P. arctica R. Br.

Festuca ovina L. Var.

Festuca ovina L.

CRYPTOGAMIA

LYCOPODIACE
Lycopodium Selago L. Fir Club-moss.

This club-moss was exceedingly local. I found it only on the sides
of two gullies near the Pesanka about four miles from the sea.

416 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

EQUISETACE

Equisetum palustre L.

This plant grows on Kolguev only on dry sandy banks near the sea.
It formed the favourite food of a young white-fronted goose.

MOSSES

Sphagnum acutifolium Ehrh.
8. fimbriatum Wils.
Cynodontium Wahlenbergii Hartm.
Dicranum elongatum Schw.
D. scoparium Hedw.
Rhacomitrium canescens Brid.
Polytrichum commune Linn.
P. strictum Banks.
Aulacomnium palustre Schw.
Hypnum felicinum Linn.

H. schreberi Willd.

H. stramineum Dicks.

H. uncinatum Hedw.

HEPATIC

Jungermannia ventricosa Dicks.

THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV

LICHENS

Stereocaulon paschale Nyl.
Cladonia cornucopioides Fr.
C. gracilis Hoffm.,

C. pyxidata Fr.

Cladina uncialis Ny].

C. ranegiferina Ny].
Alectoria jubata Ach.
Dactylina arctica Nyl.
Cetraria islandica Ach.
Platysma nivale Nyl.
Solorina crocea Ach.
Nephroma arcticum Fr.

Peltigera horizontalis Hoffm.

2D

417

NOTE ON THE BIRDS RECORDED

OF the forty-seven birds in the list, I obtained specimens of all but the
following :— ,

Merlin, Bernacle Goose, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Scaup, Goosander,
Common Scoter, Golden Plover, Whimbrel, Bar-tailed Godwit, Arctic
Tern, Pomatorhine Skua, and White-billed Northern Diver.

Of these the Pomatorhine Skua, Goosander, Tufted Duck, and
Arctic Tern were probably casuals, the Merlin, Common Scoter, and
Golden Plover migrants. The Scaup and Wigeon would very likely be
breeders, the Whimbrel possibly so, and of the Bernacle Geese I have
said in its place all I know. I have reason to believe that the White-
billed Northern Diver will be found to be more abundant in Scandinavia
than has been supposed, and I think it probable that future voyagers
may find it nesting on Lake Promoince in the south of Kolguev. The
Bar-tailed Godwit I have recorded as uncertain. It was the only bird
seen under conditions which left the species doubtful.

Of the thirty-three birds which remain I can record eggs or nestlings
of all but the following :-—

Wheatear, White Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Snowy Owl, Brent Goose,
Grey Phalarope, Temminck’s Stint, Sanderling, Purple Sandpiper,
Siberian Herring Gull, and Black-throated Diver.

The Wheatear, Meadow Pipit, Temminck’s Stint, Sanderling, and
Purple Sandpiper were, I believe, not nesters on Kolguev. The White
Wagtail may possibly nest there in small numbers; I cannot say for
certain. The Snowy Owl was certainly not nesting there last year. I
have explained why I saw no eggs or young in the down of the Brent
Goose. Although Professor Palmen mentions the Brent with a ‘?’ in
his careful list of circumpolar birds (which deserves the attention of
every ornithologist), yet it must be borne in mind that since, as he
himself remarks, there was little, if any, ornithological information to be

418

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 419

had concerning Kolguev, he naturally included that island in his
column containing the records of birds from Kanin and the Lower
Petchora.

In the following list (R.)= Russian, (S.)=Samoyed. I have ventured
to save myself the responsibility of spelling Russian names by taking
these as they are given in Mr. Dresser’s work on the Birds of Europe.

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV

TURDIDZ

Saxicola cenanthe (LINN.), Wheatear.
Poputchik Podorojnik (R.).

I saw but a single Wheatear. An immature bird. It appeared at
Scharok on August 20, during a time of severe gale and thunder from
the NW. From that day till September 6, it sat about on the little
banks by the shore.

MOTACILLIDA

Motacilla alba LINN. White Wagtail.
Bielo Tresogushka (R.).

There was a single pair by the Gusina River on June 24. On August
21 there were five birds, two old and three young, on the shore at
Scharok. On August 26 I saw a family of six birds on a little pond in
the Gobista country. Later on we had a small influx of young and old
birds at Scharok. They apparently arrived on three successive days,
and seemed to be working down the coast.

Anthus cervinus (PALLAS). Red-throated Pipit.

I never saw a single individual of this species on the eastern side of
the island, and on the western side it was far from common. A nest
‘taken on June 22 was composed entirely of grasses, and contained six

eggs.

420 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Anthus pratensis (LINN.). Meadow Pipit.
Stschewritza-lugowaya (R.).
I have no evidence of the nesting of this bird on Kolguev. I first

saw the meadow pipit on August 15, when, after a clear time and full
moon, we had a visitation of a flock.

FRINGILLIDA®

EMBERIZINZ

Plectrophanax nivalis (LINN.). Snow Bunting.
Podoroschnik (R.). Oo-noint-sa (S.).

The snow-bunting was established in many suitable spots, chiefly on
the coast of the upper western and eastern sides of the island. I took
six eggs from a nest on the Gusina on June 21. This nest, like others
which we found, was composed of dead grasses and lined with white
feathers of the willow-grouse. It was set deep down in a split in the peat
of the clay bank which sheltered our tent. We found at Scharok that a
pair of these birds had been nesting last year under the wooden covering
of a Samoyed grave. During the last week in August a cock bird was
constantly sitting on the turf roof of a hut at Scharok and singing
splendidly, with a song which in some passages recalled that of the
chaffinch.

On the little island of Horno, by Vard6, at least three nests of these
birds had flown by June 11. On the eastern side, I saw a cock bird
with food in its bill, and on the western side two lots of young were
flying about the rocks. On Kolguev, to the contrary, we saw a pair
building under the overhanging snow of a stream bank on June 27, and
young birds at Scharok first flew on July 11; and on July 24 I shot
a male bird who was changing plumage.

Calcarius lapponicus (LINN.). Lapland Bunting.
Sizio (S.).
No bird, except perhaps the shore-lark, was more abundant than this
on Kolguev.

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 421

It was there distinctly a bird of the peat, in the hummocks of which
it nested. On June 24, we first found a nest with eggs—four in
number. By August 3rd, they were in small lots of a few families
together, by the end of that month in large flocks, and by the second
week in August scarcely one was to be seen in the neighbourhood of
Scharok.

Otocorys alpestris LINN. Shore Lark.
Javronok-snejng (R.). Szzio (S.).

This bird was exceedingly abundant and universally distributed. We
found a nest ready for eggs on June 16, and the first one containing
eggs (four in number) on June 27, made of grass and lined with pappus
of xardosmia frigida.

STRIGIDZ

Nyctea scandiaca (LINN.). Snowy Owl.
Sowa bielaya (R.). Het-nib-chur (S.).

The snowy owl, there seems good reason to believe, does not nest
on Kolguev. The Samoyeds all agreed that they had never known an
instance. The snowy owl is always sporadic as a breeding species, but
T have no explanation to offer of this consistent non-occurrence as such,
which, but for Colonel Feilden’s observations on the habits of this bird
in Spitzbergen,! I should have attributed to the absence of the lemming.
I saw our first snowy owl on June 17, the day after our final landing.
It was a dark bird, probably a hen. As it skimmed over a little mere it
stooped to pick something—no doubt a fish—out of the water. I was
watching it though my glass, and saw it drop its feet and secure the
quarry. It then sat on the bank looking over its shoulder at us with the
prey under its foot. A red-throated diver swam up and down close in
front of the bird with its bill wide open, evidently chiding it, though no
sound reached us because of the distance. My notes of the occurrence
of the snowy owl are too many to give. Its numbers increased towards
the middle of July, and thereafter it was daily in evidence. At first, all

1 The Zoologist, March 1895.

422 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

we saw were dark examples; the old males came later. The last record
I have is on September 13, after which we left. Every isolated distinct
mound (those convex circular mounds I have elsewhere described) was
a well-used resting place of this species. Some of the castings contained
vertebrze of small fish, but the majority were composed of birds’ bones.
I only once detected the bones of a small mammal. This goes. to show
that the owl does its sea passage on an empty stomach. I have
mentioned in this book a case where a snowy owl tried to take a white-
fronted gosling. The Russian and the Samoyed name for this bird
both mean ‘snuff’ or ‘sneeze,’ and have reference, no doubt, to the
bird’s hoarse-breathed noise when disturbed.

FALCONIDE

Falco peregrinus TUNSTALL. Peregrine Falcon.
Sapsan (R.). Har-na-wé (S.).

Until the autumn migration, the peregrine falcon was rare on Kolguev.
We came upon an eyrie on June 17. Here four eggs were laid in a
hollow scratched in the ground, on a little level in a bank which sloped
to the river Gusina. There was not a sign of a casting by the nest.
Though seven days had elapsed since its mate was shot the tiercel was
still circling over the spot on June 24, apparently unmated. On
August 26 I saw an old falcon on Mount Sowandeyi; and she hung
persistently screaming about the same spot. During the latter end of
August and the beginning of September we had several immature birds
on’ passage ; singly, or two or three together.

Falco esalon TUNSTALL. Merlin.
Derbnie socol (R.). Lrrah (?) (S.).

The only merlins we saw were on August 16 and August 17. On
the former date a female flew two or three times round the tent, and as
she passed within two yards of the opening she turned her head and
looked in. On the latter date we saw three together flying low down:
across the tundra.

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 423

ANATIDA

Anser albifrons (SCOPOLI). White-fronted Goose.
Kazarka(R.). Seer-griin (S.).

Among the many white-fronted geese brought in by the natives, I
never saw a single individual which I could refer to the smaller race
A. Erythropus L. There was certainly some variation in size, but I
have no doubt that, like the specimens which I brought back, they all
belonged to the larger form. The white-fronted on Kolguev was far
more wary than the bean goose. A sitting bird would not allow you to
get within gunshot before she left her eggs. I may at once say that I
never myself identified this bird at the nest, though I have no doubt what-
ever, in my own mind, that one of the nests we came across during our
walk across the island belonged to this species. The four eggs, slightly
smaller and rounder than those of the bean, and also of a clearer creamy
white, exactly agreed with some brought to me with the old birds by
Mekolka the Samoyed. I have reason to believe that, while the bean
goose is pretty generally distributed over the whole island, the white-
fronted affects rather the north-eastern district.

