These Samoyeds, three men, three women, and a boy, spoke Russian. They had settled for the winter on the south part of Gooseland to shoot the seal and the walrus. They had with them a large barge, besides some small Samoyed boats, and were comparatively well provided with reindeer flesh, meal, tea, sugar, &c. Their guns were old flint-lock fowling-pieces, but they were good shots. With these Samoyeds the four shipwrecked men remained the whole winter, and were tolerably well off. When the weather permitted they assisted the Samoyeds in capturing seals, and when the weather was bad they passed the time as well as they could, the Samoyeds generally employing themselves in playing cards or draughts. In order to avoid scurvy the Samoyeds often took exercise in the open air, and ate reindeer flesh, partly cooked and partly raw, and drank the blood. They lived in the house until March was well advanced, when, for want of fuel, they were obliged to hew it down. Instead they removed into a tent of reindeer skin. These Samoyeds appear to have been Christians in name, though they must have had strange ideas of their new God. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it, they shot at the sun, because they believed that God was angry with them. They lived in a sort of marriage, but if the man became unfriendly to the woman, or tired of her, he could take another; they had no clocks, but, notwithstanding, had a tolerably good idea of time by the help of the stars and the sun; instead of an almanac they used a piece of wood, in which for every day they cut a notch. Although they sometimes quarrelled with and threatened one another, they were, however, on the whole friendly, and reasonable, and showed much kindness to the four shipwrecked men, whom they provided with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in abundance, according to their circumstances, so that they did not suffer any want.
Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen had, when they were separated in the snowstorm from the sledge party, half a pound of flesh and their guns, and nothing more. They did not succeed in finding any game, and though they were not very far from the house, they required three days and a half to get back to it. In the meantime, also, these two comrades in misfortune had been separated. Henrik Nilsen found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw hides of reindeer he had previously shot. After having lain a while in the boat he crept up to the house, where he found Henrik sleeping by the fire, which was not yet quite extinguished. The following day they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their lucifers were now done, but they lighted a fire by loading their guns with a mixture of which gunpowder formed a part, and firing into old ropes, left behind by the Russians, which they picked asunder and dried. One of the Russian huts they tore down and used as fuel. They had neither axe nor saw, but they split up the fuel by means of a piece of iron, which they took from the keel of the boat, and of which they made, by hammering with stones, a sort of knife. Of some nails, which they also took from the boat, they likewise forged needles by means of stones; they used reindeer sinews for thread, and of the hides they sewed clothes for themselves. They lived in the hut until some time in April. During this time they shot eleven reindeer and a bear, so that they did not actually suffer hunger; but in the middle of April they had powder remaining for only three shots, and they now saw the impossibility of supporting themselves longer at that place, wherefore they determined to go farther south, in order, if possible, to reach Vaygats Island. They went by land along the sea-shore, leaving the boat behind. After the lapse of some days they came to the same Samoyeds with whom the other four of the crew were, and they now remained till the middle of June with the Samoyeds, who gave them the same hospitable treatment as their companions in misfortune. When at the time specified it was determined to fetch the boat from the Russian hut, in order that they might make their way southwards, Johan Andersson, a Swede by birth, declared that he wished to remain with the Samoyeds, and was not willing to accompany the other five on their homeward journey.
The latter now dragged the boat for two days over the ice but when it became too heavy they had to cut it through the middle and leave a half behind. Of a large sealskin, which they got from the Samoyeds, they made a stern to the other half, which they continued to drag over the ice for three days, until they came to open water. Then they rowed in the truncated boat ten days, until they reached a fast ice-border at the Vaygats Island, where they again fell in with Samoyeds. Even by these, who could speak neither Russian nor Quaen, and by whom they could with difficulty make themselves understood, they were well received. They remained there eight days and got good entertainment. These Samoyeds had tame reindeer, with which they sent the shipwrecked men on their way southwards, till they fell in with a vessel, with which four returned to Norway. Lars Larsen now did not wish to go home, preferring to remain with the Samoyed family which he had last met with. Samoyed life, however, must not be so pleasant after all, for in a year or two both the men who had remained among the Samoyeds returned home. As a reward for the hospitality which the shipwrecked walrus-hunters had received from the Samoyeds on Gooseland, the Norwegian Government presented them with a number of gifts, consisting of clothes, pearls, breechloaders, with ammunition, &c., which were handed over to them with festive speeches and toasts on the 17th July, 1880. During the entertainment which took place on this occasion on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, toasts were drunk in champagne, and it is said that this liquor was very much relished by the Samoyeds.[185]
As little as Tobiesen could any other walrus-hunter make his way, either in 1872 or 1873, into the Kara Sea, the entrances of which were during these summers blocked by a compact belt of ice, which extended along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island to the mainland. In the belief of a large number of experienced walrus-hunters, with whom I have conversed on the subject, this belt of ice was only some few nautical miles broad, and it is therefore probable that even in those years there would have been no obstacle to prevent a passage eastwards by this route in autumn.
