A QUEST FOR AN UNKNOWN LAND.
ENGLISH explorers are seldom reticent as to the motives which impel them to adventure, or as to the objects which they have in view. From the days of Hakluyt they have been a practical race, or have desired to be looked upon as such ; and just as Hakluyt made it his busi- ness to set out the probable commercial gains from new voyages in contemplation, and to insist on the advantages which might accrue from every fresh adventure into unknown waters, so in these days, in expeditions and voyages remote from the trade routes, it is the way of the English traveller to dwell on the data which he may possibly secure for science, and to enlist the good-will of a practical people, by bolding out the hope of an addition to that collection of facts which is yearly stowed away in the national hoard of "knowledge which may possibly be useful."
It is a pity that this has become so much a matter of con- science to minor explorers. In nine cases out of ten, the objects set forth are hardly commensurate with the courage and resource shown in attaining them, and there remains an underlying conviction on the part of the reader that the good old-fashioned spirit of adventure and the quest for new places and new people is the true motive. In the most recent, and one of the most interesting, of these per- sonal narratives, this is frankly admitted. The book to which we refer is Mr. A. Trevor-Battye's " Ice-Bound on Kolguev."* From beginning to end, the story of this adventure is outside the common lines. It is a tale of success of an odd kind,—of the gratification of the personal
• Ice-Bound on Kolguero. By A. Trevor-Bettye, F.L.P., F Z 8. With numerous Illustrations by J. Nettleship, C. Whympe-, and the Author. London ; A. Cosetable and Co.
desire to see what other people have not seen. " The idea of the unknown, this it was that attracted me, as it has attracted many people," writes Mr. Battye. Unknown lands are not so easy to find as they were. But Mr. Battye knew where one might be found within three weeks' voyage of Peterhead. He made up his mind to visit the island of Kolguev. This odd corner of the world is a harbonrless island, with a dangerous coast, fifty miles north of the Russian mainland, and north-east of the mouth of the White Sea. It lies well within the Arctic Circle, in the part of the Arctic Ocean called Barent's Sea. The old navigators had seen it when trying for the North-East passage to China, and noted it as a dangerous and desolate island,—Sir Hugh Willoughby probably, in 1553, Master Steven Burrough certainly, in 1556, and some explorers of the Russia Company in 1580, noted its position. In 1611 Robert Finch landed, and wrote some account of it. Then for three hundred years it was left alone, except for a brief visit by a Russian naturalist in 1841, and a Russian priest in 1858. On the mainland, a little to the east of the island, the River Petchora flows into the Arctic Ocean. To the banks and delta of this great northern river Mr. Seebohm, the naturalist, recently followed the Arctic and northern birds, and there found what had been till then their unknown nesting-ground. Beyond the Petchora lay Kolguev. Mr. Battye was a keen naturalist, and a second motive for the adventure which led to his being "icebound on Kolguev" may be found in a desire to follow up the dis- coveries described in Mr. Seebohm's " Birds of the Petchora." On June 2nd Mr. Battye, with his friend, Mr. Mervyn Powys, left Peterhead in the steam-yacht ' Saxon.' On June 21st they were creeping round the coast of Kolguev, with the Arctic ice descending and endangering the ship. It was an odd position. The unknown land was there, but there was no anchorage. It was the Arctic midsummer, and there was neither night nor twilight, but plenty of "ice blink" and freezing fogs. Mr. Battye packed up a tent in a boat, with guns and cartridges, and a careful selection of stores, and with one companion, John Hyland, a professional taxider- mist, said good-bye to the yacht, and landed to enjoy his unknown island. What he found was a half-frozen, flattish land, with its surface only thawed. Much " tundra " or mossy bog ; sand-hills ; many English flowers, including the cuckoo-flower in blossom, and a northern perfumed butter- cup ; ravines full of snow, with water running below it ; thou- sands of wild-fowl and northern birds, like the snow-bunting, the long-tailed duck, the dotterel, the dnnlin, nesting ; and the Arctic sun above all, day and night. The story of the first week is like a chapter in "Robinson Crusoe," after he found Friday. They pitched their tent at the month of the river Gusina, at the north end of the island. Thence southwards it is some thirty miles long,—an irregular oval, pointing north and south. Their first days were spent in arranging their tents and taking notes of the wild creatures. They found a peregrine-falcon's nest, and watched a seal catching wild- ducks as they swam outside the shore. Then they walked across the island in search of the Samoyeds, the so-called savages who live on the island. It was the old story of the search for man by man, in an unknown land. Each trace was duly noted. Driftwood chipped by the axe, a grave with an implement for making bread, a Russian cross, and then a track of a sleigh drawn by five reindeer abreast. That the Samoyeds use reindeer was enough to contradict the received opinion that they are degraded savages. " He who has reindeer has everything " is a Russian saying. The reindeer-owners are far higher in the scale of civilisation than the owners of dog-teams. They are traders and capitalists, whether on Kolguev, or on the shores of Arctic Asia. Returning to the river, they found that two sleighs had passed since they crossed. But it was not for a week, and until after much hard walking and discomfort, that they found the first Samoyed homes. Mr. Battye knew a little Russian; the Samoyeds were hospitable and kindly. And from that time, with short intervals of separation, the travellers lived with, and as, Samoyeds.
