The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 15

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

The sun was visible for the last time on the 21st November, and it reappeared on the 19th January. On the 15th May the sun no longer set. The temperature was then under the freezing point of mercury.

That the upper edge of the sun should be visible on the 19th January we must a.s.sume a horizontal refraction of nearly 1. The islands on the Yenisej are so low that there was probably a pretty open horizon towards the south.

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

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

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

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

The great inundation had even taken the migrating birds at unawares.

For long stretches there was not a dry spot for them to rest upon, and thus it happened that exhausted ptarmigan alighted among the men on the roof; once a ptarmigan settled on Meyenwaldt's head, and a pair on the dogs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 92: Already in 1771 one of Pallas' companions, the student Sujeff, found large algae in the Kara Sea (Pallas, _Reise_. St.

Petersburg, 1771--1776, ii. p. 34). ]

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

[Footnote 94: The most northerly fixed dwelling-place, which is at present inhabited by Europeans, is the Danish commercial post Tasiusak, in north-western Greenland, situated in 73 24' N.L.

How little is known, even in Russia, of the former dwellings at the mouth of the Yenisej may be seen from _Neueste Nachrichten uber die nordlichste Gegend von Sibirien zwischen den Flussen Pja.s.sida und Chatanga in Fragen und Autworten abgefa.s.st. Mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen vom Herausgeber_ (K.E. v. Baer und Gr. v. Helmersen, _Beitrage sur Kenntniss des russischen Reiches_, vol. iv. p. 269.

St. Petersburg, 1841). ]

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

Saxifraga stellaris L.

Saxifraga cernua L.

Saxifraga rivularis L.

Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.

Stellaria humifusa ROTTB.

Sagina nivalis FR.

Arctophila pendulina (LAEST.) ANDS.

Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.

Dupontia Fisheri R. BR.

Aira caespitosa L.

Hierochloa pauciflora R. BR.

Eriophorum russeolum FR.

Eriophorum Scheuchzeri HOPPE.

Carex salina WG.

Carex ursina DESV.

Luzula hyperborea R. BR.

Luzula arctica BL. ]

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

Saxifraga cernua L.

Saxifraga caespitosa L.

Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.

Draba alpina L.

Ranunculus sulphureus SOL.

Ranunculus nivalis L.

Ranunculus pygmaeus WG.

Ranunculus lapponicus L.

Ranunculus borealis TRAUTV.

Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.

Salix glauca L.

Arctophila pendulina (LAEST.) AND.

Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.

Catabrosa concinna TH. FR.

Dupontia Fisheri R. BR.

Calamagrostis lapponica L.

Carex salina WG.

Carex rigida GOOD.

Eriophorum russeolum FR.

Luzula arcuata SM. f. hyperborea R. BR.

Lloydia serotina (L.) REICHENB.

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

[Footnote 98: Paul von Krusenstern, _Skizzen aus seinem Seemannsleben_.

Hirschberg in Silesia. Farther on I intend to give a more detailed account of von Krusenstern's two voyages in the Kara Sea. ]

[Footnote 99: _Deutsche Geogr. Blatter_ von Lindemann Namens d.

Geogr. Gesellsch., Bremen. I. 1877. II. 1878. O. Finsch, _Reise nach West-Sibirien im Jahre 1876_. Berlin, 1879. A bibliographical list has been drawn up by Count von Waldburg-Zeil under the t.i.tle, _Litteratur-Nachweis fur das Gebiet des unteren, Ob_. ]

[Footnote 100: Nordenskiold, _Redogorelse for en expedition till mynningen af Jenisej och Sibirien r 1875_, Bih. till Kongl.

Vet.-Ak. Handl, vol. iv., No. 1, p. 38-42. ]

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