On Kolguev this species moulted rather later than the bean. Of
those we took at the goosing on July 18 none had lost their primaries,
and I saw many on the wing. I have described elsewhere in this book
the habits of the young bird in the down, which we kept for a few days:
alive. They did not bring their young down to the sea as early as the
bean, but kept them to the lakes.

A. segetum (J. F. GMELIN.) Bean Goose.
Gummentk Nemock (R.).

This is the grey goose of Kolguev. In numbers it exceeds the
white-fronted goose by at least three to one. We saw some individuals
in which both the yellow of the bill and of the feet very strongly inclined
to pink ; so much so that I could understand an observer who was not
acquainted with the marked difference between the character of the
head in this and the pink-foot, mistaking these for individuals of the.
latter species. A few of these birds had moulted their wing-feathers on,

424 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

July 18. At this date the majority of the young I saw were apparently
not more than ten days or a fortnight old, but were very strong runners.
The bean geese did not nest on the peat lands, but they were otherwise
equally distributed on the grasses of the low flats and on the high hills.
We found no nests with more than five eggs in them, and in two cases
the completed number was three. On August 31 we saw the first
flocks of geese flying south.

Bernicla leucopsis (BECHSTEIN). Bernacle Goose.
Laboo (S.).

We saw on Kolguev but seven bernacle geese in all. Of these,
five were together on the banks of the Gusina on June 23. And two
in the country near it two days later. The Samoyeds who gave me
the name above recognised the birds at once from the picture, and
said there were very few on Kolguev, but that they did nest on the
Gusina, and there only.

B. brenta (PALLAS). Brent Goose.
Wurrah (S.).

I never saw the nest or egg of a Kolguev brent. No inducement
which I was able to offer to the Samoyeds could extract from them
any information as to the breeding places of the birds, until the
Russians arrived in August, and with their help I got from Uano a
reluctant admission that they nested on the southern and north-
eastern ends of the island. They hold the bird in almost superstitious
regard because of its extreme importance to them as winter food. I
believe that they themselves never approach the breeding grounds
during nesting-time. For this they gave as their reason that a dog
or a gun would ‘make them all be spoilt... The Samoyed dogs are
encouraged as bird-hunters, and a Samoyed cannot understand that
it is possible to go out without such companions.

The only reason I have, then, for assuming that the brent goose
nests on Kolguev, is the word of the natives and the appearance of
vast numbers of old and young off the sand-banks in July. The taking
of these is fully described under July 18. About two-thirds only of

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 425

those were moulted out, but those full-winged did not fly. Of the
adults, two forms were clearly distinguishable. In the majority, the
lower breast and belly were slaty, but a large proportion had these
parts light as mother-of-pearl: and there were some old birds in which
the light fringe of the slate-coloured breast feathers was so wide that the
bird could not easily be referred to either category. In one bird, a male,
in my possessson, the neck and the tail feathers are light brown ; apart
from this, it may almost be called a white bird.

Cygnus bewicki VARRELL. Bewick’s Swan.
Lebed. Chipouna (R.). Horéh (S.).

I judge it best to give from my diary the first references to these
swans.

June 16, just below the Kriva river. ‘As we were walking down
a pair of swans came flying past quite low down. As they approached,
attracted I think, by old Sailor, they turned and began circling round
us. We had heard them some way off. The noise they made was
not in the least like that of a whooper. It was a kind of “honk”
uttered at intervals, and I had thought was the cry of geese. I looked
at them with the glass; the sun full on them. They were so close that
it was perfectly easy to distinguish the face,’-—ze. the shortness and
shape of the orange (not yellow) which looked ved—‘ they were Bewicks.
I was so much interested in watching them that I never thought of
shooting till Hyland woke me up, saying, “Shoot, sir!” I had just
time to change one of my dust cartridges for s.s.g., and fired at the
second swan as they were getting rather out of range. The bird,
struck in the side, fell, or rather flew down slantingly—the other bird
flying up and down above it—and pitched about 200 yards away. On
Hyland going up it rose and flew on, accompanied by its mate, for
perhaps another 300 yards, very low over the tundra. I called Hyland
back, saying we should find the bird on the way home. And sure
enough, as I passed on our hurried return, there was the swan (within
a hundred yards), but we could not then wait. One bird flew off;
the other remained in a sitting position. I was terribly sorry about

1 For reasons explained under this date.

426 IGE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

this. Just about fifty yards south of Bewick Lakes, Hyland shot at
and crippled in a pond a male long+tailed duck which we had been
stalking. We had to leave it after all, for it dived away among the
ice-floes among which I feared old Sailor, who had plunged in before we
could stop him, would lose his life. As he fired, two swans, one of
which I had just got my glass to bear, rose and flew off. I just noticed
that the second rose from the top of a big mound. I had not dared to
talk, and could not signal to Hyland. We were on opposite sides of
the pond. I knew them for Bewicks by their character and small size.
I had not time to identify them by the head. They made no call as
they went. The mound was a nest about 2 ft. 6 in. in height and
4 ft. 6 in. in diameter at the base. [It was perfectly smooth and
symmetrical, tapering till the circular top was no more than about two
feet across.] This structure was entirely composed of little bunches of
green moss, with the exception of a very little lichen, and a chance bit
here and there of short light dead grass pulled up with the moss; of
course there were no green grasses or reeds as yet, and not a single
piece of dead reed had been used. There was a thin lining only to the
nest of dead grass mixed with a little down. Some, but not nearly all
of the moss, had been pulled up near the nest, which was situated on a
dry place, rather grassy than mossy, till one looked close. There were
three uncovered eggs in the nest, and a broken one lying on the ground
beside it. Of these three I took two, hoping that the birds would
continue laying. I wish I had covered up the egg, but I hardly liked to
do so. Three skuas (S. crepidatus) had flown off from near by as we
approached. We left, and having gone a very short way, turned, and,
looking towards the swan’s nest, saw an Arctic skua sitting ominously
about on some tussocks near it, and when we looked again it was sitting
on the edge of the nest and hammering downwards. So deep was the
nest that the bird as it hit on the egg almost went out of sight. Had it
not been for my anxiety to return I should have gone back, but it was
just at the critical moment of the change in the wind.’

The eggs I have exactly agree in texture and measurement with those
of Bewick’s swan as given in Yarrell.

I have also described the killing of the young swans with bows
and arrows on August 10. The beaks of those birds were of a light

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 427

slate colour, through which was visible a red vascular network, so that
the general effect was that of a pinky-slate.

A Samoyed afterwards showed me the skins of seven adult Bewick
swans. We saw nothing of the whooper.

Mareca penelope (LINN.). Wigeon.
Swetsun (R.). Harlgar (S.).

I can only record a single pair of wigeon. These I saw on a small
pool near the Sauchika entry on June 17.

Fuligula cristata (LEACH). Tufted Duck.
Tschernett (R.).

On August rz we had a female tufted duck on a little lake before our
Pesanka camp. She always kept to the middle, just out of shot.
Twice when I was collecting insects at the edge of this lake she came
flying close past me on her way to a second pool. Her identity is
beyond all doubt.

F. marila (LINN.). Scaup.
Goloubaia, Tschernett, Beloglaska (R.). Harocérl (S.).

On June 16 we saw a pair of scaup on one of the Bewick Lakes;
and on July 8 I saw another pair on a lake in the lower Pesanka

district.

Harelda glacialis (LINN.). Long-tailed Duck.
Vostrohwostka (R.). A-do (S.).

Out of the numerous gatherings of these ducks we saw but a single
drake in full spring plumage. This was on the sea on June 15. But
though the drakes had lost their white heads and white scapulars they
retained their central tail feathers. These were not moulted out till
the first week in June, and on July 8 my note runs: ‘One scarcely sees
a single male now with a long tail.’ Again, July 22: ‘Saw several
harelda ; only one drake with a long tail.’

This duck far outnumbered any other species on Kolguev. The
first nest I found was in the interior of the islands on June 27. No

428 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

water of any kind could be seen from the point where the nest was
situated. It was rather high up, and on the peat. ‘Moved harelda
off her nest. Quite away from any water (as far as we could see) this
nest was remarkably deep and neat ; all of down, with a very little dead
grass and dead birch-leaves. It contained six eggs, which I took.
They were slightly incubated.’

Besides the common call so well expressed in the Samoyed name,
this bird has a remarkably human cry. It would be hard to overstate
the wonderful diving powers of this bird. On July 30, when trying to
work some long-tailed ducks across a small lake within reach of Hyland,
I fired a shot which made some little ones of this species who were
with their mother dive. The old bird did not dive but swam straight
away, and, watching through the glass, I could see the young disappear,
and then after a bit appear again one by one close o the old one, and
instantly dive again; and so, diving and reappearing, they kept up with
her all across. When we were lying in the Kolokolkova gulf (on the
mainland), in spite of the tremendous gale, which was such that the
boats could not venture out, there was a party of three ducks within
sight of us for some hours. They would dive to meet only an unusually
big-topped broken wave: ordinarily they paid no attention to the
broken water which swept over them.

Somateria spectabilis (LINN.). King Eider.
Pistrak (R.). Na-ma-tiir (S.).

The king eider is, after the long-tailed duck, the most abundant
species of duck on Kolguev, though it only bears to the latter the
proportion of, say, about one to twenty. We saw a great many on the
sea during those days on which we were sailing up and down in front
of the ice. I got a pair by the Kriva on June 16—the male in
magnificent plumage. On the eastern coast we saw them also from the
outer sand-banks in considerable quantities flying up and down the
coast. But though they crossed the mud-flats occasionally on their way
to points above or below, we never, in any instance, knew a male bird
settle in the tidal creeks. With the exception of the bird above referred
to I never saw a single male of this species inland. The nests of the

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 429

king-eider were generally distributed from the crest to within five or six
miles inland. The Samoyeds constantly brought in the eggs during the
end of June and beginning of July, and also shot the females.

July 19.—‘ After its nest had been passed within, I should say, a yard,
a dozen times during these two hours by dogs, men, sleighs, etc., a
duck eider suddenly flew straight off her eggs—twenty paces exactly
from where I was sketching and the women were stowing the geese—
and away to the creek. Yet these eggs were all carefully covered up.
They were five in number, and considerably incubated.’

This was a late nest. The date for the appearance generally of the
young on the lakes may be put about the 21st of July. At this date
every little lake held a duck or two with young ones. They are much
more wary than the long-tailed ducks, and very hard to drive.

This is an excellent bird to eat; whereas the long-tailed duck is very
poor food.

We saw nothing of the common eider on Kolguev. The Samoyeds
did not recognise its picture, though they knew the king eider’s at once.
I examined carefully very many of the birds brought in, but they all,
like those I have brought home, were unmistakably king eider ducks,

Mergus merganser (LINN.). Goosander.
Krahal dlinnonosoy (R.). Harrl-gart (S.).

