328 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
personal belongings were taken to the sacred spots as an 
earnest that he was really dead. Old Marrk was wofully 
alarmed that I, an unbeliever, should visit this place. I 
think he feared that the wrath of Naim would fall 
upon me, and perhaps on him, as he had brought me. 
So, reining up the deer at the foot of the hill, he flung 
himself flat on the ground and buried his face in the 
moss. As I climbed slowly up the hill I often turned 
and looked back, but always the old man was in the 
same position. 
When I reached the top, which is flat and round, and 
some fifty yards across, I first examined very carefully 
the two old bolvans. Then I turned to the view. It 
was very striking. 
On the south rose Somandeyi and Honorobur ; to the 
south-west lay the Kriva lake. At the mountain’s foot 
the tiny Gobista stream went trickling away among the 
grasses. Immediately below me were the two reindeer 
teams, and old Marrk lying there as still as an old grey 
stone, face downwards in the moss. He did not stir till 
I was again by his side, and I had to poke him up. 
Then he never turned his head, but, with face averted 
from the sacred hill, he mounted and drove off. 
When we returned to our little camping ground young 
Kallina had arrived with his wife and his baby. They 
pitched their little yierserk alongside ours. 
We had a lot of trouble on this evening; for several 
of the bulls had their horns clean and were fighting and 
