The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 13

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

_August 6th._ At three o'clock in the morning we had land in sight.

In the fog we had gone a little way up the Gulf of Yenisej, and so had to turn in order to reach our destination, Port d.i.c.kson. The mast-tops of the _Express_ were seen projecting over islands to the north, and both vessels soon anch.o.r.ed south of an island which was supposed to be d.i.c.kson's Island, but when the _Fraser_ soon after joined us we learned that this was a mistake. The sh.o.r.e, which, seen from our first anchorage, appeared to be that of the mainland, belonged in fact to the pretty extensive island, off which the haven itself is situated.

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

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

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

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

lying farther south.

I am convinced that the day will come when great warehouses and many dwellings inhabited all the year round will be found at Port d.i.c.kson.

Now the region is entirely uninhabited as far as Goltschicha, although, as the map reproduced here shows, numerous dwelling-houses were to be found built along the river bank and sea-sh.o.r.e beyond the mouth of the Yenisej and as far as to the Pjasina. They have long since been abandoned, in the first place in consequence of the hunting falling off, but probably also because even here, far away on the north coast of Siberia, the old simple and unpretentious habits have given way to new wants which were difficult to satisfy at the time when no steamers carried on traffic on the river Yenisej. Thus, for instance, the difficulty of procuring meal some decades back, accordingly before the commencement of steam communication on the Yenisej, led to the abandonment of a _simovie_ situated on the eastern bank of the river in lat.i.tude 72 25' north.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE MOUTH OF THE YENISEJ FROM ATLAS RUSSICUS CURA ET OPERE ACADEMIae IMPERIALIS SCIENTIARUM PETROPOLITANae PETROPOLI 1745. ]

The _simovies_ at the mouth of the Yenisej formed in their time the most northerly fixed dwelling-places of the European races.[94]

Situated as they were at the foot of the cold _tundra_, exposed to continual snowstorms in winter and to close fogs during the greater part of summer, which here is extremely short, it seems as if they could not offer their inhabitants many opportunities for enjoyment, and the reason why this tract was chosen for a residence, especially in a country so rich in fertile soil as Siberia, appears to be difficult to find. The remains of an old _simovie_ (Krestovskoj), which I saw in 1875 while travelling up the river along with Dr.

Lundstrom and Dr. Stuxberg, however, produced the impression that a true home life had once been led there. Three houses with turf-covered roofs then still remained in such a state that one could form an idea of their former arrangement and of the life which had been earned on in them. Each cabin contained a whole labyrinth of very small rooms; dwelling-rooms with sleeping places fixed to the walls, bake-rooms with immense fireplaces, bathing houses with furnaces for vapour-baths, storehouses for train-oil with large train-drenched blubber troughs hollowed out of enormous tree-stems, blubber tanks with remains of the white whale, &c., all witnessing that the place had had a flouris.h.i.+ng period, when prosperity was found there, when the home was regarded with loyalty, and formed in all its loneliness the central point of a life richer perhaps in peace and well-being than one is inclined beforehand to suppose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF A SIMOVIE AT KRESTOVSKOJ. After a drawing by A.

Stuxberg. ]

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

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

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

Cineraria frigida RICHARDS.

Erigeron uniflorus L.

Saussurea alpina DC.

Taraxac.u.m phymatocarpum J. VAHL.

Gymnandra Stelleri CH. &c. SCHL.

Pedicularis sudetica WILLD.

Pedicularis hirsuta L.

Pedicularis Oederi VAHL.

Eritrichium villosum BUNGE.

Myosotis silvatica HOFFM.

Astragalus alpinus L.

Oxytropis campestris (L.) DC.

Dryas octopetala L.

Sieversia glacialis B. BR.

Potentilla emarginata PURSH.

Saxifraga oppositifolia L.

Saxifraga bronchialis L.

Saxifraga Hirculus L.

Saxifraga stellaris L.

Saxifraga nivalis L.

Saxifraga hieraciifolia WALDST. &c. KIT.

Saxifraga punctata L.

Saxifraga cernua L.

Saxifraga rivularis L.

Saxifraga caespitosa L.

Chrysosplenium alternifolium L.

Rhodiola rosea L.

Parrya macrocarpa R. BR.

Cardamine pratensis L.

Cardamine bellidifolia L.

Eutrema Edwardsii R. BR.

Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR.

Draba alpina L.

Draba oblongata (R. BR.) DC.

Draba corymbosa R. BR.

Draba Wahlenbergii HN.

Draba altaica (LEDEB.) BUNGE.

Papaver nudicaule L.

Banunculus pygmaeus WG.

Ranunculus hyperboreus ROTTB.

Ranunculus lapponicus L.

Ranunculus nivalis L.

Ranunculus sulphureus SOL.

Ranunculus affinis R. BR.

Caltha pal.u.s.tris L.

Wahlbergella apetala (L.) FR.

Stellaria Edwardsii R. BR.

Cerastium alpinum L.

Alsine arctica FENZL.

Alsine macrocarpa FENZL.

Alsine rubella WG.

Sagina nivalis FR.

Oxyria digyna (L.) HILL.

Rumex arcticus TRAUTV.

Polygonum viviparum L.

Polygonum Bistorta L.

Salix polaris WG.

Festuca rubra L.

Poa cenisea ALL.

Poa arctica R BR.

Glyceria angustata B. BR.

Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR.

Catabrosa concinna TH. FR.

Colpodium latifolium E. BR.

Dupontia Fisheri E. BR.

Koeleria hirsuta GAUD.

Aira caespitosa L.

Alopecurus alpinus SM.