272 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
formerly regarded with such superstitious feelings, was preferred 
to the unsafe sea route across the Kara Sea, and as if the Govern¬ 
ment even put obstacles in the way of the latter by setting 
watches at Matvejev Island and at Yugor Straits.^ These were 
to receive payments from the hunters and merchants, and the 
regulations and exactions connected with this arrano:ement 
deprived the Polar Sea voyages of just that charm which had 
hitherto induced the bravest and hardiest of the population 
to devote themselves to the dangerous traffic to the Ob, and 
to the employment of hunting, in which they were exposed to 
so many dangers, and subject to so great privations. 
The circumstance to which we have referred may also be the 
reason why we do not know of a single voyage in this part 
of the Polar Sea during the period which elapsed from the 
voyage of Rodivan Ivanov to “the great Northern Expedition.” 
It examined, among other parts of the widely extended north 
coast of the Russian empire, the southern portion also of the 
navigable waters here in question, in the years 1734, 35, 
under Muravjev and Paulov, and in 1736, 37 under Malygin, 
Skuratov, and Suchotin. Their main working field how^ever did 
not lie here, but in Siberia itself; and I shall give an account 
of their voyages in the Kara Sea further on, when I come to 
treat of the development of our knowledge of the north coast 
of Asia. Here I will only state that they actually succeeded, 
after untold exertions, in penetrating from the White Sea to the 
Ob, and that the maps of the land between that^ river and the 
Petchora, which are still in use, are mainly grounded on the 
work of the great northern expedition, but that the bad repute 
of the Kara Sea also arose from the difficulties to which these 
^ Witsen^ p. 915. Klingstedt states that soldiers with their wives 
and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode 
there had so large an income that in three or four years he could ac¬ 
cumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles {Historische Nachrichten von den 
Samojeden, &c., p. 53). 
