The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 28

Soon after the mammoth found on the Gyda _tundra_ had been examined by Schmidt, similar _finds_ were examined by GERHARD VON MAYDELL, at three different places between the rivers Kolyma and Indigirka, about a hundred kilometres from the Polar Sea. With respect to these _finds_ I can only refer to a paper by L. VON SCHRENCK in the _Bulletin_ of the St. Petersburg Academy, T. XVI. 1871, p. 147.

Under the guidance of natives I collected in 1876 at the confluence of the river Mesenkin with, the Yenisej, in 71 28' N.L., some fragments of bones and pieces of the hide of a mammoth. The hide was 20 to 25 millimetres thick and nearly tanned by age, which ought not to appear wonderful, when we consider that, though the mammoth lived in one of the latest periods of the history of our globe, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years have, however, pa.s.sed since the animal died to which these pieces of skin once belonged. It was clear that they had been washed by the neighbouring river Mesenkin out of the tundra-bank, but I endeavoured, without success, to discover the original locality, which was probably already concealed by river mud. In the neighbourhood was found a very fine cranium of the musk ox.

A new and important _find_ was made in 1877 on a tributary of the Lena, in the circle Werchojansk, in 69 N.L. For there was found there an exceedingly well preserved carcase of a rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros Merckii_, Jaeg.), a different species from the Wilui rhinoceros examined by Pallas. However, before the carcase was washed away by the river, there had only been removed the hair-covered head and one foot.[230] From the _find_ Schrenck draws the conclusion that this rhinoceros belonged to a high-northern species, adapted to a cold climate, and living in, or at least occasionally wandering to, the regions where the carcase was found.

There the mean temperature of the year is now very low,[231] the winter exceedingly cold (-63.3 has been registered) and the short summer exceedingly warm. Nowhere on earth does the temperature show extremes so widely separated as here. Although the trees in winter often split with tremendous noise, and the ground is rent with the cold, the wood is luxuriant and extends to the neighbourhood of the Polar Sea, where besides, the winter is much milder than farther in the interior. With respect to the possibility of these large animals finding sufficient pasture in the regions in question, it ought not to be overlooked that in sheltered places overflowed by the spring inundations there are found, still far north of the limit of trees, luxuriant bushy thickets, whose newly-expanded juicy leaves, burned up by no tropical sun, perhaps form a special luxury for gra.s.s-eating animals, and that _even the bleakest stretches of land in the high north are fertile in comparison with many regions where at least the camel can find nourishment, for instance the east coast of the Red Sea_.

The nearer we come to the coast of the Polar Sea, the more common are the remains of the mammoth, especially at places where there have been great landslips at the river banks when the ice breaks up in spring. Nowhere, however, are they found in such numbers as on the New Siberian Islands. Here Hedenstrom in the s.p.a.ce of a verst saw ten tusks sticking out of the ground, and from a single sandbank on the west side of Liachoff's Island the ivory collectors had, when this traveller visited the spot, for eighty years made their best tusk harvest. That new _finds_ may be made there year by year depends on the bones and tusks being washed by the waves out of the sandbeds on the sh.o.r.e, so that after an east wind which has lasted some time they may be collected at low water on the banks then laid dry. The tusks which are found on the coast of the Polar Sea are said to be smaller than those that are found farther south, a circ.u.mstance which possibly may be explained by supposing that, while the mammoth wandered about on the plains of Siberia, animals of different ages pastured in company, and that the younger of them, as being more agile and perhaps more troubled by flies than the older, went farther north than these.

Along with bones of the mammoth there are found on the New Siberian Islands, in not inconsiderable numbers, portions of the skeletons of other animal forms, little known, but naturally of immense importance for ascertaining the vertebrate fauna which lived at the same time with the mammoth on the plains of Siberia, and the New Siberian group of islands is not less remarkable for the "wood-hills," highly enigmatical as to their mode of formation, which Hedenstrom found on the south coast of the northernmost island. These hills are sixty-four metres high, and consist of thick horizontal sandstone beds alternating with strata of fissile bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other to the top of the hill.

