78 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



smack were, not long ago, treacherously murdered by 

 Eussian whale - hunters, who had found them tres- 

 passing upon what they considered their preserves. 

 Such deeds are not uncommon in remote regions like 

 this, where there is no fear of detection, save through 

 the promptings to confess of some guilty conscience. 

 The schooners make the white whale the main object 

 of their voyage, taking, as occasion may offer, bears, 

 seals, walrus, and reindeer ; and finally, in September, 

 just at the close of the season, they repair to the 

 mouth of some river, and there net the ascending 

 salmon, leaving for home as soon as the ice begins 

 to show signs of closing in. Often parties are sent 

 away from the schooners in boats to some distant 

 spot, where they can be getting the salmon and 

 reindeer, &c., ready to embark as soon as their ship 

 comes round. In this manner a party of Eussian 

 seamen were left behind a year or two ago, and we 

 found them living with the Samoyedes at Karmakula. 

 The ice having closed in earlier than Avas expected, 

 their ship had to leave ; and they were thus left to 

 their own devices. After great hardships and priva- 

 tions had been endured, they set off to walk some 

 sixty miles to the Samoyede settlement, over the 

 freshly fallen snow on the land, and the hummocky 

 ice of the fiords and met with adA r entures which it 

 would need an article to themselves to describe ade- 

 quately at last reaching the summer-tents at Kar- 

 makula, under the warm reindeer-skin folds of \vhich, 



