Cruise to Russian Lapkmd. 205 



a landing been possible. Our stay on Kolguev lasted ten 

 (lays. During the greater part of the time the weather 

 proved very iiielement, with frequent fogs and bitter cold 

 winds from the north and north-west ; during three days the 

 pack-ice came down from the north and girdled the west 

 side of the island. 



On the 13th of July we saw the little 'Saxon 'in the 

 offing; she came within two or three miles of the shore, but 

 it was blowing hard from the north-west, with a heavy sea. 

 To communicate with us was impossible, and we soon lost 

 sight of the vessel in the driving mist and. fog, apparently 

 heading southward. By the morning of the 16th July the 

 weather improved ; there was little fog, and the sea calm. 

 At 7 A.M. the ' Saxon ' returned and anchored off the entrance 

 to the Gobista. Our camp equipage was rapidly transferred 

 to the yacht, and in three hours we were steaming north- 

 ward on a third attempt to reach Novaya Zemlya. 



Though we obtained interesting results in ornithology, 

 botany, and geology in the neighbourhood of the Gobista, yet 

 the want of means of locomotion, other than on foot, greatly 

 circumscribed our explorations. We saw nothing of the 

 Samoyeds, though the tracks of their reindeer-sledges were 

 met witl] on the tundra, while the large piles of drift-wood 

 recently stored up at the mouths of streams and gullies 

 debouching on the shore, show^ed that some of them must 

 have lately visited the western side of the island. 



We imagine that our ornithological investigations would 

 have proved richer had we landed farther south and nearer 

 the great lake of Promoinoe. But, as a matter of fact, we 

 were fortunate under the circumstances in effecting a landing 

 at all, and still more in getting off the island with so little 

 trouble. The want of any harbours, the shallowness of the 

 surrounding sea, the dangerous and shifting sand-banks, 

 extending miles to seaward, the presence of ice, frequent 

 fogs and bad weather, even in summei', make Kolguev 

 abhorred by matiners, and render an approach in a ship of 

 even moderate draught very risky. This, of course, accounts 

 for the little reliable information we possessed of an inter- 



