52 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
sent by the Siberian authorities to our relief, and that he was 
therefore willing in return for suitable compensation to give us 
some reindeer. I availed myself of the offer, and purchased three 
animals for sugar, tea, and a little tobacco. Noah besides was 
a friendly and easy-going man, who, Christian though he was, 
travelled about with two wives and a large number of children, 
who all of course would see the vessel and get their treat of 
tobacco, clay pipes, sugar, ram, &c. 
So much flood water had now begun to collect on the ice, 
especially near the land, that it was exceedingly difficult to walk 
from the vessel to the shore and back. Many a proposed land 
excursion was broken off by somebody, immediately after leaving 
the vessel, sinking into some deep hole in the ice and thus getting 
a cold bath. Excursions on land however began to be exceedingly 
interesting to the botanists and zoologists; and.therefore to avoid 
the inconveniences mentioned I caused a tent to be pitched by 
the side of the large lagoon between Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, and 
a light boat to be carried thither. The bottom of the lagoon was 
still filled with ice, above which however the water stood so high 
that the boat floated in it. The naturalists settled by turns in 
the tent, and from it made excursions in different directions, as 
I hope with the result that the neighbourhood of Pittekaj is now 
the best known tract on the north of Asia, which after all is not 
saying much. The first plant in flower (Cochlearia fenestrata, 
P. Br.) was seen on the 23rd June.^ A week after the ground 
began to grow green and flowers of different kinds to show 
themselves in greater and greater numbers.^ Some flies were 
1 During- the expedition of 1861, when we were shut up by ice in Treu- 
renberg Bay on Spitzbergen (79^^ 57' N.L.) the first flower {Saxifraga opposi- 
tifolia, L.), was pulled on the 22nd June. After the wintering in 1872-73, 
Palander and I during our journey round North-east Land, saw the first 
flower on the same species of saxifrage as early as the 15th June, in the 
bottom of Wahlenberg Bay (79° 46' N.L.). 
2 For the sake of completeness, I shall here also enumerate the plants 
