286 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



biggish dog catch old Sailor and shake him from side to 

 side. Well, I picked up the tent mallet, and shouting 

 the Samoyeds' word 'wenquoh' (dog), let into them right 

 and left. At the first chance Sailor was out of the metie 

 and into the tent through the fly in a twinkle. They all 

 but followed him in, and a pretty mess we should then 

 have had ; but there was lying there a prop, with which 

 I slipped into them with such effect that they retreated. 

 Well, will you believe me, old Sailor had never a mark, 

 excepting one on the muzzle ? Think of the toughness 

 of him ; but then he had a coat on him that it would 

 take a long tooth to get through. I wasn't bitten 

 either, and yet I would no more have ventured in cold 

 blood into the middle of that pack of devils than 

 into an active crater. 



A cock willow-grouse I shot to-day was changing its 

 plumage to winter dress. 



August 6tk. — ' When the goosing party returned this 

 morning at one o'clock they brought with them only 

 twenty brent, bean, and white-fronted, all told. They 

 had only three boats, and the geese defeated them. 



' Uano tells me he saw a Russian sailing boat, and that 

 the ice was much looser. 



' Our sugar, jam, and butter, which we have eked out 

 by pinches, is now finished ; one doesn't often make two 

 pounds of butter last so long, nor a ham either, for that 

 matter. [And to make a ham last from June 21st to 



