4 *v'" W. Ii. SMITH & SON'S BSCIMPTION LIBRARY, 186, STRAND, LONDON, AND AT THE RAILWAY BOOKSTALLS. NOVELS AA£ IS CO TOANO RECEIVED FROM SUBSCRIBERS |N 8ET8 ONLY. TERMS. rM WMMMM OBTAINING THEIR BOOKS FROM A COUNTRY BOOKSTALL— « Mxntbi. II Uoatha. r r ONE Volnrno at a time £0 12 0 .. 1 1 0 ^w«r Mf iMdrflt/r du dwi »/ . 4*t>>rn«i; 1M 0 I" « .. 1 11 8 a era m* tn»ti*tU /#r (Air rf*M « Suttcri/Htn.) ioiei „ 1 3 C .. a 2 0 t t i 8 ' .. a io o 1 15 0 .. 3 3 0 ..650 Mails ararr red ta tec that b«rt ta tka /.')' THE SAME AUTHOR Cro: PICTURES IN PROSE OF NATURE, WILD SPORT, AND HUMBLE LIFE BY AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE, B.A. I .US., I ./ S., ETC. IV THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION it a collection of sketches descriptive oj sport •it home ami in wild countries, original contributions to the study of animals and plants, and observations upon native lift a! read and rural life in England. LONDON AND NEW YORK LONGMAN S, ( ; R E E N , AND CO. ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV y>t^\ ICE-BOUND ON K O L G U E V 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.L.S., 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 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE 14 PARLIAMENT STREET, S.W. 1895 burgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION LORD LILFORD, F.Z.S. THIS RECORD IS INSCRIBED AS AN EARNEST OF LOYAL REGARD Of gentle, strange, ttnlettered 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 charmed 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 enouoh 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 unorudoed 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, fof upon his hands fell the preliminary work connected with th<- 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 Yardd 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 < »ne more word. PREFACE xi 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 mi ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUKV 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 1 st Tsilma, who went even to the length of advancing me a considerable sum of money without further assurance than m\ 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 Keltic. 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 I 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 PAGE xix xxiii Introduction ........ kolguev and the navigators ..... Part I. . . . . . . . . . T 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. ......... 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. ......... 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 Saxon, which yet could not come for the ice. Part IV. ......... 1S7 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 [CE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV PAGE 271 317 Pari V. . • • • • • ■ ' 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. Pari VI. .'...••••• Tells of the Holy Hills and of household gods— Of Samoyed labour and traders' ways— Of the lamp of St. Nicholas and the biinger of storms We leave Kolguev, and after much painful effort reach the mainland, and finally home. 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 en the flora of Kolguev— List of flowers— Note on the birds recorded— List of birds Note on the mammals— Remarks on the climatic conditions. [ndrx . . 449 377 FULL-PAGE PLATES 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 A CORNER OF THE GOOSE CAMP ON THE PESANKA PLATEAU A SAMOYED VERSION OF 'THE PROFLIGATE SWAN SHOOTING .... Frontispiece face page 4 18 28 43 83 85 130 142 165 167 184 212 226 237 238 275 284 hetween pp. 288 and 289 face page 291 NATIVE DRAWING, SAMOYED DRIVING AND HANDWRITING ,, HUNTING SCENES, .... !) )1 ... MEKOLKA'S CAPTIVE — 'TCHUORNIA,' THE RED FOX OF KOLGUEV OUR QUARTERS AT SCHAROK ..... The Maps are at the end of the Volume. 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- thino-s. 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. I 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 oun-boat would be Sfoino- 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 ICK-BOUND ON KOLGUEV that it was a nasty place. So I came hack 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 r the first summer days. It therefore seemed best to engage a Vardb' 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 maimed 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 sch< »oner-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, i.e. self-eaters, is the common view in Russia. The peasants and small 4 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 ! ' i.e. 'Yes, truly. But not now, no, no, longf. lone: aoo!' At the same time it would seem not impossible that the idea may have originated from their habit of eating raw llesh. 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 Botia 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 Vardohuus. 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. Nordenskidld 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 I C E -HOUND ON KOLGUEV river of Ob, made by Master Steven Burrough, master of the Pinnesse called th" Serehthrifty 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.' ' 15S0. — 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 20th, 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.' - *594- — 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.' :: 161 1. —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 Hand 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 Hand seemeth to be store of Hawkes. Here William 1 Purchas his PilgrimtSt 1589-9910 1601. - Hugh Smith in Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 508, ed. 1S10. : G. de Veer in Hakluyt. Hakluyt Society's edition, 1S50, vol. xiii. p. 35. KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS xxv Gourdon and our cooper caught two hawkes, whereof one was spoyled in the taking, the other remayneth aliue.' 1 And William Gourdon himself writes in the same year that 'the third (August) at noone we had sight of Colgoieue Hand 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 He of Colgoieue is but thirtie leagues from the Barre of Pechora.' 2 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 Lutke, 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.3 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.4 1 841. — 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. In a most interesting paper,5 in which Saweljew gives the results 1 Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iii. book 3, chap. ix. - Ibid., chap. viii. 3 Cf. Lutke'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, lie 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. 690 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,1 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 Te Dennis during three days. . . . The chief thing to be dreaded is the crossing of 150 versts of the open "... 