256 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
man. Seeing him in conversation with us, and taking 
no harm, his companions started also to come up. 
It appeared that Shabla had paid us a visit at Scharok, 
had found the camp deserted and the boat gone. This 
was the way in which he told us about it :-— 
‘Shabla to-day Scharok. Sun so,’ pointing to the 
sky to show the sun’s position at that time. This was 
the regular way of the Samoyed when trying to explain 
the hour. ‘Choom there shut. Ahnglia? No. Hylum? 
No—Where? Then see boat—arnoh—not there. No, 
no. Boat where? Not good. Much ice. Go see. 
Yes, yes.’ 
The two new men were the brothers Bulchikoff. 
Dirty, good-looking, silent men; very proud to be 
sketched, and posing themselves in an amusing way on 
hummocks for that purpose. They said their camp was 
on the lower Gobista. Old Marrk, they told me, had 
the upper waters, and I found out later this was so. 
So I told Shabla I was walking to the Pugrinoy. 
‘Pugrinoy,’ says Shabla; ‘no, no. Bad, bad. Much 
river. Much marshes. No walk; soon go boat; no ice.’ 
He was dead set against us trying it. And indeed there 
seemed much force in his remarks. 
The dirty brothers Bulchikoff gave us a bean goose, 
of which they had five on the sleigh. Then they rounded 
about and were off at a gallop, Shabla’s little cows? 
getting over the ground at a capital rate. 
1 See note on Mammalia. 