In the lower part of the hill the tree stems lie horizontally, but in the upper strata they stand upright, though perhaps not rootfast.[232] The flora and fauna of the island group besides are still completely unknown, and the fossils, among them ammonites with exquisite pearly l.u.s.tre, which Hedenstrom brought home from the rock strata on Kotelnoj Island, hold out inducement to further researches, which ought to yield the geologist valuable information as to the former climate and the former distribution of land and sea on the surface of the globe. The knowledge of the hydrography of this region is besides an indispensable condition for judging of the state of the ice in the sea which washes the north coast of Asia.

Here lies the single available starting-point for the exploration of the yet altogether unknown sea farther to the north, and from hills on the two northernmost islands Hedenstrom thought that across the sea to the north-west and north-east he saw obscure outlines of new land, on which no man had yet set his foot. All these circ.u.mstances confer on this group of islands an uncommon interest in a scientific and geographical respect, and therefore no long time can elapse until a scientific expedition be sent to these regions. Just for this reason I now desired, as a preparation for a future voyage, to wander about here for a couple of days, partly on foot, partly by boat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: s...o...b..VOJ ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

The air was calm, but for the most part clouded, the temperature as high as +4, the sea clear of ice, the salinity of the water 1.8 per cent, with a temperature of +2 to +3. At first we made rapid progress, but after having in the afternoon of the 28th August sighted the westernmost islands, s.e.m.e.noffskoj and s...o...b..voj, the sea became so shallow that for long stretches we were compelled to sail in six to seven metres water. Some very rotten ice, or rather ice sludge, was also met with, which compelled us to make tedious _detours_, and prevented the _Vega_ from going at full speed.

The animal life was among the scantiest I had seen during my many travels in the Polar Seas. A few seals were visible. Of birds we saw some terns and gulls, and even far out at sea a pretty large number of phalaropes--the most common kind of bird on the coast of the Asiatic Polar Sea, at least in autumn. s...o...b..voj Island was, especially on the north side, high with precipitous sh.o.r.e-cliffs which afforded splendid breeding-places for looms, black guillemots and gulls. At all such cliffs there breed on Spitzbergen millions of sea fowl, which are met with out on the surrounding sea in great flocks searching for their food. Here not a single loom was seen, and even the number of the gulls was small, which indeed in some degree was to be accounted for by the late season of the year, but also by the circ.u.mstance that no colony of birds had settled on the rocky sh.o.r.es of the island.

The sea bottom consisted at certain places of hard packed sand, or rather, as I shall endeavour to show farther on, of _frozen_ sand, from which the trawl net brought up no animals. At other places there was found a clay, exceedingly rich in _Idothea entomon_ and _Sabinei_ and an extraordinary ma.s.s of bryozoa, resembling collections of the eggs of mollusca.

It was not until the 30th of August that we were off the west side of Ljachoff's Island, on which I intended to land. The north coast, and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was clear, of ice, but the winds recently prevailing had heaped a ma.s.s of rotten ice on the west coast. The sea besides was so shallow here, that already at a distance 15' from land we had a depth of only eight metres. The ice heaped against the west coast of the island did not indeed form any very serious obstacle to the advance of the _Vega_, but in case we had attempted to land there it might have been inconvenient enough, when the considerable distance between the vessel and the land was to be traversed in a boat or the steam launch, and it might even, if a sudden frost had occurred, have become a fetter, which would have confined us to that spot for the winter. Even a storm arising hastily might in this shallow water have been actually dangerous to the vessel anch.o.r.ed in an open road. The prospect of wandering about for some days on the island did not appear to me to outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main object of the expedition. I therefore gave up for the time my intention of landing. The course was shaped southwards towards the sound, of so bad repute in the history of the Siberian Polar Sea, which separates Ljachoff's Island from the mainland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IDOTHEA ESTOMON, LIN. From the sea north of the mouth of the Lena. (Natural size.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IDOTHEA SABINEI, KRoYER. From the sea off the mouth of the Lena. (Natural size.) ]