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 ami prudence in dealing with the sea you shall never be 1 Maximow's Morskoi 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,1 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. X X \ 1 1 1 I , E BOU X D ON KOLGUKV ■\,,,. u, must be verj 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 goosi gets into the gate all will follow him there, and become an apture.' •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 an- exceedingly cunning. They like to hide themselves, and it is n<»t easj to find them out, and even then it is not easy to catch them. Such g< i 5( we trj 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 th< ir enemies, and are careful. Though of course there are geese and 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 EColguev about one hundred thousand birds, and could get even moi It will be seen later on how excellently this agrees on the whole with ttii nking 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 Shows 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 Kolouev — 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. A CHAPTER I PETERHEAD TO BERGEN June 2nd. — Sometimes those whom chance has taken to Peterhead have little enthusiasm to spare for it as a 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- o-ear 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 is pleasant to sail in, with the sea as clear as diamond ■- " - ' Jl" .;mw ESKIMO FIGURE-HEAD OF THE WHALER 'ENDEAVOUR' 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 Saxon 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 a half. 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 Saxon 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. Jttne 2>rd- — At ten o'clock on this morning a pair of o to a 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 at a 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 Saxon, whose small size fairly seemed to beat him, was the first yacht over this year. And so we ran up the big Selbo Fjord, and lay that night at Bergen. CHAPTER II IJKRGEN TO TROMSO /wic Afth. — If 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. BERGEN TO TROM SO 7 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 ^th. — 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 Saxon 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 ni^ht 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. 4 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 Rorvik 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 Rorvik 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, flashinQf 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 Saxons size io 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 s'ternpieces, like little Viking ships. Possibly their shape is a survival ; at any rate I liked to think of it as such. June y//L — 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. I uiic $//i. — When I came on deck this morning the Vaag's Fjord (68° 4c/ 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 n 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 Delphinidre 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 Tromso, we saw our first herd of reindeer coming down across the fjells. Knutsen said that they cross about here, returning in September, thoueh 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 Tromso, which we reached at 2.30 p.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 cider. Many of my readers will know Tromso and its sur- roundings far better than I, and can skip this next bit, which I simply take straight out of my journal as it stands. ' Tromso, 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. 1 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. 4 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,1 wool, feathers of rypa and others (among them the pin feather of a snipe), 1 Probably reindeer hair. i4 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. bifloir(i) ; dog violet ; cloudberry ; a ranunculus {R. acids), Caliha 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 i 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 TROM SO 15 June qth. — 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 l 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 I 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, " Never — 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 Tromso 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 1 Erebia Manto Schiff. i6 I C E-B O U N D ON KOLGUEV mi the chart. It corresponded with the Stanavoi Scharok of Sawcljew. 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 Tromso. CHAPTER I I I TROMSO TO VARDO June loth. — 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 7]0 10' N., while Knifscher near it is 710 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 1 \th. — At three in the morning we passed a whaling vessel towing a big finner alongside, and six hours later entered the Ost Vaagen, as the south harbour of Vardo 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 beine 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 femboring (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 femboring 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. Vardo 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 ore, i.e. one penny. A year or two asfO 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 Horno, 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 lone 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 Homo. 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 i if the common cormorant, and three of the shag — and these had young, but the others only eggs. Homo was a very good place for observing birds. We came to a 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 (lioth 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 Homo 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 tiny were singing sweetly. The island held several TROMSO TO VARDO 21 pairs. We saw the first on the turf roof of a hut by the sea. In vain we hunted for the eggs, and I 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 \2tI1. — 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 Reno, 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 Reno ; for he is quite alive to the oreat 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 Reno, 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 Vardo in the autumn. 22 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV I landed by myself in Reno, in a little bay where is a turfed hut of the keeper — the only person on the island. Reno was more interesting to me by far than Homo, 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. I 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 Reno 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 I can visit Reno again. Not Reno, 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 The 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 lind 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 Saxon might be secure ; what birds, flowers, and mammals we should chance upon ; whether we should find people there, or only a desolate and barren VARDO TO KOLGUEV 25 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 big-crest 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 I uuc \$tk. — This could not be considered an eventful daw 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. 500, min. 400. 8 p.m., max. 500, mill. 42°. 