Their first host at once received them in his hut,—a wigwam made of birch-bark stretched on many poles. His wife was kindly, his daughters pretty, and prettily dressed, the children and babies charming in their manners, never cross, never dis- obedient, young girls of ten and thirteen being able to harness and drive a team of three reindeer, and having their pet puppies,
pet deer, their dolls, and their "nursery life," like well-brought- up children anywhere else. Samoyed hours in the nightless summer are fixed and regular. They take their full allowance of sleep at one time, and do not " nap " like the Arctic birds. 'The family rise between ten and eleven in the morning, and go to bed after midnight. The first morning in a new house generally gives the guest a clue to the character of the establish- ment, and this rule held good in Kolguev. Household duties were the occupation of the family,—though some, a daughter- in-law, and two grandchildren, did nothing, because they were guests. The Samoyed women baked bread, made goose- stew, entertained their visitors, and asked their neighbours to 'call, in perfectly well-bred fashion. During the cooking, and often during the day, they washed their hands and faces. They begged the use of Mr. Battye's soap, and made tea for him out of birds' eggs and hot water. Then they harnessed 'their reindeer and drove them back to the first camp by the liver Gusina. The reindeer were driven five abreast. When they came to snow ravines, the men alighted, the deer stood in a row, and at the word of command jumped, climbing the rest of the distance up the snow wall. The reindeer teams -seem able to " go anywhere and do anything." Not that the Samoyeds neglect their dogs; but these are not used as draught-animals. Here is a glimpse of the terms on which the Samoyeds live with their animals :— " When we reached camp, little Wanka (a boy of nine or ten) was playing with his reindeer. There is an old reindeer, a capital animal in a team, who is a perfect slave to the child. He will follow him about like a dog, and Wanka spends most of his day bullying this old deer. First of all be swaggers out, with his father's walk. Then with his little di-zha (lasso) he makes many shots at the old deer, who does not protest, until at last he manages to get it by the horns. Then he harnesses and un- harnesses it, for hour after hour. The boy is not strong enough to lift the deer's legs, and that is a very important part of rein- deer management; but this matters little, for the old deer under- stands the game, and at a touch from Wanka lifts its legs itself. How many times this performance is gone through in the course of a morning it would be hard to say ; yet the good old deer never loses patience."
The summer life of the Samoyed is spent in enforced move- ment from feeding-ground to feeding-ground, as the deer exhaust the pasture, and in catching wild-fowl,—above all, in the great and astonishing slaughter of the moulting brent- geese. In crossing a river with the tents and sleighs, Mr. Battye noticed that a dog walked first, to find the ford. He was not allowed to swim, but made trial of the depth in every direction, and where he could walk the sledges followed. The great catch of brent-geese is the harvest of the Samoyeds. Nothing like it has ever been described since the days when the old navigators used to lay a plank from the islands inhabited 'by the great auks to their ships, and drive the birds aboard. On July 18th the Samoyeds invited Mr. Battye to see the great goose catch. The geese were all moulting, and the small Brent-geese were unable to fly. Most of the grey-geese still had their quill feathers ; but the Samoyeds went out in their boats and drove the flocks, many thousands of birds, towards a large netted inclosure on the land at the head of a creek :- " Exactly at nine o'clock," writes Mr. Battye, five hours from the beginning, "the advanced guard of the swimming geese came round the corner of the creek. It was one solid phalanx of brent. They seemed to be by far the fastest swimmers, for behind them, at a considerable distance, followed a smaller lot of grey-geese, some swimming, some .running. Then with one accord all these grey-geese rose,—five hundred perhaps there were And now the body of the brent were exactly opposite the entrance to the nets, and about them in a half-circle were the boats. Round and round they .swam, but refused to leave the water. The boats did not dare to close in for fear the geese should break. It was a ticklish moment. The geese would not make the land. Then a single old bean-goose stepped out and ran up the bank. He was quickly 'followed by one or two more. and then by the first of the brent.
. . . . The last bird was in and then we closed the rear. Not a brent had flown, not a brent had dived, not one escaped. Of all that army every bird was in the net, a dense, black, moving mass."
The number caught for the Samoyeds' winter food-store was '3,300 brent-geese, 13 bean-geese, 12 white-fronted geese,— total, 3,325. Mr. Battye discovered that the Samoyeds were crypto-pagan. They had idol-figures of the god Nfim on a sacred hill, and kept little wooden godlings dressed like dolls inside their clothes. At the same time they joined in the -Russian service when others performed. This occurred on the arrival of some Russian traders, who took Mr. Battye and his companion to the mainland, the yacht having been forced
to give up the attempt on account of the ice two months before. Mr. Battye has succeeded not only in his quest for an unknown land, but in presenting a very interesting picture of what he saw, and much incidental information that has a scientific value for naturalists and geographers.
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