So far as we could judge at a distance from the appearance of the rocks, s...o...b..voj consisted of stratified rocks, Ljachoff's Island, on the contrary, like the mainland opposite, of high hills, much shattered, probably formed of Plutonic stone-ma.s.ses. Between these there are extensive plains, which, according to a statement by the land surveyor CHVOINOFF, who by order of the Czar visited the island in 1775, are formed of ice and sand, in which lie imbedded enormous ma.s.ses of the bones and tusks of the mammoth, mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind of ox and with rhinoceros' horns. Bones of the whale and walrus are not mentioned as occurring there, but "long small screw-formed bones,"

by which are probably meant the tusks of the narwhal.[233]

All was now clear of snow, with the exception of a few of the deeper clefts between the mountains. No traces of glaciers were visible, not even such small collections of ice as are to be found everywhere on Spitzbergen where the land rises a few hundred feet above the surface of the sea. Nor, to judge by the appearance of the hills, have there been any glaciers in former times, and this is certainly the case on the mainland. The northernmost part of Asia in that case has never been covered by such an ice-sheet as is a.s.sumed by the supporters of a general ice age embracing the whole globe.

The large island right opposite to Svjatoinos was discovered in 1770 by LJACHOFF, whose name the island now bears. In 1788 Billings'

private secretary, MARTIN SAUER, met with Ljachoff at Yakutsk, but he was then old and infirm, on which account, when Sauer requested information regarding the islands in the Polar Sea, he referred him to one of his companions, ZAITAI PROTODIAKONOFF. He informed him that the discovery was occasioned by an enormous herd of reindeer which Ljachoff, in the month of April 1770, saw going from Svjatoinos towards the south, and whose track came over the ice from the north. On the correct supposition that the reindeer came from some land lying to the north, Ljachoff followed the track in a dog-sledge, and thus discovered the two most southerly of the New Siberian Islands, a discovery which was rewarded by the Czarina Catherine II. with the exclusive right to hunt and collect ivory on them.[234]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LJACHOFF'S ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

Ljachoff states the breadth of the sound between the mainland and the nearest large island at 70 versts or 40'. On Wrangel's map again the breadth is not quite 30'. On the mainland side it is bounded by a rocky headland projecting far into the sea, which often formed the turning point in attempts to penetrate eastwards from the mouth of the river Lena, and perhaps just on that account, like many other headlands dangerous to the navigator on the north coast of Russia, was called _Svjatoinos_ (the holy cape), a name which for the oldest Russian Polar Sea navigators appears to have had the same signification as "the cape that can be pa.s.sed with difficulty." No one however now thinks with any apprehension of the two "holy capes," which in former times limited the voyages of the Russians and Fins living on the White Sea to the east and west, and this, I am quite convinced, will some time be the case with this and all other holy capes in the Siberian Polar Sea.

The sea water in the sound was much mixed with river water and had a comparatively high temperature, even at a depth of nine to eleven metres. The animal life at the sea bottom was poor in species but rich in individuals, consisting princ.i.p.ally of _Idothea entomon_, of which Dr. Stuxberg counted 800 specimens from a single sweep of the dredge. There were obtained at the same time, besides a few specimens of _Idothea Sabinei_, sponges and bryozoa in great abundance, and small mussels, crustacea, vermes, &c. Various fishes were also caught, and some small algae collected. The trawl-net besides brought up from the bottom some fragments of mammoth tusks, and a large number of pieces of wood, for the most part sticks or branches, which appear to have stood upright in the clay, to judge from the fact that one of their ends was often covered with living bryozoa. These sticks often caused great inconvenience to the dredgers, by tearing the net that was being dragged along the bottom.

On the night preceding the 31st of August, as we steamed past Svjatoinos, a peculiar phenomenon was observed. The sky was clear in the zenith and in the east; in the west, on the other hand, there was a bluish-grey bank of cloud. The temperature of the water near the surface varied between +1 and +1.6, that of the air on the vessel between +1.5 and +1.8. Although thus both the air and the water had a temperature somewhat above the freezing-point, ice was seen to form on the calm, mirror-bright surface of the sea. This ice consisted partly of needles, partly of a thin sheet. I have previously on several occasions observed in the Arctic seas a similar phenomenon, that is to say, have observed the formation of ice when the temperature of the air was above the freezing-point. On this occasion, when the temperature of the uppermost stratum of water was also above the freezing-point, the formation of ice was clearly a sort of h.o.a.r-frost phenomenon, caused by radiation of heat, perhaps both upwards towards the atmosphere and downwards towards the bottom layer of water, cooled below the freezing-point.

