A. E. Nordenskiöld

“ If it eludes an attack it makes the most laughable gestures to the hunter. It looks at him, placing one foot above the head as if to protect it from the sunlight, throws itself on its back, and turning to its enemy as if in scorn scratches itself on the belly and thighs. The male and female are much attached to each other, embrace and kiss each other like men. ”

“ But it would be wonderful, if the natural science, literature, and art of the nineteenth century, transplanted among a gifted people, with a culture so peculiar and so pervasive, and with an art-sense so developed as those of Japan, did not in time produce new, splendid, and unexpected fruit. The same irresistible necessity which now drives the Japanese to learn all that the European and the American know, will, when he has reached that goal, spur him on to go further up the Nile river of research. ”

“ Henrik Nilsen found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw hides of reindeer he had previously shot. ”

“ It happens yearly that a ship's crew save themselves from destruction in the most extraordinary craft, for necessity has no law. But it is perhaps not so common that an exploring expedition, wrecked on an uninhabited treeless island, builds for itself of fragments from its own vessel, indeed even of driftwood, a new one in order to sail out on the ocean to discover new fishing-grounds or new wild tribes, willing to pay "jassak" to the adventurers. ”

“ And in conclusion I wish to express the hope that the way in which the accounts of the successful voyage of the Vega have been received in all countries will give encouragement to new campaigns in the service of research, until the natural history of the Siberian Polar Sea be completely investigated and till the veil that still conceals the enormous areas of land and sea at the north and south poles be completely removed, until man at last knows at least the main features of the whole of the planet which has been assigned him as a dwelling-place in the depths of the universe. ”

“ Often a dense thicket of a willow (Salix vitellenia, L.) , whose straight, branchless stems resemble at a distance the bamboo woods of the south, alternates with level, grassy carpets of a lively green and small streams in such a way as gives the whole the appearance of the most smiling park carefully kept free of fallen branches and dry grass. It is the river water which in spring has played the gardener's part in these parks, seldom trodden by the foot of man and endlessly rich in the most splendid greenery. ”

“ Here he built a spacious winter dwelling, which was surrounded by snow ramparts armed with cannon from the vessel, probably the whole house was not so large as a peasant's cabin at home, but it was at all events the grandest palace on the north coast of Asia, often spoken of by later travellers, and regarded by the natives with amazed admiration. In the neighbourhood there was good reindeer hunting and abundant fishing, on which account the winter passed so happily, that only one man died of scurvy, an exceedingly favourable state of things for that period. ”

“ But our joy was mixed with a regretful feeling that we were so soon compelled to leave—without the hope of ever returning—the magnificent country and noble people among whom a development is now going on which probably will not only give a new awakening to the old cultured races of Eastern Asia, but will also prepare a new soil for European science, industry, and art. ”

“ If during winter one walks along the beach on the snow which at ebb is dry, but at flood tide is more or less drenched through by sea-water, there rises at every step one takes, an exceedingly intense, beautiful, bluish-white flash of light, which in the spectroscope gives a one-coloured labrador-blue spectrum. This beautiful flash of light arises from the snow, before completely dark, when it is touched. ”

“ Part followed the boat long distances quite peaceably, now and then emitting a grunting sound; others swam quite close, and raised themselves high out of the water in order to take a view of the foreigners; others, again, lay so closely packed on pieces of drift-ice as to sink them down to the water's edge, while their comrades swimming about in the sea endeavoured with violence to gain a place on the already overfilled resting-places, though a number of unoccupied pieces of ice floated up and down in the neighbourhood. ”

“ For several years back I have been zealous for the examination of all substances of the nature of dust which fall to the surface of the earth with rain or snow, and I have proved that a portion of them is of cosmic origin. This inconsiderable fall of dust is thus of immense importance for the history of the development of our globe, and we regard it, besides, with the intense interest which we inevitably cherish for all that brings us an actual experience regarding the material world beyond our globe. ”

“ On all sides one is surrounded by a confused mass of lofty shattered mountain tops, and deep down in the valleys mountain streams rush along, whose crystal-clear water is collected here and there into small lakes confined between heights covered with greenery. Now the traveller passes a dizzy abyss by a bridge of the most defective construction, now he sees a stream of water rushing down from an enormous height by the wayside. ”

“ As the sandy slopes of the beach offered no suitable breeding-place for looms, black guillemots, or other sea-fowl, and there were no islands along the coast which could serve as breeding-places for eiders and other species of geese which breed in colonies, the abundant bird-life of the Polar Sea was wanting here. At the mouth of the river, however, large flocks of eiders and long-tailed ducks flew about, and on the sandy banks along the shore, flocks of Calidris arenaria and a Tringa or two ran about restlessly seeking their food. ”