'Surface-water temperature, 8 a.m., 39° ; 8 p.m., 40°. •Latitude at noon (by observation), 690 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 Boint abeam. '6 p.m., Cape Tereberskoi abeam. ' 11 p.m., off Voroni rocks; distant three miles. v 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.' JYote. — The most trustworthy harbours on this coast (SE. of Var- anger) are — (i.) Novaya Zemblya (690 42' N., 320 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 690 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 370. '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 i$tk. — 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. 2S ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV It had remained clear till i 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 Saxon, 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 Mat — 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, *, en < O S3 < S4 a - to to o to u 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, 3o ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV running about east by north, up which we steamed for some eleven miles. At <S 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 oar 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. VARDOTOKOLGUEV 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 clotted 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 VARDOTOKOLGUEV 33 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 Saxon. 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, i.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 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 aeain 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 steamed 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 on a 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 1 1 p.m. ; we had had a pretty long and rather an anxious day, and I 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 1 6///. --The weather was so still and quiet that it seemed quite safe to leave the Saxon 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 sieht of a huee 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 39 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 Saxons 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 a clear 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 Tromso 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— I put it down at the time as ' Chewah, chewah, w "z $ OUR FIRST LANDINGS 43 cheweekT, ki-kT-ki kee kee ' — and he sings it con amove, 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 e.gg. 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 a crow. 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 larvae. So I knew we should be troubled with this enemy when the sun grew hot. , Of flowers we came at once on Nardosmia frigida, a well-known Arctic plant, and saw the dead remains of a Potentilla and of a large um- bellifer. The cloudberry which we left in flower at Tromso only showed a small green shoot at lonQf intervals. The cranberry was just pushing a ^ i ' ■}•/■' ■ THE CLOUDBERRY. few Qrreen leaves through the moss. In Saxon Lake I saw what I took to be the dead remains of a Potamogeton, and I looked in vain for the Hippuris which was so abun- dant at Tromso. 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 eieht o'clock on this evening we came to our anchor in 4| 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 Saxon 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 diffi- 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- 4<s 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 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 stoopino-. 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 acns). 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 \Zth. — 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 threatenino-. 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 to a future voyager after a year or two had gone by. Lutke 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 5i 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 4J 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 ■~TJ 'V. I i i'\ 52 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV out a boat to sound in every direction. Not a bit of it. Not a Sfhost 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 i gtk- -The changes in the air temperature in the shade were instructive. When the fogs came on the thermometer fell through io°, 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 Hood, 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 loner 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 1 1.30 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 like 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 lbs.) 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, poJar 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 to a 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 i\st. — 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 Vardo — 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 euns 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 {i.e. 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 Vardo, 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 Vardo, 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 thought 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 oovernor 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 Vardo 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 racing 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 inveiehinsf 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 Saxon 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 :■ » v ^a ' I ;> *■_■- - - 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 yon 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. E 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 rioht 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 I IN GUSINA CAMP June 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 yo 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 orullies which were to give us so niuch 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 7i 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 450. 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 eofQfs. 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 afood 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 regimen 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.' 2 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. IN GUSINA CAMP 75 out, seemed to be shallower. I 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, ;3 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.1 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. No one, 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 iroose. 1 Pictures in Prose: of Nature , Wild Sporty and Humble Life (Longmans, 1S94). 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 I I PREPARING TO START June 2$rd. — 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 ? F 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 620 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 : — ' Hare Ida 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 Qround. 