The whole day we continued our voyage eastwards with glorious weather over a smooth ice-free sea, and in the same way on the 1st September, with a gentle southerly wind, the temperature of the air at noon in the shade being +5.6. On the night before the 2nd September the wind became northerly and the temperature of the air sank to -1. Little land was seen, though we were still not very far from the coast. Near to it there was a broad ice-free, or nearly ice-free, channel, but farther out to sea ice commenced. The following night snow fell, so that the whole of the deck and the Bear Islands, which we reached on the 3rd September, were sprinkled with it.

Hitherto, during the whole time we sailed _along the coast_, we had scarcely met with any fields of drift-ice but such as were formed of rotten, even, thin and scattered pieces of ice, in many places almost converted into ice-sludge, without an "ice-foot" and often dirty on the surface. No iceberg had been seen, nor any large glacier ice-blocks, such as on the coasts of Spitzbergen replace the Greenland icebergs. But east of Svjatoinos the ice began to increase in size and a.s.sume the same appearance as the ice north of Spitzbergen. It was here, besides, less dirty, and rested on a hard ice-foot projecting deep under water and treacherous for the navigator.

The ice of the Polar Sea may be divided into the following varieties:--

1. _Icebergs._ The true icebergs have a height above the surface of the water rising to 100 metres. They often ground in a depth of 200 to 300 metres, and have thus sometimes a cross section of up to 400, perhaps 500 metres. Their area may amount to several square kilometres. Such enormous blocks of ice are projected into the North Polar Sea only from the glaciers of Greenland, and according to Payer's statement, from those of Franz-Josef Land also; but not, as some authors (GEIKIE, BROWN, and others) appear to a.s.sume and have shown by incorrect ideal drawings, from glaciers which project into the sea and there terminate with a perpendicular evenly-cut border, but from very uneven glaciers which always enter the sea in the bottoms of deep fjords, and are split up into icebergs long before they reach it. It is desirable that those who write on the origin of icebergs, should take into consideration the fact that icebergs are only formed at places where a violent motion takes place in the ma.s.s of the ice, which again within a comparatively short time results in the excavation of the deep ice-fjord. The largest iceberg, which, so far as I know, has been _measured_ in that part of the Polar Sea which lies between Spitzbergen and Wrangel Land, is one which Barents saw at Cape Na.s.sau on the 17/7th August 1596. It was sixteen fathoms high, and had grounded in a depth of thirty-six fathoms. In the South Polar Sea icebergs occur in great numbers and of enormous size. If we may a.s.sume that they have an origin similar to those of Greenland, it is probable that round the South Pole there is an extensive continent indented by deep fjords.

2. _Glacier Ice-blocks._ These, which indeed have often been called icebergs, are distinguished from true icebergs not only by their size, but also by the way in which they are formed.

They have seldom a cross section of more than thirty or forty metres, and it is only exceptionally that they are more than ten metres high above the surface of the water. They originate from the "calving" of glaciers which project into the sea with a straight and evenly high precipitous border. Such glaciers occur in large numbers on the coasts of Spitzbergen, and they are there of the same height as similar evenly-cut glaciers on Greenland. According to the statement of the Dane PETERSEN, who took part both in KANE'S expedition in 1853-55 and in Torell's in 1861, the glaciers, for instance, at Hinloopen Strait in Spitzbergen, are fully equal, with respect to their size and the height of their borders above the sea-level, to the enormous and much bewritten Humboldt glacier in Greenland. In Spitzbergen too we find at two places miniatures of the Greenland ice-currents, for instance the glacier which filled the North Haven in Bell Sound, another glacier which filled an old Dutch whaling haven between Recherche Bay and Van Keulen Bay, a glacier on the north side of Wablenberg Bay and perhaps at that part of the inland ice marked in my map of the expedition of 1872 as a bay on the east coast of North-east Land. It is even possible that small icebergs may be projected from the last-mentioned place, and thence drift out into the sea on the east coast of Spitzbergen.