We saw three goosanders near the harbour entrance on July 25, and
a party of eight of these birds were off the sand-banks on July 29.

(Edemia nigra (LINN.). Common Scoter.
Chernaya titka (R.), Si-é-gle-via.

On July 26 a big flock of these birds came in with the tide and were
diving off the sand-banks, ‘the leading bird disappearing first, then the
next, and so on in order right out to the tail. Then on rising they
would all close up together, and again string out and dive as before.’
I saw nothing else of the scoter.

430 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

TETRAONID

Lagopus albus (J. F. GMELIN). Willow Grouse.
Koropatka (R.). Hondiii (S.).

My first notice of these birds, taken from my Journal for June 16,
the day we landed by the Kriva, runs—‘A grouse was very abundant.
The males were most conspicuous objects, and at one point near
Bewick Lakes we had twenty of them in view from the same position.
The hens as a rule sat [#.e. squatted] very close, almost until trodden
upon. The males either flew wildly and straight away, or else from
point to point within a distance of thirty or forty yards round us. Each
time, before settling, they rose with fixed wings a few feet up to a point,
like a toying wood-pigeon, and then shivered their wings at the point,
and, still shivering, settled.’

On June 17 I found a nest containing twelve eggs near Sauchika
entry. On August 6 I obtained a cock bird who was changing plumage,
some red feathers appearing on the back and claws just ready to be
shed. On July 30 saw eight cocks together, and from then onwards
they continued packing.

I did not notice any young till August 3. I came across, on that
day, two broods of cheepers who could fly thirty yards or more, and on
subsequent days found many. ‘The chicks of a brood were then of very
unequal size. These broods were always amongst the willow, but
earlier in the summer we had chiefly found the bird on grassy patches
among peat. On August 14 found a brood in which the young were
nearly as big as the old.

I was surprised to find that these birds do not cross to the mainland
in the autumn. The Samoyeds assured me that on Kolguev they
formed an important winter food of the foxes.

CHARADRIIDA

Eudromias morinellus (LINN.). Dotterel.
Zuek glupoz (R.).
I saw a single bird on June 22 near the Gusina, and no others
but those referred to in the following note. July 4, ‘Soon after

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 431

rising the Pesanka hills we halted and pitched on a highish bit of
ground overlooking the river and some lakes. I went off at once
with Hyland, and we found a dotterel’s nest with four eggs. The
old bird ran off lame.’ Also some 200 yards from the nest I saw a
second bird. The following day there was a bad north-westerly gale,
with snow, but on July 6, after watching for a long time to see
whether a second bird would show itself, I shot the nesting bird,
took the four eggs, and, after going some little distance, perhaps 200
yards, I shot a second bird, but could not find its nest, though it was
‘evidently resting. Both these birds proved to be females. These four
eggs appear to belong to a set: they present no noticeable differences.

The Samoyed group a great many of the waders together under
the name ‘Sierrk,’ which is evidently a corruption of the above Zuek.
It is curious to find, by the name given by Mr. Dresser, that the
Russians call this the ‘foolish’ dotterel—Zuek glupoi.

figialitis hiaticula (LINN.). Ringed Plover.

This, the smaller form of the ringed-plover, was to be met with in
many appropriate places, from the coast to the highest inland hills.
On June 24 we found a nest with four eggs.

Charadrius pluvialis (LINN.). Golden Plover.
Ryanka sivka (R.).
On July 29 I saw a solitary golden plover with half-black breast.

This is the only occurrence of which I am certain. I fancy two birds
which I recorded on the Kriva as golden may have been grey plover.

Squatarola helvetica (LINN.). Grey Plover.
Rjanka Tooles (R.). Doo-lissia (S.).

From the day of our first landing till about the end of the first
week in September we almost daily saw the grey plover. The first
nest I found was on June 26 on a high down about half-way across
the island. ‘Here I took a grey plover’s nest of four eggs and shot
‘the female. The male of this species is exceedingly wary and wild.
They. very seldom venture within shot. After waiting about for a

432 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

long time and sending Hyland round also with his gun, I had to
give it up. There is no possibility of confusing this with the golden
plover, even when on the wing. The call is quite different, and I
think the flight more powerful, and that is saying a good deal. The
skuas stood no chance with them. They actually seemed to both of
us to hit the skuas, wheeling round them and then, making a point
high above, they would drop down like a stone, literally knocking the
skuas out of time. The nest was a deep circular depression, and
contained nothing but the eggs and a little lichen.’

In another nest on July 13 the eggs contained fully formed young
ones. From August 10 onwards there were immense flocks of these
birds constantly wheeling over the mud-flats. These birds behave very
differently at different times when nesting. Sometimes the hen-bird
feigns lameness, though I never saw the male do this. Often, however,
their actions exactly recall those of the stone-curlew, excepting that we
never found a male brooding the eggs. The male bird, who always sits
on some raised point at a little distance from the hen, gives, long before
you come up, an alarm signal to the hen, whereupon she runs off the
nest and joins him. The breasts of the males we shot were all equally
black, but those of the females varied a great deal.

Strepsilas interpres (LINN.). Turnstone.
Severnaya-Kamnesharka (R.). Ta-tk (S.).

June 17. ‘Turnstones were, especially near the lakes, fairly numer-
ous. I am sure from their behaviour that some of the pairs had nests,
though we failed to find them. They were singing a very charming
little song which went, as I took it down at the time, ‘Chiwah chiwah
chiwééki, ki ki ki, ki ki’

During the nesting season these birds are distributed far inland.
On July 12 I found four tiny young ones which ‘ran out of the nest in
all directions.’ The turnstone, like many of the waders, makes several
scrapings or false nests before it finally lays.

While the reindeer-salting was going on at Scharok during the first
week in September, a pair of these birds were constantly occupied in
turning over the contents of the deers’ paunches which lay about.

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 433

SCOLOPACID/

Phalaropus fulicarius (LINN.). Grey Phalarope.
Plavunchik-plosconosey (R.).

I saw but a single pair of these birds, near the Kriva on June 16.

P. hyperboreus LINN. Red-necked Phalarope.
Plavunchik-cruglonosey (R.).

This was a very familiar bird on Kolguev, and was generally dis-
tributed. Every little lake in which there was any vegetation held its
one, two, or three pairs. The lobing of the feet was well-marked
in even the tiniest young which Hyland found on July 12. The
stomachs of some we examined on June 16 were filled with larvee
of the musquito. The following from my diary of July 12 is worth
quoting. ‘A little stint which I moved to-day kicked her tiny young
ones away. The action was so evidently intentional that I spent some
half-an-hour in experimenting the point. Six times I let her settle
down to brood them, and six times I moved her, and always she did
the same. Once she kicked only one away, four times she kicked
two, and once three—one a few inches to the side of the spot, and
two a long foot on either side behind her. The little ones instantane-
ously recovered themselves, for sometimes they were lying on their
backs, and squatted absolutely still. Then on returning she would
brood first one and then another, until she had called them all together
again. When Hyland joined me I was on the point of mentioning
this to him when he said, talking of a red-necked phalarope’s young
which he had found, “That old phalarope got off in such a hurry that
she knocked two of the young ones right head over heels.”’

I had been struck last year when in Norfolk by exactly the
same action on the part of a ringed plover. My note made at the
time, after describing the case, adds: ‘It could not be clumsiness,
because these birds are exceedingly careful when moving off their
eggs. Gallinaceous birds and ducks, when disturbed and starting
suddenly off, are very apt to jerk an egg or two out of the nest—

2E

434 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

probably those which have been lying on the feet. But they are birds
which fly straight off the nest with considerable flurry, whereas the
waders step off quietly.’ By the end of July there were great numbers
of these birds swimming on the sea in lots that varied from eight to
twenty.

Tringa alpina LINN. Dunlin.
Pestrosoboy-pessotchnik (R.). Ya-t-bud-dy (S.).

The dunlin was generally distributed. They were in pairs on
June 16, but not yet nesting. One bird obtained on the date con-
tained a half-formed egg. ‘They were occupied in feeding and in
drumming like snipe, but with a more metallic sound (like a pea in a
tin whistle) evidently made by the voice.’ On July 6 I took four eggs
‘hopelessly incubated.’ On July 9 I found young ones. Hitherto
these birds (which principally affected those districts where the peat was
hummocky) had been seen in pairs; now the males (?) began to get
together in lots of a dozen and more. And from July 11 till end of
August there were immense flocks on the mud-flats of the eastern
coast. On August 31 these birds were flying south.

As in the case of the ringed-plover, the dunlin of Kolguev was the
smaller form.

T. minuta LEISLER. Little Stint.

The little stint was by far the most abundant wader on the island,
and next numerically was the dunlin. On June 16 they were in small
parties by the Kriva, chasing one another about, and none appeared
to be nesting. On July 27 we found a nest with four eggs. It was
a cup in the peat half filled with dead leaves of creeping birch only.
In the many nests I examined there were always dead leaves in the
bottom of a cup—leaves generally of the creeping birch (detu/a nana)
or, according to the surroundings, of vacciniéum. Seldom had any
other material been used. But a nest found on July 9 was ‘a deep
cup lined with dead birch leaves and a little dead grass.’ We never
in any instance saw more than one bird at the nest, or with the young.
Out of seven birds secured under these circumstances, five were females,

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 435

two were males. During the nesting season and up to about the fifth
week in August, parties of little stints numbering five, ten, or fifteen
birds or so, might certainly be seen flying in and about the lakes.
When flying in this way, these birds look very like larks and make a
twittering noise. No words could adequately convey a good idea of the
complicated ruses adopted by this tiny wader near the nest: nor could
one express phonetically the various notes it then utters. Thus:
‘July 10, The little stint who had the nest made while feigning lame-
ness, etc., a noise exactly like the squeaking of a house-mouse.’ ‘ July
12, Took one nest of little stint with four eggs. One bird only at the
nest as usual—a male. It behaved, as H. said, like a dancing doll,
jumping up and down on the same spot as if on springs.’

T. temmincki LEISLER. Temminck’s Stint.

I saw very few of these birds on Kolguev, and none that seemed to
be nesting. I shot a female that was alone on the Scharok mud-flats
on July 16. I saw three together by a gully stream on Pesanka plateau
on August 7.

T. striata LINN. Purple Sandpiper.
Pesoschnik morskot (R.).

The first occurrence of this bird was on June 22, when I shot a pair
high up by a stream in the Gusina country. On two occasions we saw
a single bird, once two, once three, and once five together on the sands
of the eastern side of the island. The last of these occurrences was on
September 8. They showed none of the solicitude of nesters.

