VIII.] FIEST EXPORTS BY SEA FROM SIBERIA. 273 



board the crew of the Norwegian steamer Zaritza, Captain Brun, 

 which had stranded at the mouth of the Yenisej and been 

 abandoned by the crew. In the case of this stranding, however, 

 the damage done had not been greater than that, when the 

 FrascT fell in with the stranded Zaritza, it could be pumped dry, 

 taken off the shoal, and, the engine having ifirst been put in 

 order, carried back to Norway. On the 19th September all the 

 three vessels arrived at Matotschkin Sound, where they lay 

 some days in Beluga Bay in order to take in water and trim 

 the cargo and coal ; after which on the 22nd of the same month 

 they sailed through the sound to the west, and on the 26th 

 anchored at Hammerfest in good condition and with full cargoes.^ 

 The goods, which now for the first time were carried from the 

 Yenisej to Europe, consisted of about 600 tons — tallow, wheat, 

 rye and oats. The goods imported into Siberia consisted mainly 

 of 16 tons nails, 8 tons horseshoes, 4 tons horsenails, 16|^ tons 

 bar iron, 33 tons tobacco, 60 tons salt, 24 casks petroleum, an 

 iron lighter in pieces with the necessary adjuncts of anchors, &lq} 

 Before I begin to give an account of the voyage of the Lejut 

 I must briefly mention the steps which Mr, Sibiriakoff took for 

 her safety during her voyage from the mouth of the river, where 

 she was to part from the Vega, to her proper destination, the town 

 of Yakutsk. It is naturally very difficult for a vessel to seek 

 her way without a pilot through an extensive delta completely 

 imknown in a hydrographic respect, and crossed by a large 

 number of deeper or shallower river arms. Mr. Sibiriakoff had 

 therefore arranged that a river pilot should meet the Lena at the 

 north point of the delta, and had through Mr. Kolesoff negoti- 

 ated with him the following contract, which I reproduce here in 

 full, because it gives in several respects a very graphic picture 

 of various social relations in these remote regions. The copy of 

 the contract which has been communicated to me when 

 translated runs thus : — 



At Yakutsk, in the year one thousand eight hundred and 

 seventy-eight on the 18th February, I, the undersigned Yakut 



Goltschicha, passing Turuchansk in consequence of a number of delays 

 only on the 24th September, reaching Podkamenaja Tunguska on the 1st 

 October, and on the 14th of the same month its destination, a winter 

 harbour on the Tschorna river, some miles north of Yenisejsk. (Fahrt auf 

 dem Yenissej von der Miindung bis Yenisejsk im Sommer 1878 ; Petermann' s 

 MUtheilungen, 1879, p 81.) 



1 The particulars of the voyages of these vessels are taken from a copy 

 wliich I have received of Captain Emil Nilsson's log. 



- The goods carried by me and by Wiggins to the Yenisej in 1876, 

 and those which Schwanenberg carried thence in 1877, were properly only 

 samples on a somewhat large scale. I have no knowledge of the goods 

 which the Zaritza had on board when she ran aground at the mouth of 

 tlie Yenisej. 



T 



