286 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
biggish dog catch old Sailor and shake him from side to 
side. Well, I picked up the tent mallet, and shouting 
the Samoyeds’ word ‘wenquoh’ (dog), let into them right 
and left. At the first chance Sailor was out of the mélée 
and into the tent through the fly in a twinkle. They all 
but followed him in, and a pretty mess we should then 
have had; but there was lying there a prop, with which 
I slipped into them with such effect that they retreated. 
Well, will you believe me, old Sailor had never a mark, 
excepting one on the muzzle? Think of the toughness 
of him; but then he had a coat on him that it would 
take a long tooth to get through. I wasn’t bitten 
either, and yet I would no more have ventured in cold 
blood into the middle of that pack of devils than 
into an active crater. 
A cock willow-grouse I shot to-day was changing its 
plumage to winter dress. 
August 6th.—‘ When the goosing party returned this 
morning at one o'clock they brought with them only 
twenty brent, bean, and white-fronted, all told. They 
had only three boats, and the geese defeated them. 
‘Uano tells me he saw a Russian sailing boat, and that 
the ice was much looser. 
‘Our sugar, jam, and butter, which we have eked out 
by pinches, is now finished ; one doesn’t often make two 
pounds of butter last so long, nor a ham either, for that 
matter. [And to make a ham last from June 21st to 