Calidris arenaria (LINN.). Sanderling.
Morskot-sugok (R.).

The first we saw was a bird I shot off the sands at Scharok on
July 11. It proved to be a male and was in summer plumage. On
August 27, large parties of the birds were feeding at the edge of the
tide on the outer sand-banks: an occasional individual retained some
rufous feathers on the back, but in the great majority only black
feathers showed against the grey.

436 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

When we reached the Kolokolkova gulf on the mainland, great
numbers of these birds were running along the
edge of the water, and the sands were spotted
in scarlet from their droppings. I found that
they were feeding greedily on a pteropod
(Clione limacina) and certain meduse (Zurris
digitalis and Sarsia sp.), and that the brilliant
colour which made the sands appear at a little

Clione Lumaceina.

~ : i with — scarlet
oe ling fied distance as though covered wi

geranium-petals was due to the pigment in
the generative organs of the hydrozoan.

Machetes pugnax (LINN.). Ruff.
Dratschounn (R.). Lorr-sow (S.).

By the Kriva on June 16 ‘we met with reeves at intervals, and came
upon a ruff’s playing-ground, on which twenty ruffs were engaging one
another in a most grotesque manner. We could only see two reeves
near this ground.’ On June 28 I found a nest containing four eggs.
On July 26 I came upon a reeve with young about a week old; I saw
males in winter plumage on various dates up to the middle of August.

Numenius pheeopus (LINN.). Whimbrel.
Kulth (R.). Arki-sterrk (S.).

The Samoyeds recognised the whimbrel’s picture, and said they called
the bird by the name above, which means ‘big wader.’ Our acquaint-
ance with it on Kolguev was limited to a single pair, which flew over-
head by the Gusina on June 19.

Limosa lapponica (LINN). Bar-tailed Godwit (?)

I delieve I saw a pair on June 16. ‘J also saw a pair of large waders,
which flew wildly off. I could not identify them positively, but believe
them godwits.’

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 437

STERNID/E

Sterna macrura NAUMANN. Arctic Tern.
Krashka-morskaya.

While we were lying off the west coast of Kolguev in the beginning
of June we saw a few of these birds. But I do not believe it nests on
the island. We never saw an example after we landed.

LARIDZ

Larus affinis REINHARDT. Siberian Herring Gull.
Tschatka (R.).

There were always a few of these birds at Scharok. They nest on
the low cliff, and in spite of constant robbery by the Samoyeds, manage
to get a few young ones off.

L. glaucus 0. FABRICIUS. Glaucous Gull.
Morskaia Tschatka (R.). Har-ley-o (S.).

The nests of the glaucous gulls which we visited were situated on the
highest ridge of the outer sand-banks to the south of Scharok harbour.
They were visible from a very long distance, and proved to be lumps
formed of sand mixed with sea-weeds and great quantities of hydrozoa
(sertularia and others), on which flourished arenaria peploides. The
sand had in many cases originally collected round drifted timber, and
the birds had taken advantage of this to raise upon it a pile some two
feet and more in height. As the Samoyeds rob these nests constantly
one wonders that any young get off. Hyland was so violently mobbed
by these birds, which stooped right down at his head, that he shot
two ‘in self-defence.’

Pagophila eburnea (PHIPPS). Ivory Gull.

The ivory gull is, according to the Samoyed, a winter visitant to
Kolguev. I picked up a wing belonging to this species.

438 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

COLYMBID:

Stercorarius pomatorhinus (TEMMINCK). Pomatorhine Skua.
Pomornik scrednic (R.). Hourtot (S.).

We saw a few examples of the twist-tailed skua near the sea, but I
have no reason to believe they nest on Kolguev.

S. crepidatus (J. T. GMELIN). Arctic Skua.
Pomornik-tschujeadnut,

We saw a great deal of the Arctic Skua. I have spoken of them earlier
in this book in connection with Bewick’s swan and the grey plover.
Although greatly dependent when at sea upon the labours of other
gulls, the breeding pairs are as persistent robbers of eggs as rooks in a
dry season, and may be constantly seen quartering the tundra for eggs
or young. I should be inclined to estimate that of breeding birds on
Kolguev there is about one pair to every seven square miles of country.
We never found a colony, nor even two pairs together. All those I
saw belonged to the light-coloured race. On June 29 we took eggs
about half incubated. The nest was among dead water-grass in a bog,
and was more than a mere depression for grasses had been walled into
a lining. A nest containing one egg (July 7), was a simple depres-
sion in dry grass: this egg had a remarkable escape. We were driving
along—four sleighs, which meant eighteen reindeer—when I called
out to Hyland who was in front to stop; for some 30 yards or so
away, a pair of skuas were behaving as though they had a nest. How-
ever, we could make nothing of it, and had just taken our seats again
to start off, when as I stooped down to disengage the hind leg of
one of my deer, lo and behold, there was the nest under my sleigh.
The whole train of sleighs had passed over this nest, and yet the
single egg was not broken. On August 7. ‘We picked up a young
skua and brought it back alive. This bird was almost full grown and
had well-developed primaries. Its parents showed no anxiety about it.
It was beside a lake, and as we approached ran and hid in some
grasses. It bit viciously, but made no noise.’

BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 439

I never in any single instance knew an Arctic skua stoop at a
visitor near its nest. On the contrary, an intrusion was met by every
wile of allurement. It was the old game of ‘hot or cold ;’ until at
last, when you stood close to the nest, both the birds were reduced
to a state of helplessness. At such a time they behaved exactly alike.
Sitting on their tails, either in the water or on the grass, and beating
forwards with their wings, they mewed all the time like cats.

Colymbus adamsi R. R. GRAY. White-billed Great Northern
Diver.
Morskaia Gagara (R.).

One of these birds passed within a few feet of where I was standing
on the Saxon on June 15, off the western coast, and I saw one flying
seaward on June 23. This concludes my record of the species.

Colymbus arcticus (LINN.). Black-throated Diver.
Gagara polosataya (R.). Pa-du-o-réh det-ni-nya (S.).

By an explicable chance we never found the nest of this bird. They
nest late, and when we were at the nest places, the reeds were not
sufficiently grown. But we saw the bird on the lakes, and it was
almost daily in evidence, fishing in the creeks at ebb-tide. I have
before referred to a noise it makes like a dog’s yelp, and may add
that, when undisturbed on the lake, it makes a noise like the croak of a
bullfrog. When flying high overhead, the bird frequently utters a cry
so like the crow of a cock grouse that we were often momentarily taken
in by it.

C. septentrionalis (LINN.). Red-throated Diver.
Pa-du-o-réh Pet-o-reh (S.).

The red-throated diver outnumbered the last species by five to one.
Almost every little lakelet held its pair. July 9.—‘I took by the lake
a red-throated diver’s egg. The nest was a shallow depression in a heap
of grass and waterweeds in water ten inches deep, with two well-defined
tracks running up to it. Down one of these the sitting bird dived, like

440 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

a running pike, straight out into the lake, so that for many feet I could
see the cut of the water as it went.’ Aug 1rr. A bird in the down was
brought me by a Samoyed, who declared that it ran out on to the
ground when pressed. If it had not been told me by a man whose
word I had the strongest reason to trust, I should not have quoted
the statement.

A monograph might be written on the ways of this bird and the last :
which were an unfailing source of interest and wonder to me. But
the following may be a useful note, for the noises of the divers are
many and confusing. July 22. After a whole morning by our Scharok
lake. ‘The notes of the red-throated diver when on the lake are
reducible to two forms: (i.) A long-drawn-out cxy somewhere between
a human wail and a cat-call (which we came to talk of as “mewing ”) ;
and (ii.) a short of churning bark. The latter is made by one of the
birds (I ¢hink by the female) when making up to the other. It is done
by fits. A pair of birds will be swimming along one behind the other,
when suddenly the leading bird will face round, lay its head down
on the water and churn.’ The noise can be heard at a considerable
distance,

NOTE ON THE MAMMALIA OF KOLGUEV

THERE is no rodent on the island. I had expected to find AMyodes
lemmus 1L., the Western Lemming, but it was not there. Equally
surprising was the absence of Lepus variabilis L., the Arctic Hare.
The Samoyeds had never known of an instance of the occurrence of
either of these animals.

The theory of the recent origin of Kolguev gains in evidence from this
fact. For the extent of water or ice between the mainland and Kolguev
is sufficient to prevent the passage of both of these creatures.

We were so little by the sea that my notes on the whales are of small
value, and the same applies to the seals. The seals which most
commonly occur are apparently Phoca grenlandica Nilss., the Greenland
Seal, which the Samoyeds call Merz, and Ph. vitulina L., the Common
Seal—/Vivk in the Samoyed. Kolguev does not seem to be a very
good sealing-ground. The Russian traders took from the Samoyeds
very few skins. But these natives obtain sufficient for their own
requirements. On Kolguev boots, gloves, and harness (except the
saddle and collar) are made of seal-skin. Seal-skin also takes the place
of rope; for thongs of considerable length are obtained by cutting a
continuous strip round and round the animal’s body.

Trichechus rosmarus L. Walrus.
Morse (R.). Di-a-li-eh (S.).

The walrus is only taken by the most adventurous of the natives.
Their boats are really not fit for this hunting, nor for going up to the
ice. Only two walrus were killed last year.

441

442 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

Ursus maritimus Desm. Polar Bear.
Oskoog (R.). Heév-diii (S.).

A chance polar bear or two appear each winter on the island. In the
winter of 1893-94 Uano killed a female and two cubs far inland in the
Pesanka hills. The dogs bay the bear and the men shoot it with flint-
lock rifles.

Canis lupus L. Wolf.

The wolf very rarely crosses to the island. But in the winter of
1892-93 two came over the ice, as Uano told me, and had killed twenty-
five of his reindeer before he shot them.

C. vulpes L. Fox.
Listtsa (R.). TLchu-or-nia (S.).

The red fox is not very plentiful. During the summer it frequently
lies out on the moss or in the willow bushes. It is a lighter-coloured,
lankier animal than our own, and has a longer brush and flatter sides.
It chiefly preys on the willow-grouse.

C. lagopus L. Arctic Fox.
Psi-itz (R.). No-ho (S.).

This is far more abundant than the last species. These foxes live
colonially, in warrens in the dry sand. They feed principally on
remains of dead seals, fish, crustaceans and molluscs, which they find on
the shore. I have reason to believe that they also take live fish from
the lakes.

Cervus tarandus L.
Oleyn (R.). Tui (S.).

I was never able to determine whether wild reindeer ever cross to
Kolguev from the mainland. There seems no reason against their
doing so; but the Samoyeds disagreed on the point. Some said they
did, others maintained the contrary.