Glacier-ice shows a great disposition to fall asunder into smaller pieces without any perceptible cause. It is full of cavities, containing compressed air, which, when the ice melts, bursts its attenuated envelope with a crackling sound like that of the electric spark. It thus behaves in this respect in the same way as some mineral salts which dissolve in water with slight explosions.

Barents relates that on the 20/10th August 1596 he anch.o.r.ed his vessel to a block of ice which was aground on the coast of Novaya Zemlya. Suddenly, and without any perceptible cause, the rock of ice burst asunder into hundreds of smaller pieces with a tremendous noise, and to the great terror of all the men on board. Similar occurrences on a smaller scale I have myself witnessed. The cause to which they are due appears to me to be the following. The ice-block while part of the glacier is exposed to very severe pressure, which ceases when it falls into the sea. The pressure now in most cases equalises itself without any bursting asunder, but it sometimes happens that the inner strongly compressed portions of the ice-block cannot, although the pressure has ceased, expand freely in consequence of the continuous ice-envelope by which they are still surrounded. A powerful internal tension must thereby arise in the whole ma.s.s, which finally leads to its bursting into a thousand pieces. We have here a Prince Rupert's drop, but one whose diameter may rise to fifty metres, and which consists not of gla.s.s but of ice.

Glacier ice-blocks occur abundantly on the coasts of Spitzbergen and north Novaya Zemlya, but appear to be wanting or exceedingly rare along the whole north coast of Asia, between Yugor Schar and Wrangel Land. East of this they again occur, but not in any great numbers.

This appears to show that the Western Siberian Polar Sea is not surrounded by any glacial lands. The glacier ice is commonly of a blue colour. When melted it yields a pure water, free of salt.

Sometimes however it gives traces of salt, which are derived from the spray which the storms have carried high up on the surface of the glacier.

3. Pieces of ice from the ice-foot formed along the sea beach or the banks of rivers. They rise sometimes five or six metres above the surface of the water. They consist commonly of dirty ice, mixed with earth.

4. _River Ice_, level, comparatively small ice fields, which, when they reach the sea, are already so rotten that they soon melt away and disappear.

5. The walrus-hunters' _Bay Ice_; by which we understand level ice-fields formed in fjords and bays along the coast, and which have there been exposed to a comparatively early summer heat. The bay ice therefore melts away completely during summer, and it is not commonly much pressed together. When all the snow upon it has disappeared, there is to be seen above the surface of the water a little ice of the same colour as the water, while under water very considerable portions of unmelted hard ice are still remaining. This has given rise to the walrus-hunters' statement, which has been warmly maintained, that the ice in autumn finally disappears by sinking. Nearly all the ice we met with in the course of our voyage belonged to this variety.

6. _Sea Ice_, or heavy ice, which often exhibits traces of having been much pressed together, but has not been exposed to any early summer heat. The walrus-hunters call it sea ice, wis.h.i.+ng, I imagine, to indicate thereby that it is formed in the sea farther up towards the north. That it has drifted down from the north is indeed correct, but that it has been formed far from land over a considerable depth in the open sea is perhaps uncertain, as the ice that is formed there cannot, we think, be very thick. It has rather perhaps drifted down from the neighbourhood of some yet unknown Polar continent. Of this ice are formed most of the ice-fields in the seas east of Greenland, north of Spitzbergen, between Spitzbergen and the north island of Novaya Zemlya, and north of Behring's Straits. In the northern seas it does not melt completely during the summer, and remains of sea ice therefore often enter as component parts into the bay ice formed during the following winter.

The latter then becomes rough and uneven, from remnants of old sea ice being frozen into the newly formed ice. Sea ice is often pressed together so as to form great _torosses_ or ice-casts, formed of pieces of ice which at first are angular and piled loose on each other, but gradually become rounded, and freeze together into enormous blocks of ice, which, together with the glacier ice-blocks, form the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s of the ground ice found on the coasts of the Polar lands. The water which is obtained by melting sea-ice is not completely free from salt, but the older it is the less salt does it contain.

