312 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
regarded in that light by leading men in the great empire of 
the East, and our return journey from Yenisejsk by Krasnojarsk, 
Tomsk, Omsk, Yekaterineburg, Nischni-Novgorod, Moscow and 
St. Petersburg, became therefore a journey from fete to flte. 
But a number of voices were simultaneously raised, which 
asserted that the success of the Proeven depended on an 
accidental combination of fortunate circumstances, which would 
not soon occur again. In order to show that this was not the 
case, and that I might myself bring the first goods by sea to 
Siberia, I undertook my second voyage to the Yenisej in 1876, 
in which I penetrated with the steamer Ymer, not only to the 
mouth of the river, but also up the river to the neighbourhood 
of Yakovleva in 71° N.L. Hence I returned the same year by 
sea to Europed In the gulf of Yenisej a large island was 
discovered, which I named after Mr. Alexander Sibiriakoff, who 
defrayed the principal expenses of the expedition. Before 
starting on this voyage, I visited the Philadelphia Exhibition, 
and it may perhaps deserve to be mentioned, that leaving 
New York on the 1st July by one of the ordinary steamers, 
and going on board my own vessel in Norway, I reached 
the mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th August, that is to say, 
in forty-six days. 
The same year Captain Wiggins also undertook a voyage to 
the Yenisej, in which he penetrated with a steamer up the 
river beyond the labyrinth of islands lying between 70° and 
71° N.L. The vessel wintered there, but was lost the following 
spring at the breaking up of the ice.^ 
1 The dates of the Ymer's voyage are as follows:—Left the coast of 
Norway on the 26th July; stay at Matotschkin Sound, through which I, 
on this occasion, steamed into the Kara Sea from the 30th July to the 
5th August; arrival at the Yenisej on the 15th August; arrival at the 
anchorage at Goltschicha on the 16th August ; commenced the return 
voyage on the 1st September, in the course of it passed Matotschkin Schar 
on the 7th September. 
^ Of Captain Wiggins’ voyage I know only that his original destination 
