Volume 1 — CHAPTER III. (continued 2)

[67] When Spitzbergen was first mapped, a great number of places were named after reindeer, which shows that the reindeer was found there in large numbers, and now just at these places it is completely absent. On the other hand, the Dutch and English explorers during the sixteenth century saw no reindeer on Novaya Zemlya. During the Swedish expedition of 1875 no reindeer were seen on the west coast of this island south of Karmakul Bay, while a number were shot at Besimannaja Bay and Matotschkin Schar. When some of the companions of the well-known walrus-hunting captain, Sievert Tobiesen, were compelled in 1872-73 to winter at North Goose Cape, they shot during winter and spring only eleven reindeer. Some Russians, who by an accident were obliged to pass six years in succession somewhere on the coast of Stans Foreland (Maloy Broun), and who, during this long time, were dependent for their food on what they could procure by hunting without the use of fire-arms (they had when they landed powder and ball for only twelve shots), when the three survivors were found and taken home in 1749, had killed two hundred and fifty reindeer (P.L. le Roy, Relation des Aventures arrivées à quatre matelots Russes jettés par une tempête près de l'Isle deserte d'Ost-Spitzbergen, sur laquelle ils ont passé six ans et trois mois, 1766).

[68] During the wintering of 1869-70 on East Greenland, Dr. Punsch once saw a female bear with quite small young (Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt, Leipzig, 1873-74. Vol. II p. 157).

[69] W. Scoresby's des Jüngern, Tagebuch einer Reise auf dem Wallfischfang. Aus dem engl. üebers. Hamburg, 1825, p. 127.

[70] Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt, Vol. I. p. 465.

[71] Grönlands historiske Mindesmärker. Kjöbenhavn, 1838, III. p. 384.

[72] Ramusio, Part II., Venice, 1583, p. 60.

[73] Ol. Magnus. Rome edition, 1555, p. 621.

[74] It is stated that wolves also occur on Novaya Zemlya as far up as to Matotschkin Sound. They are exceedingly common on the north coasts of Asia and Eastern Europe.

[75] That is to say, not on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, for it is otherwise on the coast of the mainland. In West Greenland the mosquito as far north as the southern part of Disco Island is still so terrible, especially to the new comer during the first days, that the face of any one who without a veil ventures into marshy ground overgrown with bushes, becomes in a few hours unrecognisable. The eyelids are closed with swelling and changed into water-filled bladders, suppurating tumours are formed in the head under the hair, &c. But when a man has once undergone this unpleasant and painful inoculation, the body appears, at least for one summer, to be less susceptible to the mosquito-poison.

[76] As the only Chrysomela, which von Baer found at Matotschkin Schar, played so great a rôle in Arctic-zoological literature, I shall here enumerate the species of coleoptera, now known—after Professor Mäklim's determination of the collections which we brought home with us—to exist on Novaya Zemlya. These are:—Feronia borealis Ménétr., F. gelida Mäkl., Amara alpina Fabr., Agabus subquadratus Motsch., Homalota sibirica Mäkl., Homalium angustatum Mäkl., Cylletron (?) hyperboreum Mäkl., Chrysomela septentrionalis (?) Ménétr., Prasocuris hannoverana Fabr., v. degenerata. From Vaygats Island we brought home seven species more, which were not found on Novaya Zemlya. The insects occur partly under stones, especially at places where lemming dung is abundant, or in tracts where birds'-nests are numerous, partly in warm days on willow-bushes.

[77] Echini occur only very sparingly in the Kara Sea and the Siberian Polar Sea, but west of Novaya Zemlya at certain places in such numbers that they almost appear to cover the sea-bottom.

[78] Compare Malmgren's instructive papers in the publications of the Royal (Swedish) Academy of Sciences and Scoresby's Arctic Regions, Edinburgh, 1820, i., p. 502. That the walrus eats mussels is already indicated in the Dutch drawing from the beginning of the seventeenth century reproduced below, page 160.

[79] Implements of walrus-bone occur among the Northern grave finds.

[80] Compare note at page 48 above.

[81] I saw in 1858 a Phoca barbatawith tusks worn away by age, which in its reddish-brown colour very much resembled a walrus, and was little inferior to it in size.

[82] Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, Mantua, 1479, Lib. xxiv. At the same place however is given a description of the whale-fishery grounded on actual experience, but with the shrewd addition that what the old authors had written on the subject did not correspond with experience.

[83] This drawing is made after a facsimile by Frederick Müller from Hessel Gerritz, Descriptio et delineatio geographica detectionis freti, &c. Amsterodami, 1613. The same drawing is reproduced coloured in Blavii Atlas major, Part I, 1665, p. 25, with the inscription: "Ad vivum delineatum ab Hesselo G.A."

[84] The drawing is taken from a Japanese manuscript book of travels—No. 360 of the Japanese library which I brought home. According to a communication by an attaché of the Japanese embassy which visited Stockholm in the autumn of 1880, the book is entitled Kau-kai-i-fun, "Narrative of a remarkable voyage on distant seas." The manuscript, in four volumes, was written in 1830. In the introduction it is stated that when some Japanese, on the 21st November, 1793 (?), were proceeding with a cargo of rice to Yesso, they were thrown out of their course by a storm, and were driven far away on the sea, till in the beginning of the following June they came to some of the Aleutian islands, which had recently been taken by the Russians. They remained there ten months, and next year in the end of June they came to Ochotsk. The following year in autumn they were carried to Irkutsk, where they remained eight years, well treated by the Russians. They were then taken to St. Petersburg, where they had an audience of the Czar, and got furs and splendid food. Finally they were sent back by sea round Cape Horn to Japan in one of Captain von Krusenstern's vessels. They were handed over to the Japanese authorities in the spring of 1805, after having been absent from their native country about thirteen years. From Nagasaki they were carried to Yeddo, where they were subjected to an examination. One person put questions, another wrote the answers, and a third showed by drawings all the remarkable events they had survived. They were then sent to their native place. In the introduction it is further said that the shipwrecked were unskilful seamen, by whom little attention was often given to the most important matters. A warning accordingly is given against full reliance on their accounts and the drawings in the book. The latter occupy the fourth part of the work, consisting of more than 100 quarto pages. It is remarkable that the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe, and the first journey of the Japanese round the world, happened at the same time.

[85] A Report upon the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska. Washington, 1875, p. 160.

[86] Hakluyt, first edition, p. 317.