The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 6

[Footnote 27: It ought to be remarked here that the distances which Othere in that case traversed every day, give a speed of sailing approximating to that which a common sailing vessel of the present day attains _on an average_. This circ.u.mstance, which on a cursory examination may appear somewhat strange, finds its explanation when we consider that Othere sailed only with a favourable wind, and, when the wind was unfavourable, lay still. It appears that he usually sailed 70' to 80' in twenty-four hours, or perhaps rather _per diem._ ]

[Footnote 28: The maps are taken from _Ptolemaei Cosmographia latine reddita a Jac. Angelo, curam mapparum gerente Nicolao Donis Germano, Ulmoe_ 1482, and from the above-quoted work of Jacobus Ziegler, printed in 1532. That portion of the latter which concerns the geography of Scandinavia is reprinted in _Geografiska Sektionens Tidskrift_, B.I. Stockholm, 1878. ]

[Footnote 29: These were the Dane, Erik Valkendorff, and the Norwegian, Olof Engelbrektsson. The Swedes, Johannes Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, and Peder Maonsson, Bishop of Vesteraos, also gave Ziegler important information regarding the northern countries. ]

[Footnote 30: Of these much-discussed narratives concerning _Indians_--probably men from North Scandinavia, Russia, or North America, certainly not j.a.panese, Chinese, or Indians--who were driven by storms to the coasts of Germany, the first comes down to us from the time before the birth of Christ. For B.C. 62 Quintus Metellus Celer, "when as proconsul he governed Gaul, received as a present from the King of the Baeti [Pliny says of the Suevi] some Indians, and when he inquired how they came to those countries, he was informed that they had been driven by storm from the Indian Ocean to the coasts of Germany" (Pomponius Mela, lib. iii. cap. 5, after a lost work of Cornelius Nepos. Plinius, _Hist. Nat._, lib.

ii. cap. 67).

Of a similar occurrence in the middle ages, the learned aeneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope under the name of Pius II., gives the following account of his cosmography:--"I have myself read in Otto [Bishop Otto, of Freising], that in the time of the German Emperor an Indian vessel and Indian merchants were driven by storm to the German coast. Certain it was that, driven about by contrary winds, they came from the east, which had been by no means possible, if, as many suppose, the North Sea were unnavigable and frozen" (Pius II., _Cosmographia in Asiae et Europae eleganti descriptione, etc._, Parisiis, 1509, leaf 2). Probably it is the same occurrence which is mentioned by the Spanish historian Gomara (_Historia general de las Indias_, Saragoca, 1552-53), with the addition, that the Indians stranded at Lubeck in the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190). Gomara also states that he met with the exiled Swedish Bishop Olaus Magnus, who positively a.s.sured him that it was possible to sail from Norway by the north along the coasts to China (French translation of the above-quoted work, Paris, 1587, leaf 12). An exceedingly instructive treatise on this subject is to be found in _Aarboger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie_, Kjobenhavn, 1880.

It is written by F. Schiern, and ent.i.tled _Om en etnologisk Gaade fra Oldtiden_. ]

[Footnote 31: Olaus Magnus, _Auslegung und Verklerung der neuen Mappen von den alten Goettewreich_, Venedig, 1539. Now perhaps (according to a communication from the Librarian-in-chief, G.E.

Klemming) there is scarcely any copy of this edition of the map still in existence, but it is given unaltered in the 1567 Basel edition of Olaus Magnus, "_De gentium septentrionalium rariis conditionibus_," &c. The edition of the same work printed at Rome in 1555, on the other hand, has a map, which differs a little from the original map of 1539. ]

[Footnote 32: To interpret Nicol and Antonio Zeno's travels towards the end of the fourteenth century, which have given rise to so much discussion, as Mr. Fr. Krarup has done, in such a way as if they had visited the sh.o.r.es of the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea, appears to me to be a very unfortunate guess, opposed to innumerable particulars in the narrative of the Zenos, and to the accompanying map, remarkable in more respects than one, which was first published at Venice in 1558, unfortunately in a somewhat "improved" form by one of Zeno's descendants. On the map there is the date MCCCLx.x.x.