Sy

THE MAMMALIA OF KOLGUEV 443

I was assured by Alexander Samarokoff and his cousin that in the
days before the reindeer plague there were no less than 25,000 reindeer
on Kolguev. Most of these were owned by Russians. At the present

time there are on Kolguev 2740 adult deer, and they are owned as
follows :

Alexander the Russian and Uano the Samoyed jointly own. . 400
Uano himself owns : : 2 200
Alexis the Russian and On Tipa the Samoyed jointly own. . 200
Alexis himselfowns . : 3 ‘ ‘ 500
On Tipa himself owns i 800
Yelisei the Samoyed owns”. j : , ‘ 100
Alexander’s nephew and Vasili Popoff i Russian) jointly own . 500
The brothers Bulchikoff (Samoyeds) own . 3 : ‘ ‘ 40

2740

The value of a live reindeer is 10 roubles=£1. ‘He who has

reindeer has everything,’ says a Russian proverb. It is true. Without
their reindeer these Samoyeds could not exist ; with them they cannot
want. Almost every part of the animal is of use. The hide makes
clothes, bedding, and parts of harness. The bone makes arrow-heads,
buttons, and thimbles. The sinew is used for cotton and thread. The
horn makes arrow-tops (grooved for the string), powder measures, parts
of harness, and buttons for toorrs (toorr-mahl). The flesh is eaten, and
the animal and its parts have an exchange value.

Travellers in Siberia and the east of the mainland tundra have
assumed that a practice with which they are familiar there is general.
I refer to the removal of one of the horns of each draught reindeer.
This practice does not obtain on Kolguev, nor is it to be met with, I
believe, to the west of the Petchora. Out of the very many hundreds
of reindeer which I saw on the mainland not one steer had a horn
removed ; or only in exceptional cases of ‘snow-shovels’ of abnormal
growth. There is indeed no good reason for the practice. For the
deer of a team have no difficulty in so carrying their heads that their
horns shall not be entangled. Only very exceptionally does a deer
become impatient in this respect. Ordinarily (and it is extremely
interesting to watch) they arrange the relative positions of their horns
by mutual compromise.

444 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

The horns of the bulls are often cut off entirely. The horns of none
of the Kolguev deer were clean until the last week in August. And
many were still ragged in the middle of September. Many of the
gelded animals never lose the velvet, though they regularly throw their
horns. The bull whose horns were clean began rutting at once. And
this is curious, because they had not nearly recovered their thick coats.
In this respect the Kolguev deer are much later than those on the
mainland. I saw no bulls with full necks till we reached the mainland
(Sept. 27), where we found the majority so.

A bull is not allowed to breed after he is five years old, but a cow
will breed up to fifteen, and sometimes even to twenty years.

After the cows have done breeding for the season they are not
infrequently used for sleigh-work, especially by the smaller owners.

A beast is best for sleigh work at four years old.

The calves are dropped in May and June, and are entered to sleigh
work at ten months old. They are trained in a team of five together ;
the principle of putting them with an older beast for steadiness does
not obtain.

Besides ‘the fly,’ reindeer have an enemy in the musquito, which,
especially during moulting time, punctures the veins of the face.

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF KOLGUEV

SAWELJEW, in the interesting paper to which I have already referred,
makes the following remarks about the climate of Kolguev :—

‘During the sixteen days which we spent at various spots on (or off)
the island in July and August, the thermometer never rose above 9° R.,
and even this but once, at mid-day. Usually it stood at 4° or 5°, and
fell at times to 2°, or even to 1° R.; while, before this, on Kanin (ze.
on the mainland), a warmth of 10° to 12° prevailed, which, immediately
after our departure from Kanin, mounted (there) to 15° R. It is to be
remarked that the soil of this island . . . does not thaw in the course
of the year more than two feet deep. Further down all remains in a
frozen state—a thing which we have not found to occur either on the
Kanin peninsula or on the coast of Timan.’

Of course this last remark refers to boggy ground. I was unfortunately
unable to test the conclusion.

The Russians have a great dread of being compelled to pass the
winter on Kolguev. They told me that only one Russian to their
knowledge had ever done so. This man was Alexis’ father, who post-
poned his departure till too late. He described the winter as terribly
severe ; and the Samoyeds all agreed in saying that it was far worse
than on the mainland.

The average shade temperatures for the twenty-four hours during
June were, max. 40° F., min. 33° F., the thermometer twice falling to
31° F., and twice rising to 50° F. On June 24 it registered in the sun
at mid-day 62° F. The average for July was decidedly higher, though
more than once it fell to freezing-point. On August 28 my thermometer
was broken during a gale. But up to that date it varied from 42° F. at
noon to 76° F. This, the highest reading, was on August 16, and on
this day it was 86° F. in the sun. The thermometer never fell below

445

446 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

42° F. during August up to the 28th. After this the weather got rapidly
colder, and by September 16 the ground was covered with snow, and
the lakes were beginning to freeze.

Kolguev is exceedingly subject to fogs and gales of great duration.
The prevailing wind is northerly, either N., N.E., or N.W. Indeed, this
is so remarkable that I give the record :—

June 13. S.E. to N.E. Light.
ede ING Fresh ; snow falling on hills.
» 15. N.E. Light ; dripping fog in early morning
» 16. N.E, Light ; clear.
3 I9r SE. Light ; clear.
» 18 N.W. toS.W. Light ; dripping fog.
» 19. N.W. to N. Strong ; thick fog ; rigging ice.
» 20. N.E., N.W. Strong ; clear, sunny.
» 21. N.W.,N.E., E. Strong; dripping fog.
5 22 N.E. Light ; clear, sunny.
» 23. N.E.to N. Light ; clear, sunny.
» 24 N.E, Light ; fog.
» 25. N.E. to E. Strong ; froze at night.
» 26. N.E. Strong.
» 27. N.Eto E. Light ; froze at night.
» 28. N.E. to 5.E. Light ; dripping fog.
» 29. N.W. to N. Light ; dripping fog.
» 30 N.W. Light ; dripping fog.

July «. N.W. Strong ; dripping fog and freezing.
we Saw ING Very fresh.
is Ge ING Gale ; snow.
» 4 N.toN.W. Light.
» 5. N.W. Gale ; snow and rain.
» Oo NW. Gale.
ee oe NM Less wind.
» 8. NeW, Fresh ; sunny.
» 9 SW. Light ; sunny.
» To. S.W. to N.W. Strong ; rain and dripping fog
» Ir. E. to N.W. Very light.

Io.

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS

N.W.

N.W.

S.W.

S.W.

S.W.

N.

E.

S.W. to N.W.

S.E., S.W., N.E.

N.E.

E. to N.E.
N.E.

S.W. to N.W.
N.W.

N.W.

. to E.

447

Very strong to gale at night.
Very stiff gale.

Light ; sunny.

Light ; lovely day.

Fresh ; dripping fog at night.
Fresh ; dripping fog all day.
Fresh ; rain all day ; night, dripping fog.
Light ; clear.

Light ; dense dripping fog.
Strong ; rain.

Gale ; dripping fog all day.
Strong ; clear.

Blowing hard all day.

Quiet ; clear.

Quiet ; clear.

Light ; rain.

Strong ; bitter day.

Strong ; clear.

Hurricane ; rain in torrents.
Hurricane ; rain in torrents.
Hurricane ; rain.

Hurricane ; rain.

Half gale till 7 P.M.

Light ; clear.

Very light ; clear.

Still ; dripping dense fog all day and night.
Light ; clear, sunny.

Light ; clear.

Light ; rain at night.

Light ; fine.

Still; fine.

Light a.M., strong P.M.

Light ; rain.

Still; fine.

Light till evening, then strong.
Very light ; clear all night, ‘ most unusual.’

”

Io.

17.

ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV

N.E.

Ss.

S.E.

N.W.

S.W. to N.E.
N.E.

N.E.

N.E.

N.E.

S.W.
S.W.

S., S.E., E.
N.E.

N.E.

N., S., W.
N.E.

N.W.

Light ; thunderstorm.

Light ; clear.

Still; drenching fog.

Thunderstorm and deluge of rain.

Light ; dripping fog.

Very light ; dripping fog.

Still; dense fog at night.

Still; dripping fog all day and night.

Gale in a.M., with driving mist ; P.M., heavy

rain; evening, thunderstorm.

Stiff; clear.

Light ; clear.

Gale ; wild and rainy.

Gale and rain.

Terrific gale and rain.

Gale and rain.

Gale ; less rain.

Gale ; no rain.

Gale died out in early morning ; hard frost.

Gale again ; snow.

Gale ; snow and rain.

Gale ; rain.

Blew hard till mid-day, then abated.!

Still a.m. ; rain and wind P.M.

Still; sun, snow, rain, hail and frost.

Strong ; snow.

Strong ; frost, snow and rain.

Strong ; tremendous rain all day.

Strong ; showery.

Very wild ; heavy snow.

Light ; clear.

Strong wind a.M.; P.M., ‘gale and heavy
snow.

Calm ; fog.

1 «With a slight abatement on Monday, the 3rd, we have had ten days of gale.’
—ELExtract from my Diary.

INDEX

ABEILOH, 341.

Accordian, 335.

Adliurs (a light sleigh), 141, 216.

‘ Adski’ (Samoyed baby), 230.
Anchorage off Kolguev, 35, 36, 46, 51.
Anchorage off Scharok, 354.

André, 335.

Anka (Samoyed cook), 339, 354, 360.
Archangel, 373.

—— hopes of obtaining passage from,

Archangel, Governor of, his letter, 127,
144, 336.

—— ice-bound, 347.

Arctic Circle, 10.

Arnoh (native boat), 215.

Arrows, making of, 276.

Artimista, common, 277.

Astragalus, 49.

Awh (Kolguev); 218.

Axe, English, Samoyeds’ appreciation of,
51.

—— given to Mekolka, 352,

Bar, river, 52.
Barakoska Nos, 219, 293, 303.
Barakova river, 184, 322.
Barometer, 357.
Alexis’ use of, 352.
fluctuations of, 352.
Baroshika river, 111, 184, 212, 246.
Baseball, 283.
Beaches, old, 289.
Beacons, traces of, seen, 44.
Bear, 276.
Bears’ skulls, 45.
Bee, humble-, yellow-ringed, 48, 307.
Beetle demolishes others, 302.
water, 119.
Beluga whale, 58.
Bergen, 6.
Betrothal of Ustynia, 307.
Birch bark, 193.
— creeping, 115.
Birds—
Brambling, 13.
Bunting, lapland, 48, 114, 118, 250.
— snow, 20, 65, 91, 103, 107, 191,
199, 252.
Cormorant, common, 20.

