VI.] VON KRUSENSTERN, 1862. 221 



commander oa the best means of making their escape, and two 

 days after the vessel was abandoned, after- a meal at which the 

 crew were hterally offered all the house afforded. They then 

 broke up for a journey to land, which was exceedingly difficult 

 on account of the unevenness of the ice. They were soon 

 obliged to leave the boat, which they had at first endeavoured to 

 drag along with them over the ice, and take the most indis- 

 pensable of the provisions on their own backs. On leaving the 

 ship a sailor had secretly got possession of so much brandy, that 

 during the first day's march he had the opportunity of drinking 

 himself dead drunk. To carry him along was not possible, to 

 wait was not advisable. He was left therefore to sleep off the 

 drink ; and in order that he might do so as soon as possible they 

 took off his clothes and left him lying upon the ice with only 

 his shirt on. Next day, however, he got up with his comrades 

 after following their track in the darkness the whole night. 

 Open places were often met with, which the travellers had to 

 cross on pieces of drift-ice rowed forward by boat-hooks. Once 

 when the shipwrecked men were ferrying themselves over upon 

 a piece of ice which was already fully loaded, six walruses were 

 seen in the neighbourhood. They showed a disposition to 

 accompany the seafarers on the piece of ice, which in that case 

 would certainly have sunk, and it was only after a ball had been 

 sent through the leader's head that the animals gave up their 

 plan for resting, which gave evidence of a gregariousness as 

 great as their want of acquaintance with mankind. After 

 Krusenstern and his companions had for several days in succes- 

 sion drifted backwards and forwards on a piece of ice in the 

 neighbourhood of land, and traversed long stretches by jumping 

 from one piece of ice to another, they at last reached the shore 

 on the jgth September. In the immediate neighbourhood they 

 found an encampment, whose inhabitants (Samoyeds) gave the 

 shipwrecked men a friendly reception, and entertained them 

 with the luxuries of the reindeer herd — raw and cooked reindeer 

 flesh, reindeer tongues, reindeer marrow — raw fish and goose- 

 fat. After the meal was finished the exhausted wanderers lay 

 down to sleep in the Samoyed tents on the soft reindeer skins ; 

 " all sorrows and difficulties were forgotten ; we felt a boundless 

 enjoyment, as if we had come to paradise." Thence they 

 travelled in reindeer sledges to Obdorsk, everywhere received in 

 a friendly and hospitable manner by the wild tribes on the way, 

 although the hospitality sometimes became troublesome, as for 

 instance when an Ostyak compelled von Krusen.stern to drink 

 tea six times a day, and six cups each time, and offered him 

 as a special luxury an extract of tobacco in brandy.^ 



^ Paul von Krusenstern, Skizzen aus sienemSeemannsIeben. Semen Freunden 

 gewidmet. Hirschberg in Silesia, without date. 