(Cf. _Zeniernes Reise til Norden, et Tolknings Forsog_, af Fr.

Krarup, Kjobenhavn, 1878; R.H. Major, _The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers Nicol and Antonio Zeno_, London, 1873, and other works concerning these much-bewritten travels). ]

[Footnote 33: The first edition, ent.i.tled _Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, &c._, Vienna, 1549, has three plates, and a map of great value for the former geography of Russia. It is, however, to judge by the copy in the Royal Library at Stockholm, partly drawn by hand, and much inferior to the map in the Italian edition of the following year (_Comentari della Moscovia et parimente della Russia, &c., per il Signor Sigismondo libero Barone in Herbetstain, Neiperg and Guetnbag, tradotti nuaomente di Latino in lingua nostra volgare Italiana_, Venetia, 1550, with two plates and a map, with the inscription "per Giacomo Gastaldo cosmographo in Venetia, MDL"). Von Herbertstein visited Russia as amba.s.sador from the Roman Emperor on two occasions, the first time in 1517, the second in 1525, and on the ground of these two journeys published a sketch of the country, by which it first became known to West-Europeans, and even for Russians themselves it forms an important original source of information regarding the state of civilisation of the empire of the Czar in former times. Von Adelung enumerates in _Kritisch-literarische ubersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 1700_, St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1846, eleven Latin, two Italian, nine German, and one Bohemian translation of this work. An English translation has since been published by the Hakluyt Society. ]

[Footnote 34: _Von Herbertstein_, first edition, leaf xxviii., in the second of the three separately-paged portions of the work. ]

[Footnote 35: An erroneous transposition of mountains seen in Norway, the northeastern sh.o.r.e of the White Sea being low land. ]

[Footnote 36: An unfortunate translation, which often occurs in old works, of Swjatoinos, "the holy headland." ]

[Footnote 37: Instead of "north of," the true reading probably is "beyond" the Dwina. ]

[Footnote 38: Huberti Langueti _Epistoloe Secretoe_, Halae, 1699, i.

171. Compare also a paper by A.G. Ahlquist, in _Ny Ill.u.s.trerad Tidning_ for 1875, p. 270. ]

[Footnote 39: The first to incite to voyages of discovery in the polar regions was an Englishman, Robert Thorne, who long lived at Seville. Seeing all other countries were already discovered by Spaniards and Portuguese, he urged Henry VIII. in 1527 to undertake discoveries in the north. After reaching the Pole (going sufficiently far north) one could turn to the east, and, first pa.s.sing the land of the Tartars, get to China and so to Malacca, the East Indies, and the Cape of Good Hope, and thus circ.u.mnavigate the "whole world." One could also turn to the west, sail along the back of Newfoundland, and return by the Straits of Magellan (Richard Hakluyt, _The Princ.i.p.ael Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, &c._, London, 1589, p. 250). Two years before, Paulus Jovius, on the ground of communications from an amba.s.sador from the Russian Czar to Pope Clement VII., states that Russia is surrounded on the north by an immense ocean, by which it is possible, if one keeps to the right sh.o.r.e, and if no land comes between, to sail to China. (Pauli Jovii _Opera, Omnia_, Basel, 1578, third part, p. 88; the description of Russia, inserted there under the t.i.tle "Libellus de legatione Basilii ad Clementem VII.," was printed for the first time at Rome in 1525.) ]

[Footnote 40: In the year 1540, London, exclusive of the Royal Navy, had no more than four vessels, whose draught exceeded 120 tons (Anderson, _Origin of Commerce_, London, 1787, vol. ii. p. 67). Most of the coast towns of Scandinavia have thus in our days a greater sea-going fleet than London had at that time. ]

[Footnote 41: For instance Article 30: "Item, if you shall see them [the foreigners met with during the voyage] weare Lyons or Bears skinnes, hauing long bowes, and arrowes, be not afraid of that sight: for such be worne oftentimes more to feare strangers, then for any other cause." (_Hakluyt_, 1st edition, p. 262.) ]

[Footnote 42: The endeavour to procure for this work a copy of an original portrait of Cabot, stated to be in existence in England, has unfortunately not been crowned with success. ]

[Footnote 43: According to Clement Adams' account of the voyage.