East of the Bear Islands heavy sea-ice in pretty compact ma.s.ses had drifted down towards the coast, but still left an open ice-free channel along the land. Here the higher animal world was exceedingly poor, which, as far as the avi-fauna was concerned, must be in some degree ascribed to the late season of the year. For Wrangel mentions a cliff at the Bear Islands which was covered with numberless birds'

nests. He saw besides, on the largest of these islands, traces of the bear, wolf, fox, lemming, and reindeer (Wrangel's _Reise_, i.

pp. 304 and 327). Now the surrounding sea was completely deserted.

No Polar bear saluted us from the ice-floes, no walruses, and only very few seals were visible. During many watches not a single natatory bird was seen. Only the phalarope was still met with in large numbers, even pretty far out at sea. Perhaps it was then migrating from the north. The lower animal world was more abundant.

From the surface of the sea the drag-net brought up various small surface crustacea, inconsiderable in themselves, but important as food for larger animals; and from the sea-bottom were obtained a large number of the same animal forms as from the sound at Svjatoinos, and in addition some beautiful asterids and a mult.i.tude of very large beaker sponges.

On the 3rd September, after we had sailed past the Bear Islands, the course was shaped right for Cape Chelagskoj. This course, as will be seen by a glance at the map, carried us far from the coast, and thus out of the channel next the land, in which we had hitherto sailed. The ice was heavy and close, although at first so distributed that it was navigable. But with a north wind, which began to blow on the night before the 1st September, the temperature fell below the freezing-point, and the water between the pieces of drift-ice was covered with a very thick crust of ice, and the drift-ice came closer and closer together.

It thus became impossible to continue the course which we had taken. We therefore turned towards the land, and at 6 o'clock P.M., after various bends in the ice and a few concussions against the pieces of ice that barred our way, again reached the ice-free channel, eight to twelve kilometres broad, next the land. While we lay a little way in among the drift-ice fields we could see no sign of open water, but it appeared as if the compact ice extended all the way to land, a circ.u.mstance which shows how careful the navigator ought to be in expressing an opinion as to the nature of the _pack_ beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the vessel. The temperature of the air, which in the ice-field had sunk to -3, now rose at once to + 4.1, while that of the water rose from -1.2 to +3.5, and its salinity fell from 2.4 to 13 per cent. All showed that we had now come into the current of the Kolyma, which from causes which have been already stated, runs from the mouth of the river along the land in an easterly direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEAKER SPONGES. From the sea off the mouth of the Kolyma. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND. After a drawing by O. Nordquist. ]

The Bear Islands lying off the mouth of the Kolyma are, for the most part, formed of a plutonic rock, whose upper part has weathered away, leaving gigantic isolated pillars. Four such pillars have given to the easternmost of the islands the name Lighthouse Island (Fyrpelaron). Similar ruin-like formations are found not only on Cape Baranov, which lies right opposite, but also at a great number of other places in that portion of the north coast of Siberia which lies farther to the east. Generally these cliff-ruins are collected together over considerable areas in groups or regular rows. They have thus, when seen from the sea, so bewildering a resemblance to the ruins of a gigantic city which had once been surrounded by strong walls and been full of temples and splendid buildings, that one is almost tempted to see in them memorials of the exploits of a Tamerlane or a Chingis Khan, up here in the high north.

The north side of the hill-tops was powdered with new-fallen snow, but the rest of the land was clear of snow. The distance between the south point of Ljachoff's Island and the Bear Islands is 360'. This distance we had traversed in three days, having thus made 120' in the twenty-four hours, or 5' per hour. If we consider the time lost in dredging, sounding, and determining the temperature and salinity of the water, and the caution which the navigator must observe during a voyage in quite unknown waters, this speed shows that during this part of our voyage we were hindered by ice only to a slight extent. Cape Baranov was pa.s.sed on the night before the 5th September, the mouth of Chaun Bay on the night before the 6th September, and Cape Chelagskoj was reached on the 6th at 4 o'clock P.M. The distance in a right line between this headland and the Bear Islands is 180'. In consequence of the many _detours_ in the ice we had required 2-1/2 days to traverse this distance, which corresponds to 72' per day, or 3' per hour, a speed which in a voyage in unknown, and for the most part ice-bestrewed waters, must yet be considered very satisfactory. But after this our progress began to be much slower. At midnight the sun was already 12 to 13 degree below the horizon, and the nights were now so dark that at that time of day we were compelled to lie still anch.o.r.ed to some large ground-ice. A farther loss of time was caused by the dense fog which often prevailed by day, and which in the unknown shallow water next the land compelled Captain Palander to advance with extreme caution. The navigation along the north coast of Asia began to get somewhat monotonous. Even the most zealous Polar traveller may tire at last of mere ice, shallow water and fog; and mere fog, shallow water and ice.

