"The journey home was commenced at eight o'clock in the morning. In the course of it my driver sang Chukch songs. These are often only imitations of the cries of animals or improvisations without any distinct metre or rhythm, and very little variation in the notes; only twice I thought I could distinguish a distinct melody. In the afternoon my driver told me the Chukch names of several stars. At five o'clock in the afternoon I reached the Vega."
On the 10th October, the new ice at many places in the neighbourhood of the vessel was still so weak that it was impossible to walk upon it, and blue water-skies at the horizon indicated, that there were still considerable stretches of open water in the neighbourhood. But the drift-ice round about us lay so rock-fast, that I could already take solar altitudes from the deck of the vessel with a mercurial horizon. In order to ascertain the actual state of the case with reference to the open water, excursions were undertaken on the 13th October, in different directions. Dr. Kjellman could then, from the rocky promontory at Yinretlen, forty-two metres high, see large open spaces in the sea to the northward. Dr. Almquist went right out over the ice, following the track of Chukches, who had gone to catch seals. He travelled about twenty kilometres over closely packed drift-ice fields, without reaching open water, and found the newly frozen ice, with which the pieces of drift-ice were bound together, still everywhere unbroken. The Chukches, who visited the vessel in dog-sledges on the 28th October, informed us, however, that the sea a little to the east of us was still completely open.
On the 15th October the hunter Johnsen returned from a hunting expedition quite terrified. He informed us that during his wanderings on the tundra, he had found a murdered man and brought with him, with the idea that, away here in the land of the Chukches, similar steps ought to be taken as in those lands which are blessed by a well-ordered judiciary, as species facti, some implements lying beside the dead man, among which was a very beautiful lance, on whose blade traces of having been inlaid in gold could still be discovered. Fortunately he had come with these things through the Chukch camp unobserved. From the description which was given me, however, I was able immediately to come to the conclusion that the question here was not of any murder, but of a dead man laid out on the tundra. I requested Dr. Almquist to visit the place, in order that he might make a more detailed examination. He confirmed my conjecture. As wolves, foxes, and ravens had already torn the corpse to pieces, the doctor considered that he, too, might take his share, and therefore brought home with him from his excursion, an object carefully wrapped up and concealed among the hunting equipment, namely, the Chukch's head. It was immediately sunk to the sea-bottom, where it remained for a couple of weeks to be skeletonised by the crustacea swarming there, and it now has its number in the collections brought home by the Vega. This sacrilege was never detected by the Chukches, and probably the wolves got the blame of it, as nearly every spring it was seen that the corpse, which had been laid out during autumn, lost its head during winter. It was, perhaps, more difficult to explain the disappearance of the lance, but of this, too, the maws of the wolves might well bear the blame.
Our hunters now made hunting excursions in different directions, but the supply of game was scanty. The openings in the ice probably swarmed with seals, but they were too distant, and without a boat it was impossible to carry on any hunting there. Not a single Polar bear now appeared to be visible in the neighbourhood, although bears' skulls are found at several places on the beach, and this animal appears to play a great part in the imagination of the natives, to judge of the many figures of bears among the bone carvings I purchased from the Chukches. The natives often have a small strip of bear's skin on the seat of their sledges, but I have not seen any whole bear's skin here; perhaps the animal is being exterminated on the north coast of Siberia. Our wintering, therefore, will not enrich Arctic literature with any new bear stories—a very sensible difficulty for the writer himself. Wolves, on the other hand, occur on the tundra in sufficient abundance, even if one or other of the wolves found in mist and drifting snow, and saluted with shot, turned out, on a critical determination of species, to be our own dogs. At least, this was the case with the "wolf," that inveigled one of the crew into shooting a ball one dark night right through the thermometer case, fortunately without injuring the instruments, and with no other result than that he had afterwards to bear an endless number of jokes from his comrades on account of his wolf-hunt. Foxes, white, red and black, also occurred here in great numbers, but they were at that season difficult to get at, and besides they had perhaps withdrawn from the coast. Hares, on the other hand, maintained themselves during the whole winter at Yinretlen, by day partly out on the ice partly on the cape, by night in the neighbourhood
of the tents. Sweepings and offal from the proceeds of the chase had there produced a vegetation, which, though concealed by snow, yielded to the hares in winter a more abundant supply of food than the barren tundra. It was remarkable that the hares were allowed to live between the tents and in their neighbourhood without being disturbed by the score of lean and hungry dogs belonging to the village. When farther into the winter for the sake of facilitating the hare-hunting I had a hut erected for Johnsen the hunter, he chose as the place for it the immediate neighbourhood of the village, declaring that the richest hunting-ground in the whole neighbourhood was just there. The shooters stated that part of the hares became snow-blind in spring. The hares here are larger than with us, and have exceedingly delicious flesh.
On our arrival most of the birds had already left these regions, so inhospitable in winter, or were seen high up in the air in collected flocks, flying towards the south entrance of Behring's Straits. Still on the 19th October an endless procession of birds was seen drawing towards this region, but by the 3rd November it was noted, as something uncommon, that a gull settled on the refuse heaps in the neighbourhood of the vessel. It resembled the ivory gull, but had a black head. Perhaps it was the rare Larus Sabinii, of which a drawing has been given above.[257] All the birds which passed us came from the north-west, that is, from the north coast of Siberia, the New Siberian Islands or Wrangel Land. Only the mountain owl, a species of raven and the ptarmigan wintered in the region, the last named being occasionally snowed up.
The ptarmigan here is not indeed so plump and good as the Spitzbergen ptarmigan during winter, but in any case provided us with an always welcome, if scanty change from the tiresome preserved meat. When some ptarmigan were shot, they were therefore willingly saved up by the cook, along with the hares, for festivals. For in order to break the monotony on board an opportunity was seldom neglected that offered itself for holding festivities. Away there on the coast of the Chukch peninsula there were thus celebrated with great conscientiousness during the winter of 1878-9, not only our own birthdays but also those of King Oscar, King Christian and King Humbert, and of the Emperor Alexander. Every day a newspaper was distributed, for the day indeed, but for a past year. In addition we numbered among our diversions constant intercourse with the natives, and frequent visits to the neighbouring villages, driving in dog-sledges, a sport which would have been very enjoyable if the dogs of the natives had not been so exceedingly poor and bad, and finally industrious reading and zealous studies, for which I had provided the expedition with an extensive library, intended both for the scientific men and officers, and for the crew, numbering with the private stock of books nearly a thousand volumes.