VOYAGE OF THE "VEGA" 253 



waters of the Ob, and enabled the Warkworth to cross 

 the bar and anchor within sight of the praam. There 

 was no time to be lost. The ship dared not venture on 

 shallower water, so the praam had to leave her haven of 

 shelter and trust herself to the swelling waves. She was 

 probably three or four hundred feet long, only pegged 

 together, with ribs fearfully wide asunder, and com- 

 manded by a captain chicken-hearted as Russian sailors 

 alone can be ; but though she writhed like a sea-serpent 

 by the side of the steamer, the operation proved success- 

 ful, and Captain Wiggins turned his face homewards 

 with the wheat on board. The cream of the success 

 was, however, skimmed at the bar. Two hundred tons 

 had to be thrown overboard before the deep channel 

 could be reached, but the bulk of the cargo was brought 

 safe into London. 



The seasons of 1879 and 1880 were unfavourable. 

 Long-continued east winds drove the remnants of the 

 Kara Sea ice against the shores of Novaya Zemlya, and 

 a narrow belt of pack-ice blocked the Kara gates. Late 

 in the season of 1879 a Bremen steamer succeeded in 

 finding a passage, and in bringing a cargo of wheat from 

 Nadim. It was very fortunate that the English steamers 

 were unable to enter the Kara Sea. Drawing fourteen 

 to seventeen feet of water, they had literally no chance 

 at all where Wiggins only saved himself by the skin of 

 his teeth, not drawing more than twelve feet. 



The crowning feat of this north-east Arctic enterprise 

 was performed by Nordenskiold in the Vega in 1878-79, 

 a voyage which may not, perhaps, have any great com- 

 mercial value, but in a scientific point of view must rank as 

 one of the most successful Arctic expeditions ever made. 



Captain Palander left Gothenburg on July 14, 1878, 

 was joined by Nordenskiold at Tromso on the 21st, and 