Birds—continued,
Curlew, 5.
Diver, 199.
black-throated, 175, 209.
red-throated, 11, 48, 78, 85, 183,
203, 204, 247, 250, 293.
— white-billed great northern, 10,

78.

Dotterel, 170, 174.

Duck, eider, common, 7, 8, II, 19,
23, 265.

—— —— king, 21, 31, 43, 205, 239,
256.

— long-tailed, 31, 43, 82, 84, 106,
115, 118, 181, 192, 195, 201, 204,
205.

— Scaup, 181.

Scoter, common, 254.

Widgeon, 48.

Dunlins, 42, 205, 202, 359.

— black-breasted, 182.

Falcon, 199.

—— peregrine, 73, 91, 150, 325.

Fieldfare, 14, 15, 41.

Godwits, 43.

Goosander, 254.

Goose, 83, 84, 118, 150, 220, 222, 225,
263, 286

— bean, 224.

bernacle, 86, 99.

—— brent, 197, 224, 226, 257, 300.

—— grey, 79, 116, 220, 222.

—— white-fronted, 207, 224, 250.

Geese, wild, 178.

Grouse, willow, 13, 43, 48, 70, 76, 83,
II5, 194, 205, 265, 286, 287, 293,
02,

Guillemots, 20,
black, 22.
Gulls, 11, 268.

—— black-back, lesser, 7, 18, 22, 23.
— glaucous, 10, 48, 116, 190, 195,
200, 207, 247, 253, 264, 326, 355.
—— herring, 18, 20, 23, 201, 247, 355.

—— ivory, 153.

—— kittiwakes, 7, 17, 18, 20.

Lark, shore, 108.

Merlin, 307.

Owl, snowy (Heinibchur), 77, 114, 153,
246, 247, 249, 299, 303, 330, 331.

2F

450

Birds—continued,
Petrel, fulmar, 355.
Phalarope, grey, 44.
red-necked, 44, 148, 181, 183,
200,
Pipit, red-throated, 53, 78.
Pipits, various, 20.
Plover, golden, 13.
grey, 43, 103, 201, 207, 290.
—— ringed, 92, 312.
Puffers, herring, 11.
Puffins, 10, 17, 20.
Raven, 13, 20, 23.
Reeve, 255.
Razor-bills, 17, 20.
Ruff, 43, 290.
‘ Sanderling, 197, 247, 257, 356.
Sandpiper, common, 26,
— curlew, 209.
purple, 350.
Skua, ae 26, 103, 114, I15, 117,
153, 195, 287.
—— (Richardson’s), 13.
—— twist-tailed, 53.
Stint, 40, 41.
—— little, 108, 183, 195, 200, 201,
265.
Temminck’s, 195.
Swallow, 153.
Swan, 43, 289, 290, 291.
Bewick, 292.
Terns, Arctic, 8.
common, 7.
Titlark, 13, 304.
Turnstone, 42, 48, 200, 210, 247, 350.
Wagtails, white, 20.
Waiter, the, 247,248.
description of, 41.
nests (see Nests).
Blizzard of hard snow, 371.
Blue-bottle ae 238.
—— —— fly, 298.
Boat,’ 185, 263.
— ” Alexander’ s, grounding of, 348.
—— —— floated off, 350.
=~ +— ready to start, 351.
—— —— sketch of, 353.
__ description of, 354.
—— repairs to, 252.
Russian sailing, seen by Uano, 286.
—— Samoyed, 164, 369.
—— sleep under a, 214.
cargo of, 352.
sailing of, 352.
warped to shore, 370.
warping of, 371.
Bogs, 45, 113.
Bolvan (native idol), 336, 341.
—— antiquity of, 338.

INDEX

Bolvan, its effect on lamp of St. Nicholas,
362.

—— last reference to, 367.

-—— means of protecting, 364.

—— present of, 337-

Russians’ attempt to secure, 363.

—— sketch of, 338.

superstition concerning, 355, 356

359, 302.

wooden, 327.

Bolvana mountain, 40, 327, 335, 330.

Bolvans of the Holy Hill, 342.

—— propitiatory gifts to, attempt to
obtain, 341.

Bommel mountain, 5. '

Bows and arrows, competition with, 274.

Brambling, 13.

Bread-making by Samoyeds, 137.

Breakfast of reindeer fat and black
bread, 341.

Bricks, brought from Petchora, 332.

Bulchikoff brothers, 256, 320, 335, 339.

names of eldest son’s children, 340.

brothers, proposed visit to Bolvana
mountain, 336.

their choom, 339, 340.

Bullhead fish, 285.

Bunting, lapland (see Birds).

Bunting, snow (see Birds).

Buttercup (see Flowers).

Butterfly, 15.

Canin, smallness of, 354.
Calendar, Samoyed, 302.

Caltha Palustrus, 14.

Calves’ ears, trimming of, 307.
Camomile, wild, 209.

Camp life described, 261.

Candle for St. Nicholas, lack of, 371.
Cape Kanin, 27.

Tereberskoi, 26.

Cards, pack made, 354.

Carlyle referred to, 278.

Channel, depth of, 253.

sounding of, 252.

Choom (Mya), departure from, 142.
—— description of, 128, 135, 136.
—— discomforts of, 159.

—— first seen, 120.

_— method of tracing, 124.
'— of Bulchikoff brothers, 339, 340.

reached, 126.
removing of, 166, 176.
—— return to Uano’s, 158.
—— seen, 367.

view of interior, 138.

-Christian, 336.
‘Climate, note on effects of, 131.
j Cloudberry (see Flowers).

INDEX

Cold liver, a delicacy, 340.

Collett, Professor, quoted, 99.

Compass, prismatic, Alexander’s interest
In, 350.

Conversation, between two Russian
boats, 358. es

Cormorant, common, 20.

Cotton dress of Uano’s wife, 314.

—— goods, 320.

‘Cow’s horns,’ 50.

Cranberry, 44.

Crater, water-formed, 3265. .

Cross, Russian, 34, 73, 190.

Cuckoo-pint, 195.

Curlew, 5.

DECK-SHOOTING forbidden, 363.
Deer, gelded, 305.

red, 8.

Delphinidz, 11.

Delphinium elatum, 325.
Dianthus superbus, 330.

Divers (see Birds).

Di-zha (lasso), 237, 275, 281, 349.
Doctor, fame as a, 372.
Dogs, affected by heat, 305.
epidemic amongst, 181.
Samoyed, 140, 161, 164, 201, 215,
216. .

— violet, 14.

Dolls (‘ ooquoh ’), 278.

—— Samoyed, 280.

Dolphin, Io.

Dotterel, 170, 174.

Dough-trowel, 75.

Driftwood, 70, 95, 192.

Ducks (sze Birds).

Dunlins (see Birds).

EARTHWORM, common, 309.
Eaton, Rev. A. E., quoted, 101.
Eiders (see Birds).

England, appreciation of, 375.
Ephemerida, 302.

Fatcons (see Birds).
Fat, purchase of, 303.
Fieldfare (see Birds).
Fire, made from moss, etc., 95, 108.
Fish, bullhead, 285.
catching of, 284.
—— drying grounds for, 326.
salted, 320.
Fishing boats of Namsos, 9.
Fjords—

Harr, 7.

Royde, 7.
~ Selbé, 5.

| Fly, blue-bottle, 298.

451

Fjords—continued.
Vaag’s, 10.
Varnsen, 8.
Vartdals, 7.
Flag, red flannel, given to Katrina (for
Adski), 352.
Flag, hoisted at Scharok, 298.
Flannels, attired in, 305.
Fleabane, 290.
Flounder, 321.
Arctic, 203.
Flounders, fishing for, 203.
Flour, purchased from Russians, -301.
Flowers—
Artimista, common, 277.
Astragalus, 49.
Buttercup, 49, 240.
Buttercup, scented, 240.
Caltha Palustrus, 14..
Camomile, wild, 209.
Cloudberry, 14, 44, 114, 285, 321.
Cuckoo-pint, 195. :
Delphinium elatum, 325.
Dianthus superbus, 330.
Dog violet, 14.
Forget-me-not, 49.
Arctic, 106. ae
Geranium Sylvaticum, 14.
Gertian herna, 330.
Geum (Geum rivale), 277.
Harebell bloom, 341.
Jacob’s ladder, blue, 195.
Lychnis, white, 200.
Marigold, marsh, 175.
Nardosmia frigida, 44.
Parnassus grass, 299.
Pink sea-glaux, 195.
(dianthus, etc.), 330.
Polemonium Ceruleum, 196.
Potamogeton, dead remains of, 44:
Potentilla, 14. <2
dead remains of, 44.
Primula, pink, 170.
Pyrethrum, yellow, 200.
Pyrola (winter green), 332.
Ranunculus acris, 14, 49, 239, 330.
sweet white, 239.
Rubus arcticus, 242.
Saxifraga cernua, 196, 302.
Stielka grass, 169, 348.
Trollius, yellow, 14.
Umbellifer, dead remains of, 44.
Veronica longifolta, 288, 312.
tiny, 49. :
Viola biflora, 14, 277
Winter green (Pyrola), 332.

reindeer, 3055

310.

237, 241, 2935

452

Fog, 52, 59, 70, 93, 99, 104, 122, 146,
195, 200, 210, 217, 234, 249, 250, 254,
257, 260, 312, 357, 369. .

Food, allowance of, 94, 251.

—— summer supply, 290.

Forget-me-not (see Flowers).

Fox pera, blue, 234, 321, 331,
359. .

—— blue, behaviour of, 244,

—— chase after, 306.

—— little red, 354.

red (young), caught, 305.

escape of, 305.

seen, I10.

—— skins of, 175,

—— theft of brent geese, 298.

track of, 38, 45.

—— trap, 202, 289, 298,

warren, 75,

Funt, 303.

eae 171, 273, 283, 334, 348, 356, 368,
Game, keeping of, 239.
Gastropoda, 255.

Geese (see Birds).

caught by nets, 225,
Gentian herna, 330.

Geological excursion, 263.
Geranium Sylvaticum, 14.
Geum (Geum rivale), 277.
Girdles, 334.

Glaucous gulls (see Birds).
Gobista Mountain, 325.

tiver, 55, 325, 327, 328.
Godwits, 43.

Goletz, 326.

Goosander, 254.

Goose, attack on snowy owl.
—— taking, description of, 219.
— trap, 221.

Grampus, school of, 10,
Grievance, first.sign of a, 346.
Grouse, cooking of, 109, 118.
willow (see Birds).
Guillemots (see Birds).

Gullies, 70, 99, 155, 312.

Gulls (see Birds).

Gunpowder, 5 lb. tin on bonfire, 351.
Gusina camp, 69.

point, 51.

