IV.] SAILING THROUGH YUGOR SCIIAR. 133 



mountains on eartli has since been ascribed by the dwellers 

 on the plains of Northern Russia to the neighbourhood of 

 Matotschkin Schar, "where the mountains are even much higher 

 than Bolschoj Kamen," a rocky eminence some hundreds of feet 

 high at the mouth of the Petchora — an orographic idea which 

 forms a new^ proof of the correctness of the old saying : — " In the 

 kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is king." Matotschkin Schar 

 indeed is surrounded by a wild Alpine tract with peaks that 

 rise to a height of 1,000 to 1,200 metres. On the other hand 

 there are to be seen around Yugor Straits only low level plains, 

 terminating towards the sea with a steep escarpment. These 

 plains are early free of snow, and are covered with a rich turf, 

 which yields good pasture to the Samoyed reindeer herds. 



Most of the vessels that wish to sail into the Kara Sea through 

 Yugor Schar require to anchor here some days to wait for favour- 

 able winds and state of the ice. There are no good harbours 

 in the neighbourhood of the sound, but available anchorages 

 occur, some in the bay at Chabarova, at the western entrance 

 of the sound ; some, according to the old Dutch maps, on the 

 eastern side of the sound, between Mestni Island (Staten Eiland) 

 and the mainland. I have, however, no experience of my own 

 of the latter anchorages, nor have I heard that the Norwegian 

 walrus-hunters have anchored there. Perhaps by this time they 

 are become too shallow. 



"When we sailed through Yugor Schar in 1878, the soand was 

 completely free of ice. The weather was glorious, but the wind 

 w-as so light that the sails did little service. In consequence 

 of this we did not go very rapidly forward, especially as I wished 

 to keep the three vessels together, and the sailing ship Ex]3ress, 

 not to be left behind, had to be towed by the Fraser. Time was 

 lost besides in dredging and taking specimens of water. The 

 dredcjino's gave at some places, for instance off Chabarova, a rich 

 yield, especially of isopods and sponges. The samples of water 

 showed that already at a limited depth from the surface it had 

 a considerable salinity, and that therefore no notable portion 

 of the mass of fresh water, which the rivers Kara, Obi, Tas, and 

 Yenisej and others pour into the Kara Sea, flows through this 

 sound into the Atlantic Ocean. 



In the afternoon of the 1st August we passed through the 

 sound and steamed into the sea lying to the east of it, which 

 had been the object of so many speculations, expectations, and 

 conclusions of so many cautious governments, merchants eager 

 for gain, and learned cosmographers, from the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries, and which even to the geographer and 

 man of science of the present has been a marc incoynitum down 

 to the most recent date. It is just this sea that formed the 

 turning-point of all the foreg(jing north-east voyages, fron« 



