chap. xxii. THE STEAMER. 2S7 



never bless their idleness. As a just punishment for their 

 sloth and cowardice, we condemned them to pluck the geese, 

 on which we and the captors made a hearty meal ; while we 

 regaled ourselves they had to look on, and feast upon leeks. 

 The larger number of geese, being in full moult, had been 

 unable to tly. Cocksure assured us that both old and young 

 constantly hid themselves under the water, where some 

 remained, just keeping their beaks above the surface, for ten 

 minutes at a time. He added that he had often observed 

 the same thing in Mezen during the moulting season. 



The gale had exhausted its violence during the night, and 

 gradually slackened and wore itself out during the day ; 

 when the following morning came, the weather was quite 

 calm. With ten geese in our larder, we considered our- 

 selves entitled to a lazy day ; we wandered out in the 

 tundra, making a small collection of the flowers that grow 

 upon it, the bonnie bright Arctic blossoms that deck for 

 a few weeks that region of ice. We shot an immature gull, 

 and loafed about, feeling that we had exhausted the place, 

 and hoping for the arrival of the steamer. A flock of what 

 we took to be sandpipers, flying wildly overhead, uttering a 

 note like that of the knot, roused our curiosity. When we 

 at last succeeded in shooting one, the bird turned out to be 

 a reeve. Another incident in this, our last day, was tracing 

 the footprints of a swan in the mud, and identifying them 

 as those of a Bewick's swan. 



At two o'clock the following morning, I was on our wreck's 

 deck, chatting with Cocksure, when on the horizon we caught 

 sight of the steamer. All our companions were asleep, except 