(_Hakluyt_, 1st edition, p. 271.) ]

[Footnote 44: "c.u.m ob corporis formam (erat enim procerae staturae) tum ob singularem in re bellica industriam." Clement Adams'

account--_Hakluyt_, p. 271. ]

[Footnote 45: Ten days earlier or later are of very great importance with respect to the state of the ice in summer in the Polar seas. I have, therefore, in quoting from the travels of my predecessors, reduced the old style to the new. ]

[Footnote 46: "Vibrantur bombardarum fulmina, Tartariae volvuntur nubes, Martem sonant crepitacula, reboant summa montium juga, reboant valles, reboant undae, claraque Nautarum percellit sydara clamor." Clement Adams' account.--_Hakluyt_, p. 272. ]

[Footnote 47: At the time when the whale-fishing at Spitzbergen commenced, Thomas Edge, a captain of one of the Muscovy Company's vessels, endeavoured to show that the land which Willoughby discovered while sailing about after parting company with Chancelor was Spitzbergen (_Purchas_, iii. p. 462). The statement, which was evidently called forth by the wish to monopolise the Spitzbergen whale-fishing for England, can be shown to be incorrect. It has also for a long time back been looked upon as groundless. Later inquirers have instead supposed that the land which Willoughby saw was Gooseland, on Novaya Zemlya. For reasons which want of s.p.a.ce prevents me from stating here, this also does not appear to me to be possible. On the other hand, I consider it highly probable that "Willoughby's Land" was Kolgujev Island, which is surrounded by shallow sand-banks. Its lat.i.tude has indeed in that case been stated 2 too high, but such errors are not impossible in the determinations of the oldest explorers. ]

[Footnote 48: The testator was Gabriel Willoughby, who, as merchant, sailed in the commander's vessel. ]

[Footnote 49: _Hakluyt_, p. 500; _Purchas_, iii. p. 249, and in the margin of p. 463. ]

[Footnote 50: It is of him that it is narrated in a letter written from Moscow by Henrie Lane, that the Czar at an entertainment "called them to his table, to receave each one a cuppe from his hand to drinke, and tooke into his hand Master George Killingworths beard, which reached over the table, and pleasantly delivered it the Metropolitane, who seeming to bless it, sad in Russe, 'this is G.o.ds gift.'"--_Hakluyt_, p. 500. ]

[Footnote 51: As the Dwina lies to the south of Vardoehus, these remarks probably relate to an earlier part of the voyage than that which is referred to in the narrative. ]

[Footnote 52: Writings on these voyages are exceedingly numerous.

An account of them was published for the first time in Hakluyt, _The princ.i.p.ael Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, &c._, London, 1589; _Ordinances, King Edward's Past, &c._, p. 259; _Copy of Sir Hugh Willoughby's Journal, with a List of all the Members of the Expedition_, p. 265; _Clement Adams' Account of Chancelor's Voyage_, p. 270, &c. The same doc.u.ments were afterwards printed in Purchas' _Pilgrimage_, iii. p. 211. For those who wish to study the literature of this subject further, I may refer to Fr. von Adelung, _Kritisch-literarische ubersicht der Reisenden in Russland_, St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1846, p. 200; and L. Hamel, _Tradesrunt der Aeltere 1618 in Russland_, St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1847. ]

CHAPTER II.

Departure from Maosoe--Gooseland--State of the Ice-- The Vessels of the Expedition a.s.semble at Chabarova-- The Samoyed town there--The Church--Russians and Samoyeds-- Visit to Ohabarova in 1875--Purchase of Samoyed Idols-- Dress and Dwellings of the Samoyeds--Comparison of the Polar Races--Sacrificial Places and Samoyed Grave on Vaygats Island visited--Former accounts of the Samoyeds-- Their place in Ethnography.

