174 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
tied up to the sleighs. Whereupon Uano told me that 
the ‘choom’? to-day was moving on. 
This would have been greatly against my own idea, 
for we were now in a beautiful little spot, and one that 
promised well for the birds. For at the foot of our hill 
flowed the Pesanka, which we could trace very far away 
as it wound across the tundra. More than one little lake 
we could also see. Nor had I forgotten the dotterel’s 
nest. 
Our property was still wet from yesterday’s soaking, 
and must be dried; and between these I made out suffi- 
cient reason why we would wait here another day. 
I do not say that our host agreed willingly to this; 
on the contrary, it raised a universal storm of protest 
in the camp. But I had always one and an invincible 
argument on my side. This was nothing else than com- 
plete indifference to anything which they might say. 
Of course they might have driven off and left us, but 
so early in our acquaintance they were too greatly afraid 
to do this—just as afterwards they developed such an 
affection for us as would have kept them with us against 
our wills. 
It was blowing about half a gale from the north-west, 
which dried up our belongings by about three in the 
afternoon. Then we went out, and again visited the 
dotterel’s nest. 
1 The word ‘choom’ is used not only of the wigwam-like dwelling, but, as here, in 
the sense of the family or household, as we say ‘my house.’ 
