60 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



come. I liked him much for this ; because I knew quite 

 well that his friends the sailors, who had formed the 

 gloomiest views of the place, had told him in effect that 

 he would only be going to his death. However, it was 

 ■settled : Hyland should come too. 



We had this understanding. We should take a 

 month's provisions, which might be made to last five 

 weeks. Also one of the little tents, the instruments, and 

 a few other necessary things. On landing we should go 

 into camp, and then, leaving all we could not carry, walk 

 down the coast to the mouth of the Waskina and try for 

 the Samoyeds. Should we fail in meeting them there 

 then we were to travel on to Stanavoi Scharok {i.e. 

 Scharok harbour), which we believed to be the place 

 where the Russian gunboat had lain last year for a 

 few hours, according to information which Powys had 

 obtained from the Russian Consul in Vardo, and had in 

 writing from him. 



Any plan or change of plan I undertook to put on paper, 

 and to bury six feet due north of a cross which I should 

 erect at such points as we might reach. And the further 

 to protect it from busy hands, I was to write on it 

 these words in Russian, ' Nicholas the Priest,' because it 

 seemed that this, could it be read, would make any 

 aggressor pause. I here calculated on the reverence 

 or the superstition of the native mind. 



Then the Saxon, after coaling at Vardo, should run for 

 Novaya Zemblya, and returning in a month's time call 



