CHAP. II.] DEPARTURE FROM MAOSOE. 57 



yet men are not satisfied. The interests of commerce and the 

 fisheries require railway communication with the rest of Europe. 

 That will certainly come in a few years, nor will it be long 

 before the telegraph has spun its net, and regular steam 

 communication has commenced along the coast of the Arctic 

 Ocean far beyond the sea which was opened by Chancelor to 

 the commerce of the world. 



CHAPTER II. 



Departure from Maosoe — Gooseland — State of the Ice — The Vessels of 

 the Expedition assemble at Chabarova — The Samoyed town there — 

 The Church — Russians and Samoyeds — Visit to Chabarova in 1875 — 

 Purchase of Samoyed Idols — Dress and Dwellings of the Samoyeds 

 — Comparison of the Polar Races — Sacrificial Places and Samoyed 

 Grave on Vaygats Island visited — Former accounts of the Samoyedi? 

 — Their place in Ethnography. 



The Vega was detained at Maosoe by a steady head wind, 

 rain, fog, and a very heavy sea till the evening of the 25th July. 

 Though the weather was still very unfavourable, we then 

 weighed anchor, impatient to proceed on our voyage, and 

 steamed out to sea through Mageroe Sound. The Lena also 

 started at the same time, having received orders to accompany 

 the Vega as far as possible, and, in case separation could not be 

 avoided, to steer her course to the point, Chabarova in Yugor 

 Schar, which I had fixed on as the rendezvous of the four 

 vessels of the exj)edition. The first night, during the fog that 

 then prevailed, we lost sight of the Lena, and did not see her 

 again until we had reached the meeting place. 



The course of the Vega was shaped for South Goose Cape. 

 Although, while at Tromsoe, I had resolved to enter the Kara 

 Sea through Yugor Schar, the most southerly of the sounds 

 which lead to it — so northerly a course was taken, because 

 experience has shown that in the beginning of slimmer so 

 much ice often drives backwards and forwards in the bay 

 between the west coast of Vaygats Island and the mainland, 

 tliat navigation in these waters is rendered rather difficult. 

 This is avoided by touching Novaya Zemlya first at Gooseland, 

 and thence following the western shore of this island and Vaygats 

 to Yugor Schar. Now this precaution was unnecessary; for 

 the state of the ice was singularly favourable, and Yugor Schar 

 was reached without seeing a trace of it. 



During our passage from Norway to Gooseland we w^ere 

 favoured at first with a fresh breeze, which, however, fell as we 



