A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 305 



— a magic exceeding tliat of the rest of the five seas. 

 It has a terrible charm all its own. If, as legends say, 

 the spirits of the dead linger round the places that they 

 loved when in the flesh, then not only would the polar 

 waters be thronged with phantoms of ancient shipping 

 and ghosts of bygone navigators, but its shores would 

 also be filled with the wraiths of all the dreamers who 

 have watched the aurora flicker in the north, ever 

 since the days of brave Sir Hugh Willoughby. He, the 

 first Englishman who sought the North-East Passage, 

 landed on this very coast of Novaya Zemlya three 

 hundred years ago, on a voyage that he fondly hoped 

 would take him to the land of Cathay. Instead, the 

 ice carried his ship southwards to the Kola Peninsula, 

 where he and his crew perished miserably in the snow. 



It is as far a cry from poor Sir Hugh Willoughby 

 in his blufl'-bowed galleon, to the Ragna with her 1000- 

 horse-power engines and wireless antennae, as it would 

 be from the golden sands of his mythical Cathay, to 

 the sober Siberian timber upon our decks, but the same 

 restless, irrational Spirit of the North hailed both ships 

 when they entered the Kara Gates, Our chief engineer, 

 a stolid, stout Norwegian, who spent his time in a 

 mysterious roaring oily place in the bowels of the ship, 

 where you might only trespass by especial favour, was 

 the most notable victim. He went to those in authority 

 and begged that if a similar expedition went to the 

 Yenesei in 1915 he might be permitted to join it. 

 He had taken a liking for these parts, he confessed 

 with a half-shamefaced grin, as he blew upon his cold 

 fingers. 