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 i^tk. — 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 clucks 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 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 asjain ? 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 suns. 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. WTe 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 Vardo, 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 15^ lbs. 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. I f 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 III WE WALK ACROSS June 24/// {continued) — We left 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 in 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 loner-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- yo WE WALK ACROSS 91 elusion 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 edge where it was not wholly covered with snow, it was almost worse ; mud in a 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 92 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 Horno 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 25/72. — It 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 clay; 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, I 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, I stepped down from the stone. The water just reached to within two inches or so of the top of my long wrading 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 97 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. 98 I C E -HOUND OX 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, I 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 onlv 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 orround. 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 ioo tCE-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, through 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. I 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 s^ot 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 101 or water with perpendicular sides to the height of four or five feet. At 1 1 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 hisfh in the distance. These mountains looked as if they might be at least iooo feet high. But long ere this we had learned to mistrust the evidence of our senses in this stranoe 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 seen the geese.1 1 Rev. A. E. Eaton, Zoologist, Nov. 1873. 102 ICK-ROUND 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.'1 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 Nordenskiold, 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. I crept up. 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-swrept 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 io4 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV sides by a high sandy causeway. At the bottom ran a stream. The lower part of the formation was clay, now in a semi-liquid state ; but the tops were of sand. ' I had not intended to stay here. Really, I had mounted the hill in order to try and get a view of the surrounding country. But a dense fog came on as usual, and so we stopped. We found it very difficult to choose a place for a bed ; for all the hollows were filled with snow, and the north wind curled keenly in every direction. At last we contrived, by taking advantage of a slight depression, a tolerably protected retreat with moss and turf which we cut with our knives. June 2jtk. — I wished much that I had a thermometer to register the cold of last night. It must have been very considerable ; for the little stream which when we came was racing like a cataract, was, but for a tiny trickle, stopped. The fog, too, at midnight was very dense, and drove along the sides of the hill like whirling- desert dust. I must confess I envied Hyland his warm skin-boots. Indiarubber is the very worst material for a cold country. I kicked my feet about to no purpose, so at last I pulled off my long boots and tried my canvas shoes. They were better. At half-past twelve a sound woke me up. Hyland WE WALK ACROSS 105 had another ague attack. Fast 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. I threw over him a thin coat I had — the only thing I 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 I went for a walk. Traversing the sandy causeway, I 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 KOLGUEV I may mention here another discovery worth remember- ing. When you 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 suffers most. It was just four o'clock that morning when, after having eaten a fie and a lunch biscuit, we were once more on the move. The fog had cleared, and the sun shone most brilliantly. I have somehow forgotten to tell you about the flowers ; but as I mean to give them a separate chapter later on, perhaps I need say but little here. The most beautilul of them all, I 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, I used to think, like the flower in a lady's bonnet. At 7 a.m. we reached a little half- frozen stream. 1 got out my sponge-bag and made a toilette with some difficulty. Then we had breakfast, finishing our first tin of potted grouse. And so we went to sleep. Just after we had started again at 10.30, I all but trod on a lono-tailed duck. Bano- off her nest she went, scattering her eggs in her flurry. She had six eggs, and they were slightly 'set.' The nest was remarkably neat, and, for a duck's nest, very deep. It was all of down with a little dead grass and dead birch-leaves. We walked very slowly. To understand how this WE WALK ACROSS 107 was you must put fifty pounds weight odd on your back and with it walk a mile or two, sometimes on Brighton beach, and sometimes in a bog which takes you almost up to your 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 save the methy- lated spirits. Lying on my back, in a half-sleepy state, after luncheon, I was much interested in watching the ways of a pair of snow-buntings. They were building a nest out of sight under the over- hanging- snow which formed the bank of a tinv stream. The hen worked exceedingly hard, exerting all her little energies to pull fibres from the ground. The cock was a fraud. You know how some persons make a great show of passing things to you at luncheon-time. Actually they do nothing — they let it go. But each time you reach for the salt, they wave a hand after it as though a macnc wand. The cock snow-buntino- had learned this trick well. Very assiduous, very fussy, he accompanied his wife up and down. He waited upon her while she hunted up fibres ; he flew back with her and watched while she worked at the nest — a perfect example ol a despot lord. I do not believe he gathered a solitary thing himself; I never saw him do it. iocs 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 ' sizlo ' 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. mo tCE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV This night we did not sleep. I have never been out on a lovelier night. There was not a trace of fog. Clear as 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 28M. — 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 in 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 ' shadoiv 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 sunwner in the Arctic Regions. The cold fogs and frosts we had ii2 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, try it. 