XL] THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH PENINSULA. 
29 
Rotschitlen, a faint-hearted youth, without activity or experience. 
With another driver we might have been able in a few days to 
penetrate as far as the bottom of Kolyutschin Bay, which differs 
greatly in its form from that which Kussian, English, and 
German maps give to it. It is not improbable that it is almost 
connected by lakes, lagoons, and rivers with St. Lawrence Bay or 
Metschigme Bay, whose inner parts are not yet investigated. 
“ After we left the lagoons at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, the coast 
began gradually to rise by escarpments, each about five metres 
in height. The plains between the escarpments are full of 
lagoons or marshes. Such a terrain continued until, about five 
hours’ way from the vessel, we came to a height of twenty-seven 
metres. From this point the terrace-formations cease, and the 
terrain then consists of a large number of ranges of heights, 
intersected by rivulets, which during the snow-melting season 
must be very much flooded. Seven or eight hours’ way from 
the vessel we met with such a rivulet, which farther to the 
S.S.E. unites with another which runs between two rocky 
escarpments twenty metres high. On one of these we pitched 
our tent, in order to draw and examine some hills which were 
already divested of the winter dress they had worn for nine long 
months. On the top of one of the hills we found marks of two 
recently-struck tents, which probably belonged to a reindeer 
Chukch, who had now settled halfway between Pitlekaj and 
Table Mount upon a chain of heights which appears to separate 
the Irgunnuk lagoon from the rocky eastern shore of Kolyutschin 
Bay. At our resting place we found a large number of reindeer 
horns and a heap of broken bones. 
“After resuming our journey we came in a short time to the 
foot of Table Mount, whose height I reckoned at 180 metres. 
It slopes gently to the west and south (about 10°), but more 
steeply to the east and north (about 15°). The animal world 
there showed great activity. In less than an hour we saw more 
than a dozen foxes that ran up and down the hills and circled 
round us, as if they ran with a line. Fortunately for them they 
kept at a respectful distance from our doctor’s sure gun. 
“ On the other side of Table Mount the ground sinks regularly 
towards Kolyutschin Bay. Here for a while we sought in vain 
for Yettugin’s tent, in which we intended to pass the night, and 
which had been fixed upon as the starting-point of future 
excursions, till at last reindeer traces and afterwards the sight of 
some of these friendly animals brought us to the right way, so 
that about 9 o’clock P.M. we got sight of the longed-for dwelling 
in the middle of a snow-desert. At the word yaranga (tent) 
