328 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



personal belongings were taken to the sacred spots as an 

 earnest that he was really dead. Old Marrk was wofully 

 alarmed that I, an unbeliever, should visit this place. I 

 think he feared that the wrath of Num would fall 

 upon me, and perhaps on him, as he had brought me. 

 So, reining up the deer at the foot of the hill, he flung 

 himself flat on the ground and buried his face in the 

 moss. As I climbed slowly up the hill I often turned 

 and looked back, but always the old man was in the 

 same position. 



When I reached the top, which is flat and round, and 

 some fifty yards across, I first examined very carefully 

 the two old bolvans. Then I turned to the view. It 

 was very striking. 



On the south rose Somandeyi and Honorobur; to the 

 south-west lay the Kriva lake. At the mountain's foot 

 the tiny Gobista stream went trickling away among the 

 grasses. Immediately below me were the two reindeer 

 teams, and old Marrk lying there as still as an old grey 

 stone, face downwards in the moss. He did not stir till 

 I was again by his side, and I had to poke him up. 

 Then he never turned his head, but, with face averted 

 from the sacred hill, he mounted and drove off. 



When we returned to our little camping ground young 

 Kallina had arrived with his wife and his baby. They 

 pitched their little yierserk alongside ours. 



We had a lot of trouble on this evening ; for several 

 of the bulls had their horns clean and were fiohtino- and 