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 heat. 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 bo^s. 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 ereat 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 do not 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. H ii4 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. I 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 u5 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 u6 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV moved a grey goose [a bean] off her one egg, and then I 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 IV REACHING THE GOAL June igtk. — 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 n8 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 a^ain we cooked a wTillow- 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 morningf. 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 miraee 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 wras 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, 1 Indian's heart.' I 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 ' (i.e. 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 foe. 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 be^an 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 12C 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 Nyanitz! 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 English spaniel, 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. Thev were much amused, laughing heartily when they found that we could not sit comfortably cross-legged on the Moor as they did ; and presently gave us tubs to sit on. The choom contained : — Uano, a Samoyed, about fifty-three years old. Ustynia, his wife. UANO FRIENDS 129 Mekolka, his son, unmarried. Ustynia, -1 Anka, I daughters. Tierrtso or Zornka, J Katrina, his daughter-in-law. Niab-kutni, her little girl. Wanka, her little boy. A baby. I have given you all the dramatis persona, 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 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 — (th dress is all in one piece and fastens in front) — banded with scarlet cloth and dog-skin fur, and foot and leo- 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. USTVNIA Face page 130 FRIENDS 131 They served our stewed goose in wooden bowls, and laughed much at our efforts to sit cross-leeeed 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 (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 mainland Samoyeds, when pointing out one of their own women to me, said ' Barena,' i.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 impossible 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. WINTER HOOD OF SAMOYF.D WOMAN 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 2,0th. — 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 tsckumen, as I have seen it spelt, is of course a Russian word. The Samoyeds 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. 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 wras about eleven years old. She had, like the others, a Russian name, Zornka, but as she was Uano's fourth and youngest daughter ; they Lki aJL $a~*syt) Kji^j^ei i£ia<- one. cJusel-£Jj"J- 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, n8 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 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 begored a bit which we had carried for our stockings. 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. nii/y 8 SAMOYED WOMAN'S WORK-BAG RE-CROSSING 141 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 ofif. 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 Tii ? Yangho ? England reindeer ? No ? express the question as well as half a hundred words. While Mekolka was o-one, 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 RE-CROSSING 143 me on a 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. So I 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 alono; 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 H5 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. -— JilKUff II 1. 1 1 • 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 to a 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 <rot 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 at a 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 H7 I have seldom seen a picture which correctly o-ives this. In Nordenskiold'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 left side of the sleigh, and his lono- rein is attached O to the left-hand reindeer. But I will leave this for the present. ftdy 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 cflum. 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 in a 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 'mychoom,' 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. ISO ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUKV 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 Qfave 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 it in 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,' i.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. Jtcly 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 I I 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 brino- 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, 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. — We 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 w OUR RETURN i59 as 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 sleiohs, 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 II I NOMADS July 3rd. — 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 mornino- meal. o 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 1 62 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. LIS HI ^SM m 1 ,„'"' ' ',' ii'll ,,iw 4/'&m ■Mr1 V OUR TENT AND UANO'S CHOOM July ^th. — This 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. But a 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. 1 64 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 z Z 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 a chance. He was one of those electric pups you sometimes meet. If he was asleep at the other 1 66 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV side of the choom you had but to snap your fingers and whisper ' Chua,' and in a moment he was sprawling all over you, wriggling like an eel. These, then, were some of the dogs. Off went Mekolka 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 scattered far away. But the team was taken at a 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, especially if she had a youngish calf, would often charge and charge again. But the whole herd is brought up at last ; the steers and bulls being then penned — for in a strong herd such as this the cows are 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 accord. They are brought up on to the level rise on which stands the choom, and then 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 quiet that an arm over their necks is suffi- cient to guide them about. Then the creatures are harnessed up, and off we go. The two little girls each drove their team of three reindeer, and wonderfully well they managed, jumping on 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 line team of five he was continually scouring" round at the gallop or hard trot, bringing up the strag-o-lers. 