CHAPTER I I 



OUR RETURN 



It was a most unpleasant morning; a biting north wind 

 blew, snow was falling fast, and soon covered the 

 ground ; but as it made the travelling much better, we 

 did not complain. 



We took this time a more northerly route, crossing 

 the upper waters of the Konkina and Veliki rivers. 



So well did we travel that by 8 a.m. we had done 

 nearly thirty versts, and then we pitched the tent. 



We had a most exciting and delightful drive. This 

 side of the mountains did not seem to me to be so much 

 cut up with gullies as the other. But it is hard to say ; 

 for the Samoyeds, who knew all the passes, often made 

 so that we should take at any easy slope hills which 

 would have been very fierce and formidable had we been 

 hurrying on foot. 



And very often we were able to travel for long 

 distances along the side of the snow gullies when they 

 were not very steep. But this was rather alarming to a 

 beginner ; for then the men would put the reindeer 

 to a gallop, and the snow here lying not flat, but at an 

 angle, the second sleighs, those on which Hyland and 



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