In 1874, on the contrary, the state of the ice became very favourable, and many walrus-hunters again as formerly sailed in all directions across the Kara Sea, which this year was also visited by an Englishman, Captain J. WIGGINS. None of them, however, penetrated farther to the east or north than Johannesen, Carlsen, Mack, and others had done during the years 1869-70.
It was not until the following year that the North-east voyages took a step forward, important both in a purely geographical as well as a practical point of view, when I succeeded in a walrus-hunting sloop, the Proeven, commanded by the walrus-hunting Captain Isaksen, in sailing through Yugor Straits, which were passed on 2nd August, and over the nearly ice-free Kara Sea as far as to the mouth of the Yenisej. The Proeven anchored there on the 15th August 1875, in, or more correctly immediately off, the same splendid haven where the Vega expedition lay at anchor from the 6th to the 10th August, 1878. Hence I sailed under various difficulties along with Dr. Stuxberg and Dr. Lundström and three men in a Nordland boat, up the river to Saostrovskoj, where we fell in with a steamer, in which we afterwards travelled to Yenisejsk. On leaving Port Dickson I handed over the command to Dr. Kjellman, who along with Dr. Thëel returned by sea to Europe across the Kara Sea and through Matotschkin Schar, which was passed during the return voyage on the 4th to the 11th September.
By this voyage of 1875 I was the first who succeeded in penetrating from the Atlantic Ocean in a vessel to the mouths of the great Siberian rivers. One of the objects which the old North-east voyagers had aimed at was thus at last accomplished, and that in a way that promised to be of immense practical importance for the whole of Siberia. The voyage was also regarded in that light by leading men in the great empire of the East, and our return journey from Yenisejsk by Krasnojarsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Nischni-Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg, became therefore a journey from fête to fête. But a number of voices were simultaneously raised, which asserted that the success of the Proeven depended on an accidental combination of fortunate circumstances, which would not soon occur again. In order to show that this was not the case, and that I might myself bring the first goods by sea to Siberia, I undertook my second voyage to the Yenisej in 1876, in which I penetrated with the steamer Ymer, not only to the mouth of the river, but also up the river to the neighbourhood of Yakovieva in 71° N.L. Hence I returned the same year by sea to Europe.[186] In the gulf of Yenisej a large island was discovered, which I named after Mr. Alexander Sibiriakoff, who defrayed the principal expenses of the expedition. Before starting on this voyage, I visited the Philadelphia Exhibition, and it may perhaps deserve to be mentioned, that leaving New York on the 1st July by one of the ordinary steamers, and going on board my own vessel in Norway, I reached the mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th August, that is to say, in forty-six days.
The same year Captain Wiggins also undertook a voyage to the Yenisej, in which he penetrated with a steamer up the river beyond the labyrinth of islands lying between 70° and 71° N.L. The vessel wintered there, but was lost the following spring at the breaking up of the ice.[187] The voyages of the Proeven and the Ymer led to several purely commercial voyages to the Yenisej and the Ob, of which however I can here with the greatest brevity mention only the following:
The Swedish steamer Fraser, commanded by the German Captain DALLMANN, after having been fitted out at Gothenburg on Sibiriakoff's account, sailed in 1877 with a cargo from Bremen to the Yenisej and back. The vessel left Hammerfest on the 9th August, arrived at Goltschicha on the 21st August, commenced the return voyage on the 14th September, and on the 24th of the same month was back at Hammerfest. The steamer Louise commanded by Captain DAHL, with a cargo of iron, olive oil, and sugar, the same year made the first voyage from England to Tobolsk, starting from Hull on the 18th July and arriving at Tobolsk on the 20th September.[188]