146 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap iv. 



stalked unsuccessfully. Some bears, as has already been stated, 

 were also seen, and everywhere among the heaps of stones there 

 were numerous remains of the lemming and the fox. With 

 these exceptions there were few of the higher animals. Of 

 birds we thus saw only snow-buntings, which bred among the 

 stone heaps both on the mainland and on the islands, a 

 covey of ptarmigan, a large number of birds, principally 

 species of Tringa and Phalaropus, but not further deter- 

 mined, eiders, black guillemots and burgomasters in limited 

 numbers, and long-tailed ducks and loons in somewhat greater 

 abundance. There are no " down islands," and as there are no 

 precipitous shore cliffs neither are there any looneries. A 

 shoal of fish was seen in Lena Sound, and fish are probably 

 exceedingly abundant. Seals and white whales also perhaps 

 occur here at certain seasons of the year in no small numbers. 

 It was doubtless with a view to hunt these animals that a 

 hut was occupied, the remains of which are visible on one of the 

 small rocky islands at the north entrance into the harbour. The 

 ruin, if we may apply the term to a wooden hut which has 

 fallen in jiieces, showed that the building had consisted of a 

 room with a firej)lace and a storehouse situated in front, and 

 that it was only intended as a summer dwelling for the hunters 

 and fishers who came hither during the hunting season from the 

 now deserted simovies ^ lying farther south. 



I am convinced that the day will come when great warehouses 

 and many dwellings inhabited all the year round will be found at 

 Port Dickson. Now the region is entirely uninhabited as far 

 as Goltschicha, although, as the map reproduced here shows, 

 numerous dwelling-houses were to be found built along the river 

 bank and sea-shore beyond the mouth of the Yenisej and as far 

 as to the Pjasina. They have long since been abandoned, in the 

 first place in conj^equence of the hunting falling off, but probably 

 also because even here, far away on the north coast of Siberia, 

 the old simple and unpretentious habits have given way to 

 new wants which were difficult to satisfy at the time when 

 no steamers carried on traffic on the river Yenisej. Thus, for 

 instance, the difficulty of procuring meal some decades back, 

 accordingly before the commencement of steam communication 

 on the Yenisej, led to the abandonment of a simovie situated on 

 the eastern bank of the river in latitude 72° 25' north. 



The simovies at the mouth of the Yenisej formed in their 

 time the most northerly fixed dwelling-places of the European 

 races.- Situated as they were at the foot of the cold tundra, 



1 Dwellings intended both for winter and summer habitation. 



2 The most northerly fixed dwelling-place, which is at present inhabited 

 by Europeans, is the Danish commercial post Tasiusak, in north-western 

 Greenland, situated in 73° 24' N.L. How little is known, even in Russia, 