The _Vega_ was detained at Maosoe by a steady head wind, rain, fog, and a very heavy sea till the evening of the 25th July. Though the weather was still very unfavourable, we then weighed anchor, impatient to proceed on our voyage, and steamed out to sea through Mageroe Sound. The _Lena_ also started at the same time, having received orders to accompany the _Vega_ as far as possible, and, in case separation could not be avoided, to steer her course to the point, Ohabarova in Yugor Schar, which I had fixed on as the rendezvous of the four vessels of the expedition. The first night, during the fog that then prevailed, we lost sight of the _Lena_, and did not see her again until we had reached the meeting place.

The course of the _Vega_ was shaped for South Goose Cape. Although, while at Tromsoe, I had resolved to enter the Kara Sea through Yugor Schar, the most southerly of the sounds which lead to it--so northerly a course was taken, because experience has shown that in the beginning of summer so much ice often drives backwards and forwards in the bay between the west coast of Vaygats Island and the mainland, that navigation in these waters is rendered rather difficult. This is avoided by touching Novaya Zemlya first at Gooseland, and thence following the western sh.o.r.e of this island and Vaygats to Yugor Schar. Now this precaution was unnecessary; for the state of the ice was singularly favourable, and Yugor Schar was readied without seeing a trace of it.

During our pa.s.sage from Norway to Gooseland we were, favoured at first with a fresh breeze, which, however, fell as we approached Novaya Zemlya; this notwithstanding, we made rapid progress under steam, and without incident, except that the excessive rolling of the vessel caused the overturn of some boxes containing instruments and books, fortunately without any serious damage ensuing.

Land was sighted on the 28th July at 10.30 P.M. It was the headland which juts out from the south of Gooseland in 70 33' N.L. and 51 54'

E.L. (Greenwich). Gooseland is a low stretch of coast, occupied by gra.s.sy flats and innumerable small lakes, which projects from the mainland of Novaya Zemlya between 72 10' and 71 30' N.L. The name is a translation of the Russian Gusinnaja Semlja, and arises from the large number of geese and swans (_Cygnus Bewickii_, Yarr.) which breed in that region. The geese commonly place their exceedingly inconsiderable nests on little hillocks near the small lakes which are scattered over the whole of Gooseland; the powerful swans, which are very difficult of approach by the hunter, on the other hand breed on the open plain. The swans' nests are so large that they may be seen at a great distance. The building material is moss, which is plucked from the ground within a distance of two metres from the nest, which by the excavation which is thus produced, is surrounded by a sort of moat. The nest itself forms a truncated cone, 0.6 metre high and 2.4 metres in diameter at the bottom.

In its upper part there is a cavity, 0.2 metre deep and 0.6 metre broad, in which the four large grayish-white eggs of the bird are laid. The female hatches the eggs, but the male also remains in the neighbourhood of the nest. Along with the swans and geese, a large number of waders, a couple of species of Lestris, an owl and other birds breed on the plains of Gooseland, and a few guillemots or gulls upon the summits of the strand cliffs. The avifauna along the coast here is besides rather poor. At least there are none of the rich fowl-fells, which, with their millions of inhabitants and the conflicts and quarrels which rage amongst them, commonly give so peculiar a character to the coast cliffs of the high north. I first met with true loom and kittiwake fells farther north on the southern sh.o.r.e of Besimannaja Bay.

Although Gooseland, seen from a distance, appears quite level and low, it yet rises gradually, with an undulating surface, from the coast towards the interior, to a gra.s.sy plain about sixty metres above the sea-level, with innumerable small lakes scattered over it.

The plain sinks towards the sea nearly everywhere with a steep escarpment, three to fifteen metres high, below which there is formed during the course of the winter an immense snowdrift or so-called "snow-foot," which does not melt until late in the season.

_There are no true glaciers here, nor any erratic blocks, to show that circ.u.mstances were different in former times._ Nor are any snow-covered mountain-tops visible from the sea. It is therefore possible at a certain season of the year (during the whole of the month of August) to sail from Norway to Novaya Zemlya, make sporting exclusions there, and return without having seen a trace of ice or snow. This holds good indeed only of the low-lying part of the south island, but in any case it shows how erroneous the prevailing idea of the natural state of Novaya Zemlya is. By the end of June or beginning of July the greater part of Gooseland is nearly free of snow, and soon after the Arctic flower-world develops during a few weeks all its splendour of colour. Dry, favourably situated spots are now covered by a low, but exceedingly rich flower bed, concealed by no high gra.s.s or bushes. On moister places true gra.s.sy turf is to be met with, which, at least when seen from a distance, resembles smiling meadows.