—— river, 63, 143, 148.

HAAIEN ISLAND, 17,
Hammerfest, 17.

Han, a travelling sleigh, 141.
Hands, state of, 205.
Hanseatic Museum, 6.

Hare, Alpine, 23.

INDEX

Hare, young, 15.

Harebell bloom, 341.

Harr Fjord, 7.

Heinibchur (snowy owl), 331.
Herring gulls (see Birds),

—— hogs, II.

-—— puffers, 11.
Hide-and-seek, 279.

Hielmen Island, 17.
Hielsostauren, 17.

Hioring point, 7.

Hippuris, 44.

Hitteren Island, 8.

Holmboe, Mr, Carl, 18.

Holy Hill, the, 327.

—— bolvans of, 342.
Honorohur mountain, 325, 328.
Horno Island, 19.

Humble Bee, yellow-ringed, 48, 307.
Hydrozoans, 253, 356.

Hyland, Thomas, 373, 374.
Hyland, dress of, go.

—— illness of, 257, 330.
Hypoderma tarandi (reindeer fly), 237.

Ice, 28, 34, 45, 54, 56, 80, 179, 180,
195, 197, 198, 205, 207, 249, 251, 253,
263, 286, 288, 290, 298, 350.

—— blink, 55, 62.

—— course of vessel through, 29, 30.

—— first met with, 28,

reported, 27.

Idolatry, 336.

Ikon, 309.

India-rubber band, delight of Samoyeds
with, 287,

Insects, 47.

Isba, 332, 334.

Istushishua river, 99.

Ivan, a Russian trader, 320.

Jacos’s LADDER, blue, 195.
Jansen, a walrus hunter, 15.
his account of Kolguev, 15.

KALLINA, 218, 328.
makes arrows, 276.
present to, 353.
Kamblitska gulf, 369.
Kambola, 369.

Kanin, Cape, 27.
Karbass (boat), 348.
Katrina, 343.

—-— her song, 279.
-—— present to, 352.
Keks, 10, 18.

Kigten Island, 26.
Kittiwakes (see Birds).
Knife, butcher, coveted by Kallina, 277.

INDEX

Knife given to Kallina, 353.

Knifscher, 17,

Knutsen (pilot), 7, 8, 11.

Kolguev, anchorage off, 35, 36, 46, 51.
approach to, 32.

— character of cliffs, 40.

—— contrast between England and, 375.
— departure from, 353.

—— final departure from, 361.

— first landing on, 37.

—— first sighted, 31.

— Jansen’s account of, 15.
Kolokolkova gulf, 366, 369.

Konkina river, 155. .

Kriva lake, 325, 326, 328..

-— river, 38, 55, 300.

LaAGoon (Sautchika), 47.
La grippe, attacked with, 210.
Lake, 108, 175, 302.
Kriva river rises in, 300.
Lakes—-

Kriva, 325, 326, 328.

Pesanka, 327.

Promoinee, 34, 38, 325-

Saxon, 40.

Shore, 55.

Solnoi, 184.

Swan, 290, 303.
Lamp (salnik), 340.
Lamps of Russian saints, 362, 365.
Lapland bunting (see Birds).
Lark, shore, 108.
Lasso (di-zha), 237, 275, 349.
Latitudes, 26, 29, 30.
Lemming, bones of, 303.
Lightning, 309.
Limestone mountain, 19,
Little stint (see Birds).
Lofotens, Io.
Log, extract from, 26.
Lonnevig, Captain, 21.
Liitke, Admiral, 50.
Lychnis, white, 200.

MAINLAND, landing on, 372.

—— journey across, 374.

Mammals, dearth of, 132.

absence of, 261.

Mare’s tail (Wzppuris), 290.
Marigold, marsh, 175.

Marrk, his belt, 323.

—— his family, 218.

his gift of geese, 240.

— menu of evening meal with, 329.
prostrates himself at the place of
Nim, 328.

wife of, 324.

—— (2), 321.

453
Marrk (2) and vodki, 323.
Maximow’s priest quoted, 25.
Meduse, 255.
Mein Neydoo, hunting song, 232.
‘Meitz hansanquoh’ (rounders), 283.
Mekolka, 215, 218, 278, 280.
his bow, 292.
—— his race after the ‘ goose-taking,’
229. |
his skill, 275.
— his temperance, 311.
—— lesson in English to, 312.
—— present to, 352.
—— shoots swans, 291.
—— uses boat, 290.
Merlin, 307.
Michael, The (Alexis’ boat), 355.
The, drags her anchors, 356.
Mirage, the, 36, 120, 179, 202, 306.
Mollusca, 255.
Monastery Point, 26.
Moon, effect produced by, 304.
refraction of, 307.
Moscow, 373.
Mountains—
Mountains, 101, 103, 300,
Bolvana, 40, 327, 335¢
Bommel, 5.
Gobista, 325.
Honorohur, 325, 328.
Pesanka, 219, 276, 293, 303, 327.
Seven Sisters, 9.
Siecherhur, 327.
Somandeyi, 325, 328.
Musquito larvae, 44.
Musquitoes, 113, 182, 204, 205, 207, 238,
241, 305, 308,
Mya (see Choom).

NAMSOS FISHING-BOATS, 9.

Nardosmia frigida, 44.

Naryan (a savage black dog), 293.
Necklaces made from beaks of geese, 278.
Nests (Birds’)—

Brambling, 13; Cormorant, 20; Dot-
terel, 174; Fieldfare, 15; Red-
throated Pipit, 78; Snow bunting,
65, 191.

Ni-arr-way (Samoyed dog), 168, 245.
Night, Arctic, 116.

Nodules of ooze, 356.

Nordenskidld quoted, 102.

referred to, 278.

Nord Kyn, 17.

North Cape, 17.

Norrland, Io.

Norway, 231.

Note to Powys placed in tin, 89, 154.
— to Powys, 268,

454

Note to Powys nailed on flag-staff, 298.

—— Verrmyah asked to deposit in
chapel, 309.

Niim (ancient god), 327, 328.

Nyanitz, 127.

Onaska, sleigh-driver, 142, 143, 152,
154, 218, 276, 278, 284, 289.

Okshin, 301, 368, 372.

Ombara (storage-hut), 332, 347.

On Tipa, 77, 144, 308, 331.

Ooze, nodules of, 356.

Ost Vaagen, 17.

Oven, building of, 262.

Samoyed appreciation of, 266.

Owl, snowy (see Birds).

PacKAGEs carried, 85.
method of carrying, I12.
Pancakes, 338.
Panitsa, making of, 304. .
‘ Parlka,’ stick of Samoyed, 220.
Parnassus grass, 299.
Pasco and her puppies, 234.
Peasant wedding, 374.
Peat, 114.
beds, 100.
Peinmur River, 184, 213.
Pelecypoda, 255.
Perspiration, 264.
Pesanka camp, arrival at, 269.
—— hills, 219.
lake, 327.
—— mountains, 276, 293, 303, 327.
river, I11, 162, 167, 174, 244.
Petchora, anxious to reach, 368.
river, 143, 373; 374-
Peterhead, 3, 4.
Petrel, fulmar, 355.
Phalarope (see Birds).
Pilot, 5, 7, 8, 11.
Pinks (see Flowers).
Pipits (see Birds).
Plants—
Birch, creeping, 115.
Cloudberry, 285, 321.
Cranberry, 44.
Fleabane (Cznerarea palustris), 290.
Hippris, 44.
Raspberry, Arctic, 242.
— double red, 312.
Plovers (see Birds).
Polemonium Caruleum, 196.
Pomorrna (punting poles), 366.
Pooziri bottle, 324.
Potamogeton, dead remains of, 44.
Potentilla (see Flowers).
Po-um-ga, 222.
Presents, 337, 352, 353-
Primula, pink, 170.

INDEX

Promoinee, Lake, 34, 38, 325-

Pronia (Samoyed woman), 369.

Pros-to-deelsa, 322.

Provisions, partly exhausted, 286.

Puffers, herring, 11.

Puffins (see Birds).

Pugrinoy river, 192, 255, 256, 325, 329;
331.

—— chapel at mouth of, 332.

Pyrethrum, yellow, 200.

Pyrola (winter-green), 332-

QUARTZ, 19, 40.
Queenborough, 373.
Quite Ness, 7.

RACE, a, 301.

Rain, 171, 217, 251, 267, 268, 288, 323,
331, 334, 346, 351, 371.

Rainbow, 200.

Ranunculus acris, 14, 49, 239, 330.

—— sweet white, 239.

Raskolniks, 50. .

Raspberry, Arctic, 242.

—— double-red, 312.

Rasputa (a season), 373.

Raven (see Birds).

| Razor-bills, 17, 20.

Red-throated Pipit, 53, 78.

Reeve, 255.

Reindeer, 11, 120, 122, 142, 241, 256,
303, 372.

—— (Alexander’s), 321.

— Alexis’, 319.

calves, 302.

— catching by Russians, 349.

—— drinking of, 247.

— eaten raw, .by Samoyeds, 281.

-—— eccentricities of, 333.

—— escape of, 350.

feeding of, 246.

—— fighting amongst, 329.

—— milk of, 312.

—— performances of, 145.

remains of, 327.

—— securing of, 148, 166.

—— shooting of, 334.

skinning of, 343.

—— track of, 45.

—— young one killed, 280.

— bridle, sketch of, 296.

—— driving pole (toorr), 294.

—— eye, a delicacy, 338.

aa fly, 237, 241, 293, 305, 310.

—— harness, description of, 295.

diagram of, 296.

—— horns, native use of, 176.

—— -— sawing of, 329.

— (bull) horns, loss of velvet, 305.

INDEX

Reindeer plague, 320.

team, driving of, 294.

names of, 294.

-—— white, Uano’s explanation, 299.
Religious observances at Alexis’ chapel,

332.
Reno Island, 21. :
Rieska (bread), 139.
Rimmon-worship, 332..
Rivers—
Barakova, 184, 322.
Baroshika, 111, 184, 212, 246.
Gobista, 55, 325, 327, 328.
Gusina, 63, 143, 148.
Istushishua, 99.
Konkina, 155.
Kriva, 38, 55, 300.
Peinmur, 184, 213...
Pesanka, III, 162, 167, 174, 244.
Pugrinoy, 192, 255, 256, 325, 329; 331.
Tinyan, 184, 284.-
Veliki, 155.
Rorvik, 8.
Rorvik, narrow passage of, 9.
Rounders, 283.
Royde Fjord, 7.
Rubus Arcticus, 242.
Riff, 43, 290.
Russian merchants, description of, 319.-
peasant home-life, 373.