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 charoino- back on the doors. And one or two on finding 1 68 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 on a 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 crnawino- bones and o o 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 lon«f 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 not a 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. i;o 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 eo-QS. 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 see 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 I found a charming little pink primula, and several other plants which will be found at the end. NOMADS 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 ^th. — 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 by a 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 awav, the rin^r 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 Samoyecls 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 i/3 girl of ten or so — little Zornka, for example — would cut up the wood for the fire with great precision and speed. July £>th. — 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 ' 1 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 wTere too greatly afraid to do this — just as afterwards they developed such an affection for us as would have kept them with us ag'ainst 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 doino- something; wrono-. 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. fuly *jtk. — 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, N O M ADS 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. (SZfe&aSft.* SLIPPERS MADE BY SAMOYEDS M CHAPTER IV PESANKA TO SCHAROK Juty 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 sleiohs 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 alono- it chanoed 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 i8o 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 might get into the gulf; but truly, he did not know. 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 UANO AND VERRMYAH HIS SON 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 Stins-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. As a 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°), 1 82 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 - ~^..=i* 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 crouchino- 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 1 84 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV we should be making soundings, and finding how the channels lay against the coming in of the Saxon 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- throuQ-h 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 wrere 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 Si £ z z < X z O > PESANKA TO SCHAROK 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 1 86 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 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 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 as a 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 throuoh the thin grass on every hand. Never — never 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 o-ive 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, i.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 Saxon 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 laro-e one, though, fortunately, in the end it proved enough. Last night as the tide was ebbing, nine-and-forty long-tailed ducks came clown the creek with the stream and lay just below our tent. They were still there this morning, but well out of shot. INSCHAROKCAMP 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 settlino- 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 i94 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 chanced 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, H viand,' 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. INSCHAROKCAMP 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 auns. The ice was never still. It set up or down with each tide, and the blocks took often most fantastic shapes. Most bitterly did I repent having come down here, which 196 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 1. Jacob's ladder (Polemonium cariileuvi) 2. MARSH SAXIFRAGE (Sa.xifraga Hirculus) 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 nth. — 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 sinele ' Wank ! ' At last I orew 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 \2tJ1. — 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 \2,th. — 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 o-one 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 Ioq- 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-trao 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 INSCHAROKCAMP 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 not a little trying to see these birds oobblinor 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 \\th. — 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 6o° 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 6o°, 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, Jtily i$tk. — 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. X o Q O < X u INSCHAROKCAMP 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 \6tk. — 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 clay'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 INSCHAROKCAMP 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 eo-gr Where does this bird nest? No one can tell with certainty. We were not to find it nesting. This was the only o 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 \-}th. — 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 loner-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 had a real chill on my inside, and a sort of unkind cramps. But now nothing would do but I must 0-0 to the goosing-, come what would. I said to myself, ' I will be a 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 II THE GOOSING We now had thirty versts to travel if we were to make our old Pesanka camp. All went wrell 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 sluno- our belono-ino-.s 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 $ ►J < X 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. 1 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-nig"ht, 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 little Wanka comes up to the boat with a wooden bowl of smoking hot goose, saying 'pillet ' {i.e. plate), an English word he was very proud of. But I was afraid to eat o-oose-stew at tnat moment, so then he brought me 'yah'; and I was afraid to drink the 'yah.' For I knew that if I was to go o-oose-huntino- 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 Liebio- 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 I 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 our dogs — which were always tied up at night — but tramps, belonging to the other 2l6 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 ADI.IURS, MY TOOK, 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 snorino-. 