450 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [oiiAr. 



Palander rushed on deck, saw that the ice was in motion, ordered 

 the boiler fires to be lighted, the engine having long ago been 

 put in order in expectation of this moment, and in two hours, by 

 3.30 P.M. on the 18th July, the Vega, decked with flags, was 

 under steam and sail again on the way to her destination. 



We now found that a quite ice-free " lead " had arisen between 

 the vessel and the open water next the shore, the ice-fields 

 west of our ground-ices having at the same time drifted farther 

 out to sea, so that the clearing along the shore had widened 

 enough to give the Vega a sufficient depth of water. The 

 course was shaped at first for the N.W. in order to make a 

 detour round the drift-ice fields lying nearest us, then along the 

 coast for Behring's Straits. On the height at Yinretlen there 

 stood as we passed, the men, women, and children of the village 

 all assembled, looking out to sea at the fire-horse — the Chukches 

 would perhaps say fire-dog or fire-reindeer — which carried their 

 friends of the long winter months for ever away from their 

 cold, bleak shores. Whether they shed tears, as they often said 

 they would., we could not see from the distance which now 

 parted us from them. But it may readily have happened that 

 the easily moved disposition of the savage led them to do this. 

 Certain it is that in many of us the sadness of separation 

 mingled with the feelings of tempestuous joy which now rushed 

 through the breast of every Vega man. 



The Vega met no more ice-obstacles on her course to the 

 Pacific. Serdze Kamen was passed at 1.30 a.m. of the 19th, but 

 the fog was so dense that we could not clearly distinguish the 

 contours of the land. Above the bank of mist at the horizon 

 we could only see that this cape, so famous in the history of the 

 navigation of the Siberian Polar Sea, is occupied by high 

 mountains, split up, like those east of the Bear Islands, into 

 ruin-like orio-antic walls or columns. The sea was mirror-bright 

 and nearly clear of ice, a walrus or two stuck up his head 

 strangely magnified by the fog in our neighbourhood, seals swam 

 round us in large numbers, and flocks of birds, which probably 

 breed on the steep cliffs of Serdze Kamen, swarmed round the 

 vessel. The trawl net repeatedly brought up from the sea- 

 bottom a very abundant yield of worms, molluscs, Crustacea, &c. 

 A zoologist would here have had a rich working field. 



The fog continued, so that on the other side of Serdze Kamen 

 we lost all sight of land, until on the morning of the 20th dark 

 heights again began to peep out. These were the mountain 

 summits of the easternmost promontory of Asia, East Cape, an 

 unsuitable name, for which I have substituted on the map that 

 of Cape Deschnev after the gallant Cossack who for the first 

 time 230 years ago circumnavigated it. 



By 11 A.M. we were in the middle of the sound which unites 