“ We caught by hundreds a sort of fish altogether new to us, of a type which we should rather have expected to find in the marshes of the Equatorial regions than up here in the north. The fish were transported in a dog sledge to the vessel, where part of them was placed in spirits for the zoologists and the rest fried, not without a protest from our old cook, who thought that the black slimy fish looked remarkably nasty and ugly. But the Chukches were right it was a veritable delicacy, in taste somewhat resembling eel, but finer and more fleshy. ”

“ Krusenstern's adventurous journey across the Kara Sea is one of the many proofs that a Polar navigator ought above everything to avoid being beset. The very circumstance that the ice-field, in which he became fixed in the neighbourhood of Yugor Schar, could drift across to the east coast of the Kara Sea, shows that it was for the most part open, and that a steamer or a good sailing-vessel that year, and probably also the preceding, might very readily have reached the mouth of the Ob or the Yenisej. ”

“ When attacked she never leaves it in the lurch, and when danger is not near she plays with it in a thousand ways, almost like a child-loving mother with her young ones, throws it sometimes up in the air and catches it with her fore-feet like a ball, swims about with it in her bosom, throws it away now and then to let it exercise itself in the art of swimming, but takes it to herself with kisses and caresses when it is tired. ”

“ Masses of black seal-flesh, and long, white, fluttering strings of inflated intestines, were hung up between the tents, and in their interior there were everywhere to be seen bloody pieces of flesh, prepared in a disgusting way or lying scattered about, whereby both the dwellings and their inhabitants, who were occupied with hunting, had a more than usually disagreeble appearance. A pleasant interruption was formed by the heaps of green willow branches which were placed at the entrance of nearly every tent, commonly surrounded by women and children, who ate the leaves with delight. ”

“ From the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings it is only with difficulty that the tern can go on the ground. It is therefore impossible for it to protect its nest in the same way as the "tjufjo." Instead, this least of all the swimming birds of the Polar lands does not hesitate to attack any one, whoever he may be, that dares to approach its nest. The bird circles round the disturber of the peace with evident exasperation, and now and then goes whizzing past his head at such a furious rate that he must every moment fear that he will be wounded with its sharp beak. ”

“ Men of science will have an opportunity, in these hitherto unvisited waters, of answering a number of questions regarding the former and present state of the Polar countries, of which more than one is of sufficient weight and importance to lead to such an expedition as the present. I may be permitted here to refer to only a few of these.
If we except that part of the Kara Sea which has been surveyed by the two last Swedish expeditions, we have for the present no knowledge of the vegetable and animal life in the sea which washes the north coast of Siberia. ”

“ For nearly a hundred and fifty years the same was the case with Spangberg's voyage from Kamschatka to Japan in the year 1739, by which the exploring expeditions of the Russians, in the northernmost part of the Pacific Ocean, were connected with those of the Dutch and the Portuguese to India, and Japan; and in case our expedition succeeds in reaching the Suez Canal, after having circumnavigated Asia, there will meet us there a splendid work, which, more than any other, reminds us, that what to-day is declared by experts to be impossible, is often carried into execution to-morrow. ”

“ On board the vessel's tent-covered deck soon became a veritable reception saloon for the whole population of the neighbourhood. Dog-team after dog-team stood all day in rows, or more correctly lay snowed up before the ice-built flight of steps to the deck of the Vega, patiently waiting for the return of the visitors, or for the pemmican I now and then from pity ordered to be given to the hungered animals. The report of the arrival of the remarkable foreigners must besides have spread with great rapidity. ”

“ While the Dutch were employed in examining this collection of idols, a reindeer sledge was driven forward in which sat a man armed with a bow. When he saw the foreigners, he called loudly, on which a number of sledges with about thirty men drove out of a valley and endeavoured to surround the Dutch. They now fled in haste to their boat, and when it had left the beach the Samoyeds shot at it with their arrows, but without hitting it. This bloodless conflict is, so far as we know, the only one that took place between the natives and the north-east voyagers. ”

“ The highest point of the island appears to be scarcely three metres above the surface of the sea. That part of the island over which the sea water washes, that is, the beach and the deep bays which indent the land here and there, shows the fine sand bare, without trace of vegetation. Where the ground rises a little, it becomes covered with a black and white variegated covering of mosses and lichens; scattered among which at long intervals are small tufts of grass. ”

“ If one strikes a sea-otter twenty times across the back, it bears it patiently, but if its large beautiful tail be struck once it turns its head to its pursuer, as if to offer it as a mark for his club in place of the tail. ”

“ If, also, these carvings may, in fact, be considered as representations of higher beings, the religious ideas which are connected with them, even judged from the Shaman standpoint, are exceedingly indistinct, less a consciousness, which still lives among the people, than a reminiscence from former times. Most of the figures bear an evident stamp of the present dress and mode of life of the people. It appears to me to be remarkable, that in all the bone or wood carvings I have met with, the face has been cut flatter than it is in reality in this race of men. ”