RE-CROSSING 151 
They were in a great hurry to be off; but I had made 
up my mind that we had earned some food and rest. 
And when they said there was nothing there for the 
reindeer to eat I bid them turn the reindeer loose, who 
soon would find it. So, in spite of their grumbling, they 
tied up five reindeer for the morrow’s adliurs, and set 
the others free. 
The excitement when we produced our English axe 
from its hole in the bank was beyond all holding. They 
all wanted it—‘my axe now, yes yes, very good, make 
sleigh very good—not a Kolguev axe—Kolguev axe no 
good—how much skins for it?’ and so on, and so on. 
But I put them off. Only Shabla, the dirty driver, 
watched the axe with an eye so cunning, I mistrusted 
him much, and you may be sure watched him too. We 
had two big lumps of salt pork from the ship, and on 
this we fed them, boiling it in our only pot. For we 
had made a splendid fire from the drift-wood lying 
round, 
They did not eat much of this pork ; had it been goose 
or reindeer they would have eaten four times as much. 
They could not make out what it was, and I did not 
remember the Russian word for it, though ‘okorok’ I 
knew was ham; so I told them it was ‘okorok.’ But 
this did not help, so pencil and pantomine as usual were 
my resort. I drew them a pig, but they took it for 
some form of seal, and said its legs were wrongly done. 
This put me to squeaking and grunting on all-fours, at 
