198 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



summer plumage. He had found it by the harbour-side. 

 This was in its way a find. For the sanderling, which 

 does not nest with us (though it is believed to have bred 

 in Iceland), is suspected of nesting on the mainland ; on 

 the Petchora, for instance, and I had great hopes of 

 finding its nest. 



But you will be tired of my hopes — they were so often 

 disappointments. 



And I do not think I will go into camp details much 

 more. 



A big bit of everyday would only read like this : — 

 ' Fetched water ; cut up wood — chipping at logs of iron 

 with a little single-handed axe ; cooked, ate, went out to 

 kill for supper ; pressed flowers ; blew eggs ; prepared 

 specimens ; wrote ; wondered about Saxon ; watched 

 ice. 



Somewhere against the ice the breakers hurled them- 

 selves with the noise of battle, and again the ice went off 

 like guns. I liked this cannonading of the ice. It was a 

 fine sound, chiming well with the wild cry of the divers 

 and the call of the geese overhead. And when you walk 

 along by yourself in a lonely island you — I suppose 

 every one does — come to look on all these as your 

 creatures or your friends. They are not a bit so, of course ; 

 just the opposite. You are probably in their view the 

 one thing unresponsive, the one fact with which they 

 have no relation — a thing out of all reason, a great 

 nail-booted, shot-blazing-, contra-natural blot. 



