VOYAGES IN THE POLAR SEA 



of Darkness," and has an interesting description of the journey 

 thither.^ 



He himself, he says, wished to go there from Bulgar, but gave it up, as 

 little benefit was to be expected of it. " That land lies 40 days' journey from 

 Bulgar, and the journey is only made in small cars ^ drawn by dogs. For this 

 desert has a frozen surface, upon which neither men nor horses can get foot- 

 hold, but dogs can, as they have claws. This journey is only undertaken by 

 rich merchants, each taking with him about a hundred carriages [sledges?], 

 provided with sufficient food, drink and wood; for in that country there is 

 found neither trees nor stones nor soil. As a guide through this land they 

 have a dog which has already made the journey several times, and it is so 

 highly prized that they pay as much as a thousand dinars [gold pieces] for 

 one. This dog is harnessed with three others by the neck to a car [sledge?], 

 so that it goes as the leader and the others follow it. When it stops, the others 

 do the sanje. . . . When the travelers have accomplished forty days' journey 

 through the desert, they stop in the Land of Darkness, leave their wares there, 

 and withdraw to their quarters. Next morning they go back to the same 

 spot . . ." and then follows a description of the dumb barter, like that in 

 Qazwini. They receive sable, squirrel and ermine in exchange for their goods. 

 "Those who go thither do not know with whom they trade, whether they be 

 spirits or men; they see no one." ^ 



Of special interest for our subject is the following statement 

 in Abu Hamid (io8o-ii6g or 11 70) which may point to the peo- 

 ples on the shores of the Polar Sea having obtained steel for their 

 harpoons and sealing weapons from Persia : 



" The traders travel from Bulgar to one of the lands of the infidels which is 

 called isu [Wisu]. from which the beaver comes. They take swords thither 

 which they buy in Adherbeigan [Persia], unpolished blades. They pour water 

 often over these, so that when the blades are hung up by a cord and struck, 

 they ring. . . . And that is as they ought to be. They buy beavers' skins 

 with these blades. The inhabitants of Isu go with these swords to a land near 

 the darkness and lying on the Dark Sea [the northern Atlantic or the Polar 

 Sea] and sell these swords for sables' skins. They [i.e., the inhabitants of 

 that country] again take some of these blades and cast them into the Dark 

 Sea. Then Allah lets a fish as big as a mountain come up to them, etc. They 

 cut up its flesh for days and months, and sometimes fill 100,000 houses with 

 it," etc. [Cf. Jacob, 1891, p. 76; 1891, p. 29; Mehren, 1857, pp. 169 f.] 



It is not credible that the swords which rang in this way 



1 Ibn Batuta, Voyages, etc., par Defremery et Sanguinetti, ii. pp. 399 f. 



2 This is doubtless an expression for a conveyance of some kind, which 

 must here have been a sledge. 



3 Cf. Frahn, 1823, pp. 230 f. 



145 



