152 Mr. Henry Seebohm. 



to death. But another ship was more fortunate. Driven by 

 contrary winds into the White Sea, the port of Archangel was 

 there discovered. It was found that the inhabitants were at 

 that time actually carrying on a trade with this wonderful land 

 of Cathay. They built themselves boats of birch planks, 

 sewn together with willow twigs, and in these little frail 

 barks they performed their journeys, returning during the 

 same season to Archangel, When the port of Archangel was 

 opened out to British commerce, in the struggle for existence 

 which then took place the weakest had to go to the wall. 

 Russian maritime enterprise finally died, and for a couple of 

 hundred years the inhabitants of Archangel received their tea 

 and their silks from the Thames instead of from the Yen-e-say 

 and the Obb. No attempt was made to re-open communication 

 with Siberia by sea, and for 200 years it was believed that the 

 Kara Gates were closed with impenetrable barriers of ice. 

 In 1874 Capt. Wiggins, of Sunderland, took it into his head to 

 explore this district and open up communication with the 

 Siberian rivers by sea. He chartered the Diana steam yacht 

 and sailed from Sunderland round the North Cape, went 

 through the Kara Gates and explored the mouths both of 

 the Obb and the Yen-e-say, but had some difficulty with his 

 men, and was obliged to come home, which he managed to do 

 without any material disturbance from the ice. In 1875 

 Professor Nordenfelt chartered a walrus sloop, and sailed 

 round. He brought it into the mouth of the Yen-e-say, sent 

 his sloop home, while he went up as far as Yen-e-saisk, 

 and returned to Europe by the overland route. In 1876 both 

 these gentlemen attempted to take a cargo by sea to the 

 Yen-e-sa}'. Nordenfelt was the first to arrive. He entered 

 the Yen-e-say, sailed 250 miles up, until he came to the little 

 town of Kor'-e-o-poft'-sky, and then, finding no channel deep 

 enough for his ship, returned home. Capt. Wiggins arrived a 

 week or two afterwards, heard that the other explorer had been 

 there and was unsuccessful infindingachannel up the Yen-e-say, 

 and determined to show the superior quality of the British sailor. 

 He succeeded in getting his ship a thousand miles into the 

 Arctic circle, and left it about half-a-mile up the Koo-ray-i-ka, 

 where it was frozen in a couple of da)'s afterwards, and having 

 made provision for his sailors to winter there returned to Europe 

 and to England by the overland route. He (Mr. Seebohm) 

 had in previous years paid some little attention to the 

 ornithology of Lapland, and visited the valley of the Perchora 

 and returned with booty in the shape of birds' eggs and skins. 

 Hearing that Capt. Wiggins was going back to his ship he 

 asked permission to be his travelling companion, and on the 

 ist March, 1877, they left London together, and reaching 



