294 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



spot to which man will adventure, for one or two 

 families spend the winter below the Sopochnaya in order 

 to trap white foxes. To the west we saw no land at all, 

 for the noble estuary was more than fifty miles wide at 

 this point. 



At seven o'clock on the following morning we 

 reached Dickson Island. Between Golchika and Dickson 

 the temperature of the water had fallen 10°, and it was 

 easy to guess the reason why, for Vega Harbour was 

 now packed with ice. This was disappointing, for if the 

 ships had been able to enter, Mr. Lied proposed to go 

 ashore there to see whether there were any traces of the 

 two Russian expeditions of which Captain Swerdrup was 

 in search. Dickson is a low, flat island of the same 

 formation as the neighbouring tundra, from which it 

 looks as if it had been wrenched not so very long ago. 

 On a knoll at the western arm of the harbour, a post 

 has been set up to mark a coal depot, which was placed 

 there in 1901 for Baron Toll's expedition. Nothing 

 lives on the island except wild reindeer, bears, and foxes, 

 and for ten months of the year the harbour is choked 

 with ice. Its low, rocky shores — our last sight of Asia — 

 soon sank below the horizon behind us. 



Now we began to pass floating cakes of old ice, worn 

 by much knocking about in the water, and with them 

 were many logs of driftwood, which for months had 

 rolled to and fro in the estuary. By and by, we came 

 to what is called a slam, i.e. a mass of floating snow. 

 The water here was dull green and thick like soup. The 

 waves, stirred by the ship's passage, heaved sullenly, as 

 if oil had been poured on to the sea, and little shining 