Now, however, a pleasant change began, by our coming at last in contact with natives. In the whole stretch from Yugor Schar to Cape Chelagskoj we had seen neither men nor human habitations, if I except the old uninhabited hut between Cape Chelyuskin and the Chatanga. But on the 6th September, when we were a little way off Cape Chelagskoj, two boats were sighted. Every man, with the exception of the cook, who could be induced by no catastrophe to leave his pots and pans, and who had circ.u.mnavigated Asia and Europe perhaps without having been once on land, rushed on deck. The boats were of skin, built in the same way as the "umiaks" or women's boats of the Eskimo. They were fully laden with laughing and chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed beings climbed up over the gunwale in a way that clearly indicated that they had seen vessels before. A lively talk began, but we soon became aware that none of the crew of the boats or the vessel knew any language common to both. It was an unfortunate circ.u.mstance, but signs were employed as far as possible. This did not prevent the chatter from going on, and great gladness soon came to prevail, especially when some presents began to be distributed, mainly consisting of tobacco and Dutch clay pipes. It was remarkable that none of them could speak a single word of Russian, while a boy could count tolerably well up to ten in English, which shows that the natives here come into closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders. They acknowledged the name _chukch_ or _chautchu_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BOATS. ]

Many of them were tall, well-grown men. They were clothed in close fitting skin trousers and "pesks" of reindeer skin. The head was bare, the hair always clipped short, with the exception of a small fringe in front, where the hair had a length of four centimetres and was combed down over the brow. Some had a cap of the sort used by the Russians at Chabarova, stuck into the belt behind, but they appeared to consider the weather still too warm for the use of this head-covering. The hair of most of them was bluish-black and exceedingly thick. The women were tattooed with black or bluish-black lines on the brow and nose, a number of similar lines on the chin, and finally some embellishments on the cheeks. The type of face did not strike one as so unpleasant as that of the Samoyeds or Eskimo. Some of the young girls were even not absolutely ugly. In comparison with the Samoyeds they were even rather cleanly, and had a beautiful, almost reddish-white complexion. Two of the men were quite fair. Probably they were descendants of Russians, who for some reason or other, as prisoners of war or fugitives, had come to live among the Chukches and had been nationalised by them.

In a little we continued our voyage, after the Chukches had returned to their boats, evidently well pleased with the gifts they had received and the leaf tobacco I had dealt out in bundles,--along with the clay pipes, of which every one got as many as he could carry between his fingers,--with the finery and old clothes which my comrades and the crew strewed around them with generous hand. For we were all convinced that after some days we should come to waters where winter clothes would be altogether unnecessary, where our want of any article could easily be supplied at the nearest port, and where the means of exchange would not consist of goods, but of stamped pieces of metal and slips of paper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHUKCH IN SEAL-GUT GREAT COAT. After a photograph by L. Palander. ]

On the 7th September, we steamed the whole day along the coast in pretty open ice. At night we lay to at a floe. The hempen tangles and the trawl-net were put out and yielded a very rich harvest. But in the morning we found ourselves again so surrounded by ice and fog, that, after several unsuccessful attempts to make an immediate advance, we were compelled to lie-to at a large piece of drift-ice near the sh.o.r.e. When the fog had lightened so much that the vessel could be seen from the land, we were again visited by a large number of natives, whom as before we entertained as best we could. They invited us by evident signs to land and visit their tents. As it was in any case impossible immediately to continue our voyage, I accepted the invitation, ordered a boat to be put out, and landed along with most of my comrades.