REACHING THE GOAL 121 



news affected him with no greater sense of credibility 

 than had I said, ' I see the Lord Mayor and the Bank of 

 England.' 



With this I gave the glass to Hyland. And no words 

 of mine could convey the intensity of his delight on really 

 seeing with his own eyes that this wonder was no 

 illusion. For just as we have all known many a fisher 

 to mistake a weed or log which he has struck for a pike, 

 but have never known the contrary happen, so, for all 

 the deceptions of the mirage, when the real thing came 

 there could be no mistake. There was nothing for it 

 now but to march right on till we came up with the 

 choom. 



I had always in my mind that old account of the 

 Samoyeds on Yalmal, who fled away from their Nor- 

 wegian visitors ; which made me suppose that in such an 

 isolated spot as Kolguev, where visits of the foreigner 

 were all but unknown, we might find with them the 

 same experience, which would be a grievous disappoint- 

 ment. 



However, I need not have felt this concern, as will 

 presently appear. So we kept plodding on, over one of 

 the most difficult bits of country with which we had yet 

 met. Up the hills and across the gullies we struggled, 

 until at last I said we should make some tea. 



For I experienced that which many others in similar 

 cases have known before. As long as there was im- 

 perative need for pushing on I never seemed to be really 