- traders, dress of, 348. aa
Russians, expert, with di-zha (lasso), 349.
insult to use Samoyed words of

them, 364.
—— Uano’s, interview with, 310.

SAHBOR (the cathedral), 341.

Sail observed by Hyland, 308.

Sailor, the spaniel, 50, 65, 72, 75, 80, 85,
98, 105, 113, 117, 119, 125, 194, 197;
201, 204, 284, 285, 368, 372, 374-

fights with Samoyed dogs, 285.

Sailors, Norwegian, 231.

St. Alexander, 362.

St. Mary, feast-day of, 368.

St. Nicholas, 357, 360, 362.

lamp of, 362, 365.

St. Petersburg, 373.

St. Philip of Solovetsk, 362.

St. Vasili of Solovetsk, 309.

Salmon, 8, 14, 321.

trout, 300.

Salted geese, value of, 302.

Samarokoff, Alexander, 301, 314, 320,

I, 336.
ave si appreciation of Queen Victoria,

367, 370. Some
—— —— conversation with, 360.
—— —— decides to sail, 360.

455

Samarokoff, Alexander, his reindeer, 321.
irresolution of, 361.

——- treated with medicine, 351.
Alexis, 320.

—— supposed to be lost in ice, 321.
approach of, in his vessel, 343.
—— arrival of, 347. :
— his reindeer, 319.

—— supper with, 369.

ee

| Samoyeds and flowers, 171,

—— and salt pork, 151.

| —— appreciation of English axe, 151.

axe, 298.

—— barter with Russians, 333.

—— belt and appendages, 257.

— bows and arrows, 274.

bread-making by, 137.

calendar, 302.

children of, 279.

—— children’s games, 279.

classification of, 278.

—— cleanliness, 139.

conclusion of stay with, 314.

conduct in chapel, 338.

conversation with, 127.

— courtship, 307.

cradle, 230.

daily occupation, 173.

-—— dancing, 234, 283.

delight with india-rubber band, 287.

—— derivation of names, 144.

desire for winter to be spent with
them, 276.

—— disappointment of, 149.

dress, 147, 237.

drunkenness of, 348.

excellent work of, 371.

—— equality of women, 244.

——- feast of reindeer, 282.

food of, 161.

frightened of thunderstorms, 309.

—— good-temper of, 243.

impressions of an Englishman, 218.

—— indifferent reasoning, 331.

intelligence of, 278.

kindness of, 214.

— knife, 137, 172.

language, 141, 229, 265.

—— manner of eating, 139, 161.

—— manner of living, 135.

— meals of, 160.

—— method of catching reindeer, 281.

—— method of killing geese, 224.

—— mistrust of camera, 219.

—— mould their bullets, 298.

nature of, 157.

—— needles of, 304.

note on, I3I.

—— of Kolguev, 319.

456

Samoyeds of mainland, 373.
—— outdoor games of, 283.
—— pasturers of Russian reindeer, 319.
—— regret at parting with, 353.
— rifle, 298,
— ringmaking, 172,
—— second group met with, 144.
—— singing, 233.
sleeping attitude, 147.
as tea, 139
tents of, 276.
—- their dolls, 280.
—— visit vessel, 368.
— whistling, 234.
women and their stitching, 304.
sleigh, articles carried on, 298.
Sand, fine, troublesome, 100.
Sanderling (see Birds).
Sandpipers (see Birds).
Sandstone boulder, 182.7
Saucepan given to Uano, 352.
Sauchika entry, 50, 55, 61.
Sautchika river, 46.
Saw, native, 329.
Saweljew referred to, 16.
quoted, 25.
Saxifraga cernua, 196, 302.
Saxon lake, 40.
the yacht, 4, 5, 7, II, 38, 60, 70,
261, 288, 306.
Scaup, 181,
Scharok, see Stanavoi Scharok.
Scoter, common, 254.
Seal, 7, 199, 210.
-—— attempt to shoot, 366.
—— hunting ducks, 84.
fat, 352.
—— skins, 352.
Sea-weed, 356.
Segenski Island, 354.
Selb Lighthouse, 5.
Selbo Fjord, 5.
Seven Sisters, mountains, 9.
Shabla, 152, 255, 343.
Shallows, 98.
Shore lake, 55.
Siecherhur mountain, 327.
Sik (bream), 326.
Skins, barter with, 334.
Skin, blue fox, present of, 372.
Skins, seal, 352.
Skua (see Birds).
Skulls of bears, 45.
Sleeping nests, 100.
Sleigh, 255, 269.
— accident to, 212,.342.
—— built, 61.
description of, 141, 142, 163.
found, 47.

INDEX

Sleigh, illustration of, 145, 297.
— model, 306, 321.

—— packing of, 163, 298.
——- route, 177.

tracks, 44, 76, 79, 254.
— trail, 289.

—— travelling, 166.

Slippers, Samoyed, 177.
Smith, James, 11.

Snow, 354.

—— blizzard of, 371.

—- bridges, 71.

— storm, 342, 366.

—— bunting (see Birds).
Snowy owl (see Birds).

Snuff, 320, 334.

use of, by Samoyeds, 157.
Solnoi lake, 184.

Toh, 299.

Somandeyi mountain, 325, 328.
Songs by Russians, 335.

Stanavoi Scharok, 110, 154, 189, 288,
298, 330.

anchorage of, 354.

—— —— appearance of, 314.

— arrival at, 185.

—— —— at midnight, 206.

—— —— chapel of, 190.

—— departure for, 184.
from, 211, 269.
—— flag of red flannel hoisted at,
298.
—— harbour of, 192.
—— huts at, 189.
in sight of, 303.
—— intended landing at, 33.
marking of channels of har-
bour, 258.
observations made in harbour,

350.

— proposed walk to, 81.

—— —— race into, 314.

—— —— return to, 246, 257, 342.

—— —— residence at, 314.

— Russians at, 310.

visit to, with Uano, 294.
Steamer seen by Uano, 267.

Stielka grass (see Flowers).

Stints (see Birds).

Stockings, woollen, given to Ustynia,

4.

Summer, Arctic, III.

Sun, position of, at midnight, 251.
Sviatoi Nos, 27,

Swallow, 153.

INDEX

Swan, chase after, 291.
lake, 290, 303.
Swans (see Birds).

TEA, 320.

——— barter with, 334.

—— cups, Norwegian, 301.

Russian, 301.

Teliurnok, 299.

Temperature, 52, 82, 104, 112, 181, 197,
204, 205, 210, 234, 236, 241, 250, 283,
288, 303, 305, 345, 346.

Tent flooded, 171, 268, 334.

occupied by seven persons, 153.

of Uano, 214.

pitched near choom, 161.

return to, 150.

Tents, gipsy, 213.

Terns (see Birds).

Thermometer, breaking of, 331.

Thunderstorm, 309, 322.

Tierrtekoh (bird), 331.

Tima Fe, 344, 354, 357, 365.

Timanskii Schar, 361, 366, 369.

Tinyan river, 184, 284.

Titlark, 13, 304.

Torghatten, 9.

Trade of Samoyeds with Russians, 319.

Traders, Russian, 319, 348.

with Kolguev, decrease of, 320.

Tree, pine, drifted, 254.

Trollius, yellow, 14.

Tromso, II, I15.

houses of, 12.

Trout, 14.

salmon, 300.

Tsar’s birthday, Russians commemorate,

0.
Tek called so by Russians, 356.
Turnstone (see Birds).
Turnstone’s sham nests, 48.
Tyamuk (puppy given to Hyland), 293.

UANO, 220, 246, 345.

affected by Russian vodki, 310.

and cap incident, 235.

and his son, 180.

brings geese, 265.

family of, 128, 129, 343.

—— his tea-party, 301, 311.

—— his wife’s cotton dress, 314.

hunting song, 232.

invitation to winter with him, 266.

—— invitation to his choom, 311.

— objects to disclose brent goose
breeding place, 300.

—— play draughts with, 175.

preference for white reindeer, 300.

—— present to, 352.

457

Uano, his wooden calendar, 30r.

Umbellifer, dead remains of, 44.

Ustynia (the belle of Kolguev), 130, 217,
282, 304, 306, 307.

Ust Zilma, 373.

Vaac’s Fjord, 10.

Vard6, boats of, 18.

— codfish, 18.

—— harbour of, 17.

vice-consul of, 18,

Varnsen Fjord, 8.

Vartdals Fjord, 7.

Vegetable food, lack of, 351.

Veliki river, 155.

tiny, 49.

Verrmyah Uano, 180, 211, 213, 343.

—— fetches his choom, 276.

——— Se present fo, 392,

—— —— sent to deposit note in chapel,
309.

Veronica longifolia, 288, 312.

Vigten Islands, 8.

Viola biflora, 14, 277.

Vodki, 311, 323.

Vologda, 373.

Voroni rocks, 26,

WAGTAILS, white, 20.

‘ Waiter,’ the, 208.

Walrus, 210, 276.

Wanka, 302.

and the old reindeer, 292.
Warping of boats, 371.

Waskina, intended landing at, 33.
Water, first spring found, 292.
means of obtaining, 193.
supply, 250, 251.

Wazanka (cow), 299, 303, 312.
Weather, consulted as to, 357.
variety of, 350.

Weeds, 253.

Whale, ro.

beluga, 58.

— finner, 17.

stranded, remains of, 14.
—— white, 366.

Whisky, last drop of, 347.
Widgeon, 48.

Willow-grouse (see Birds).

woolly, 114.

Winter-green (Pyrola), 332.
Wire, Ustynia begs for, 304.
Women (Samoyed), ageing of, 339.
Work-bag, Samoyed woman’s, 140, 276.
Writing, Russians’ idea of, 359.

YAKOFF PoporF (a servant), 320, 346,
361, 364.

2G

458

Velisei, ‘ father of the island,’ 217, 348.
—— family of, 218.
—— —— departure of, 283.

—— —— object to being sketched,
284.
—— —— prepare geese for barrels,
277.

INDEX

Yelisei and others’ gifts of geese, 228.

-— girl, efforts to obtain her head-
dress, 283.

Yierserk, 245, 323.

Yugor, 346.

ZILMA river, 374.

Printed by T. and A. ConsTaBLg, Printers te Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

MAP SHOWING

A, TREVOR BATTYE'S ROUTE
TO
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The Edinburgh Geographical Institute

69

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MAP SHOWING
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF KOLGUEV |
AND °
POSITION OF THE ICE IN THE SUMMER OF 1894. i |
Reproduced with a few verbal alterations a tt ag a:
from the Admiralty Chart. i
NOTE. :
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John Bartholomew & Co

‘he Edinburgh Geographical Institute