[56] Probably on one of the small islands near Vaygats.
[57] A Russian hunter who had been serviceable to Stephen Burrough in many ways.
[58] Treatise of Russia and the adjoining Regions, written by Doctor Giles Fletcher, Lord Ambassador from the late Queen, Everglorious Elizabeth, to Theodore, then Emperor of Russia. A.D. 1588. Purchas, iii. p. 413.
[59] A still more extraordinary idea of the Samoyeds, than that which this woodcut gives us, we get from the way in which they are mentioned in the account of the journey which the Italian Minorite, Joannes de Plano Carpini, undertook in High Asia in the years 1245-47 as ambassador from the Pope to the mighty conqueror of the Mongolian hordes. In this book of travels it is said that Occodai Khan, Chingis Khan's son, after having been defeated by the Hungarians and Poles, turned towards the north, conquered the Bascarti, i.e. the Great Hungarians, then came into collision with the Parositi—who had wonderfully small stomachs and mouths, and did not eat flesh, but only boiled it and nourished themselves by inhaling the steam—and finally came to the Samogedi, who lived only by the chase and had houses and clothes of skin, and to a land by the ocean, where there were monsters with the bodies of men, the feet of oxen and the faces of dogs (Relation des Mongols ou Tartares, par le frère Jean du Plan de Carpin, publ. par M. d'Avezac, Paris 1838, p. 281. Compare Ramusio, Delle navigationi e viaggi, ii. 1583, leaf 236). At another place in the same work it is said that "the land Comania has on the north immediately after Russia, the Mordvini and Bileri, i.e. the Great Bulgarians, the Bascarti, i.e. the Great Hungarians, then the Parositi and Samogedi, who are said to have the faces of dogs" (Relation des Mongols, p. 351. Ramusio, ii., leaf 239).
CHAPTER III.
From the Animal World of Novaya Zemlya—The Fulmar Petrel—The Rotge or Little Auk—Brünnich's Guillemot—The Black Guillemot—The Arctic Puffin—The Gulls—Richardson's Skua—the Tern—Ducks and Geese—The Swan—Waders—The Snow Bunting—The Ptarmigan—The Snowy Owl—The Reindeer—The Polar Bear—The Mountain Fox—The Lemming—Insects—The Walrus—The Seal—Whales.
If we do not take into account the few Samoyeds who of recent years have settled on Novaya Zemlya or wander about during summer on the plains of Vaygats Island, all the lands which in the old world have formed the field of research of the Polar explorer—Spitzbergen, Franz-Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Vaygats Island, the Taimur Peninsula, the New Siberian Islands, and perhaps Wrangel's Land also—are uninhabited. The pictures of life and variety, which the native, with his peculiar manners and customs, commonly offers to the foreigner in distant foreign lands, are not to be met with here. But, instead, the animal life, which he finds there in summer—for during winter almost all beings who live above the surface of the sea disappear from the highest North—is more vigorous and perhaps even more abundant, or, to speak more correctly, less concealed by the luxuriance of vegetation than in the south.
It is not, however, the larger mammalia—whales, walruses, seals, bears and reindeer—that attract attention in the first place, but the innumerable flocks of birds that swarm around the Polar traveller during the long summer day of the North. Long before one enters the region of the Polar Sea proper, the vessel is surrounded by flocks of large grey birds which fly, or rather hover without moving their wings, close to the surface of the sea, rising and sinking with the swelling of the billows, eagerly searching for some eatable object on the surface of the water, or swim in the wake of the vessel in order to snap up any scraps that may be thrown overboard. It is the Arctic stormfogel[60] (Fulmar, "Mallemuck," "Hafhaest," Procellaria glacialis, L.). The fulmar is bold and voracious, and smells villanously, on which account it is only eaten in cases of necessity, although its flesh, if the bird has not recently devoured too much rotten blubber, is by no means without relish, at least for those who have become accustomed to the flavour of train oil, when not too strong. It is more common on Bear Island and Spitzbergen than on Novaya Zemlya, and scarcely appears to breed in any considerable numbers on the last-named place. I know three places north of Scandinavia where the fulmar breeds in large numbers: the first on Bear Island, on the slopes of some not very steep cliffs near the so-called south harbour of the island,[61] the second on the southern shore of Brandywine Bay on North-East Land, the third on ledges of the perpendicular rock-walls in the interior of Ice Fjord. At the two latter places the nests are inaccessible. On Bear Island, on the other hand, one can without very great difficulty plunder the whole colony of the dirty grey, short eggs, which are equally rounded at both ends. The eggs taste exceedingly well. The nest is very inconsiderable, smelling badly like the bird itself.
When the navigator has gone a little further north and come to an ice-bestrewed sea, the swell ceases at once, the wind is hushed and the sea becomes bright as a mirror, rising and sinking with a slow gentle heaving. Flocks of little auks (Mergulus alle, L.) Brünnich's guillemots (Uria Brünnichii, Sabine), and black guillemots (Uria grylle, L.) now swarm in the air and swim among the ice floes. The alke-kung (little auk), also called the "sea king," or rotge, occurs only sparingly off the southern part of Novaya Zemlya, and does not, so far as I know, breed there. The situation of the land is too southerly, the accumulations of stones along the sides of the mountains too inconsiderable, for the thriving of this little bird. But on Spitzbergen it occurs in incredible numbers, and breeds in the talus, 100 to 200 metres high, which frost and weathering have formed at several places on the steep slopes of the coast mountain sides; for instance, at Horn Sound, at Magdalena Bay, on the Norways (near 80° N.L.), and other places. These stone heaps form the palace of the rotge, richer in rooms and halls than any other in the wide round world. If one climbs up among the stones, he sees at intervals actual clouds of fowl suddenly emerge from the ground either to swarm round in the air or else to fly out to sea, and at the same time those that remain make their presence underground known by an unceasing cackling and din, resembling, according to Friedrich Martens, the noise of a crowd of quarrelling women. Should this sound be stilled for a few moments, one need only attempt in some opening among the stones to imitate their cry (according to Martens: rott-tet-tet-tet-tet) to get immediately eager and sustained replies from all sides. The fowl circling in the air soon settle again on the stones of the mountain slopes, where, squabbling and fighting, they pack themselves so close together that from fifteen to thirty of them may be killed by a single shot. A portion of the flock now flies up again, others seek their safety like rats in concealment among the blocks of stone. But they soon creep out again, in order, as if by agreement, to fly out to sea and search for their food, which consists of crustacea and vermes. The rotge dives with ease. Its single blueish-white egg is laid on the bare ground without a nest, so deep down among the stones that it is only with difficulty that it can be got at. In the talus of the mountains north of Horn Sound I found on the 18th June, 1858, two eggs of this bird lying directly on the layer of ice between the stones. Probably the hatching season had not then begun. Where the main body of these flocks of birds passes the winter, is unknown,[62] but they return to the north early—sometimes too early. Thus in 1873 at the end of April I saw a large number of rotges frozen to death on the ice in the north part of Hinloopen Strait. When cooked the rotge tastes exceedingly well, and in consequence of the great development of the breast muscles it affords more food than could be expected from its small size.