350 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



straight course and act decidedly. But too often, poor 

 beasts, they shift from point to point, and then the adliurs 

 (which to-day was entirely in the hands of Marrk's old 

 wife) goes off with the dogs, and heading them by 

 creeping up some hollow, brings them back. 



' To-clay a splendid young white-faced buck quite de- 

 feated them. The five men all laid themselves out to 

 take this beast. But he seemed to bear a charmed life. 

 Time after time they threw the di-zha over him, but 

 always he managed to escape. He trotted along right 

 in front of his mother, and did move splendidly. At last 

 they said he was not a reindeer, but the devil, and gave 

 it up. I shot two purple sandpipers. A couple of turn- 

 stones spend much time at our ombara, turning over the 

 deer's paunches.' 



Sunday, September gt/i. — 'W. to N. To-day we have 

 had sun, snow, rain, hail, and frost. Everywhere on the 

 tundra the ice is now thick, and the edges of the creek 

 are frozen at low tide. The boat was floated off to-day, 

 but as it was Sunday, they said it was not right to finish 

 storing the barrels, only they might kill reindeer and 

 drink vodki ; which they did. I went off in a boat 

 to the outer koski with Alexander to take observations 

 of the harbour. He was much interested in the pris- 

 matic compass, which he could not understand. While 

 the men were taking the young bucks to-day one of 

 them, caught by the horns, snatched the di-zha from 



