412 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



strength, and on we went. A piece of good news did us more good 

 than sun or sleep. Our followers discovered two tshums, and 

 with our field-glasses we distinctly saw the reindeer around them. 

 Heartily delighted, we already pictured ourselves stretched com- 

 fortably in the sledge, the only possible vehicle in such a district, 

 and we seemed to see the quickly-stepping antlered team. We 

 reached the tshum and the reindeer; a dismal sight met our eyes. 

 For among the herds splenic fever was raging — the most dreadful, 

 and for man also the most dangerous of plagues, the most inexorable 

 messenger of death, unsparing and merciless. Against its ruin- 

 bringing attacks man is powerless; it reduces peoples to poverty, 

 and claims its victims as surely from among men as among beasts.^^ 



I counted seventy -six dead reindeer in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the tshum. Wherever the eye turned it lighted on 

 carcasses or on beasts, both young and old, lying at their last gasp. 

 Others came, with death at their heart, to the sledges already 

 loaded for departure, as if they hoped to find help and safety in 

 the neighbourhood of man. They would not be driven away, but 

 remained stock-still for a couple of minutes with staring eyes and 

 crossed fore-legs, then swayed from side to side, groaned and fell; 

 a white foam issued from mouth and nose, a few convulsions, and 

 another was dead. Milk-giving mothers and their calves separated 

 themselves from the herd; the mothers succumbed with similar 

 symptoms; the calves looked on curiously, as if amazed at their 

 mother's strange behaviour, or grazed unconcernedly beside the 

 death-bed. When they came near, and found instead of their 

 devoted mother a corpse, they snuffed at this, recoiled in terror, 

 and hastened away, straying hither and thither and crying. They 

 sought to approach one or other of the adults, but were repulsed 

 by all, and continued lowing and searching until they found what 

 they did not seek — death, from an arrow sped by the hand of their 

 owner, who sought to save at least their skin. Death was equally 

 unsparing of old and young; before the destroying angel the 

 strongest and stateliest stags fell as surely as the yearlings of both 

 sexes. 



Schungei, the owner of the herd, his relatives and servants, 