In consequence of the loss of time which had been caused by the delay in sailing along the coast of Norway, and our stay at Maosoe, we were unable to land on this occasion, but immediately continued our course along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya towards Yugor Schar, the weather being for the most part glorious and calm.

The sea was completely free of ice, and the land bare, with the exception of some small snow-fields concealed in the valleys. Here and there too along the steep strand escarpments were to be seen, remains of the winter's snow-foot, which often, when the lower stratum of air was strongly heated by the sun, were magnified by a strong mirage, so that, when seen from a distance, they resembled immense glaciers terminating perpendicularly towards the sea. Coming farther south the clear weather gave us a good view of Vaygats Island. It appears, when seen from the sea off the west coast, to form a level gra.s.sy plain, but when we approached Yugor Schar, low ridges were seen to run along the east side of the island, which are probably the last ramifications of the north spur of Ural, known by the name of Paj-koi.

When we were off the entrance to Yugor Schar, a steamer was sighted.

After much guessing, the _Fraser_ was recognised. I was at first very uneasy, and feared that an accident had occurred, as the course of the vessel was exactly the opposite of that which had been fixed beforehand, but found, when Captain Nilsson soon after came on board, that he had only come out to look for us. The _Express_ and the _Fraser_ had been waiting for us at the appointed rendezvous since the 20th. They had left Vardoe on the 13th, and during the pa.s.sage had met with as little ice as ourselves. The _Vega_ and _Fraser_ now made for the harbour at Chabarova, where they anch.o.r.ed on the evening of the 30th July with a depth of fourteen metres and a clay bottom. The _Lena_ was still wanting. We feared that the little steamer had had some difficulty in keeping afloat in the sea which had been encountered on the other side of North Cape.

A breaker had even dashed over the side of the larger _Vega_ and broken in pieces one of the boxes which were fastened to the deck.

Our fears were unwarranted. The _Lena_ had done honour to her builders at Motala works, and behaved well in the heavy sea. The delay had been caused by a compa.s.s deviation, which, on account of the slight horizontal intensity of the magnetism of the earth in these northern lat.i.tudes, was greater than that obtained during the examination made before the departure of the vessel from Gothenburg.

On the 31st the _Lena_ anch.o.r.ed alongside the other vessels, and thus the whole of our little Polar Sea squadron was collected at the appointed rendezvous.

Chabarova is a little village, situated on the mainland, south of Yugor Schar, west of the mouth of a small river in which at certain seasons fish are exceedingly abundant. During summer the place is inhabited by a number of Samoyeds, who pasture their herds of reindeer on Vaygats Island and the surrounding _tundra_, and by some Russians and Russianised Fins, who come hither from Pustosersk to carry on barter with the Samoyeds, and with their help to fish and hunt in the neighbouring sea. During winter the Samoyeds drive their herds to more southern regions, and the merchants carry their wares to Pustosersk, Mesen, Archangel, and other places. Thus it has probably gone on for centuries back, but it is only in comparatively recent times that fixed dwellings have been erected, for they are not mentioned in the accounts of the voyages of the Dutch in these regions.

The village, or "Samoyed town" as the walrus-hunters grandiosely call it, consists, like other great towns, of two portions, the town of the rich--some cabins built of wood, with flat turf-covered roofs--and the quarter of the common people, a collection of dirty Samoyed tents. There is, besides, a little church, where, as at several places along the sh.o.r.e, votive crosses have been erected.

The church is a wooden building, divided by a part.i.tion wall into two parts, of which the inner, the church proper, is little more than two and a half metres in height and about five metres square.

On the eastern wall during the time the region is inhabited, there is a large number of sacred pictures placed there for the occasion by the hunters. One of them, which represented St. Nicholas, was very valuable, the material being embossed silver gilt. Before the lamps hung large dinted old copper lamps or rather light-holders, resembling inverted Byzantine cupolas, suspended by three chains.