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 18//2. — 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. not a single soul was mo vino-. 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 beoan 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 Kolouev, or on ' Awh.' I do not know how to write the native name for 2i8 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 oroosino- 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 02ir old friends jeered at them, for they had long since got over their mistrust. To them it was no spell from Num, 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 you a 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 /rise, 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 Qeese. 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 little 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. For an 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 ooose on Kolouev — 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 cul de sac was double. The uprights which carried it were strengthened by spurs. A net trap of this kind the Samoyeds call ' Po-iim-ga.' Loner before we could see the boats, for the mist had thickened, we could hear shouting and the cries of the o-eese. 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- ino- 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 0f tne 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 «eese 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 o-eese 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, thouoh 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 Q-eese of the outer rino- 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 amono- 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 * •? a o a X E- e z > 3 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 to a 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 igt/i. — 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 ' Yuoora's gift to Ahng-lia. 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 Q-oino- 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 tome. '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 doos, 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 — urn the boat — arnoh the big pot — yud. ' Too wants wood,' 'Ynd 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 o-ood 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 sino- a huntino-sono- or sao-a. 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.1 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 Neydbo. 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.2 All that his father knew he knows ; Knows where the swan JwreJi will nest, And where wierrah, the small black goose. Yes, he can set the trap with skill, Fashion the arrow, frame the sleigh, Can Mcin Neydbo. 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"1 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 Neydbo. Is he strong ? He is strong- 6' Where is the wife for Mein Neydbo ? JVya, the maid, for the man Nyanltz ? She must be all that his mother was, Deft with the needle, skilled in yud; Too — the fire, yud — the pot, Yi — the water — these are hers. Obah — the glove, can she make it well ? Nier-pi — 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 Num, Great Num, He lies on the moss quite straight, quite still, Who once was wise and strong. Many a time has he vexed thee, Num — Yet now, Great Num, 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,' i.e. 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 oreat lifting of the arms. They could not whistle,1 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, wre 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 1 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 "^~^,-' 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 orreat ood Num 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 < - O o pi a THE GOOSING 237 waistcoat (of all things) over his shirt, and with his lono- 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 tarandi), 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 1. reindeer fly {Hypoderma tarandi) 2. same, with ovipositor extended tin! 1 1 it© 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 larvae (' 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 at a 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 does 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 on a 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 creese 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 £ OS « w X O z 5 u < u td 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 X?^ pleased' '"^.tesfe* ^ was ^e onhT ^Vjv-r 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 oeese. I was sitting" on a sleigh sketching-, but out of the corner of 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 he came, 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 iu4- P7 2./ ■ fi ■ 3.3o /J hi THE SCENTED BUTTERCUP. {RanutlCllluS Pal/asii) 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- JJ^ tynia. 'Is it, Yeli- sei ?' ~^T? arctic raspberry (Rubus arcticus) ' 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 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 sleiehs and were off in a bunch, amid o-reat 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 *?* -.- -aw***. from the men, for there were all the women on 1.1 ilk a little hill at whose h ^ foot the Pesanka ran. Of course they had 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 21 st. — 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 roueh 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 ao-ain could I feel that I had a rioht to o o 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 wras. 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 o-eese, 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 I I I 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 at 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 lemmino-s 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 crowing 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 clay. 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 2\th. — 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 Saxon 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. Jtdy 25M. — I 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 nothino- for it but to use the wood of some of the fallen o 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 o-rounded 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 weeds1 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 Liebie. 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 o-ulls 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 foo- 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 medusae had been left by the tide, and at the head of a small inlet some mollusca1 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