There were some of their company on shoare, which did chase a white beare ouer the high clifs into the water, which beare the lodia that was aboard of vs killed in our sight.
This day there was a great gale of wind at North, and we saw so much ice driuing a seaboord, that it was then no going to sea.
August.
Saturday (1) I went ashore, and there I saw three morses that they had killed: they held one tooth of a Morse, which was not great, at a roble, and one white beare skin at three robles and two robles: they further tolde me, that there were people called Samoeds on the great Island, and that they would not abide them nor vs, who haue no houses, but only couerings made of Deere skins, set ouer them with stakes: they are men expert in shooting, [Footnote: That the Samoyeds were archers is shewn by old drawings, one of which I reproduce from Linschoten. Now the bow has completely gone out of use, for Nordenskiöld did not see a single archer. Wretched old flint firelocks are, however, common.] and have great plenty of Deere.
This night there fell a cruell storme, the wind being at West.
Sunday (2) we had very much winde, with plenty of snow, and we rode with two ankers a head.
[Illustration: Samoiedarum, trahis a rangiferis protractis insidentium. Nec non Idolorum ab ijsdem cultorum effigies. SAMOYED SLEIGH AND IDOLS. After an old Dutch engraving.]
Munday (3) we weyed and went roome with another Island, which was fiue leagues Eastnortheast from vs, and there I met againe with Loshak, and went on shore with him, and hee brought me to a heap of the Samoeds idols, which were in number aboue 300, the worst and the most vnartificiall worke that euer I saw: the eyes and mouthes of sundrie of them were bloodie, they had the shape of men, women and children, very grosly wrought, and that which they had made for other parts, was also sprinckled with blood. Some of their idols were an old sticke with two or three notches, mode with a knife in it. [Footnote: The accompanying fac-simile of a quaint old engraving of a Samoyed sleigh and idols gives an excellent idea of both.] I saw much of the footing of the sayd Samoeds, and of the sleds that they ride in. There was one of their sleds broken, and lay by the heape of idols, and there I saw a deers skinne which the foules had spoyled: and before certaine of their idols blocks were made as high as their mouthes, being all bloody, I thought that to be the table whereon they offered their sacrifice: I saw also the instruments, whereupon they had roasted flesh, and as farre as I could perceiue, they make their fire directly under the spit.
Loshak being there present tolde me that these Samoeds were not so hurtful as they of Ob are, and that they haue no houses, as indeede I saw none, but onely tents made of Deers skins, which they vnderproppe with stakes and poles: their boates are made of Deers skins, and when they come on shoare they cary their boates with them upon their backes: for their cariages they haue no other beastes to serue them, but Deere onely. As for bread and corne they haue none, except the Russes bring it to them: their knowledge is very base, for they know no letter. [Footnote: This is one of the oldest accounts of the Samoyeds we possess. Giles Fletcher, who in 1588 was Queen Elizabeth's Ambassador to the Czar, writes, in his accounts of Russia, of the Samoyeds in the following way:—
"The Samoyt hath his name (as the Russe saith) of eating himselfe: as if in times past they lived as the Cannibals, eating one another. Which they make more probable, because at this time they eate all kind of raw flesh, whatsoeuer it bee, euen the very carrion that lyeth in the ditch. But as the Samoits themselves will say, they were called Samoit, that is, of themselves, as though they were Indigenæ, or people bred upon that very soyle that never changed their seate from one place to another, as most Nations have done. They are clad in Seale-skinnes, with the hayrie side outwards downe as low as the knees, with their Breeches and Netherstocks of the same, both men and women. They are all Blacke hayred, naturally beardless. And therefore the Men are hardly discerned from the Women by their lookes: saue that the Women wear a locke of hayre down along both their eares." (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.)