Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. Through the Lena Delta
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and aided by the current, we made good progress. We
soon passed Tit-Ary, the island of larch-trees, situated some
twelve miles north of Bulkur, so named because of some
scattered groves of these trees upon it. I had visited this
island during the summer. The natives living there were
extremely poor and much given to drinking, vodka being
smuggled among them by an “agent” of their own people.
Thence we hugged the most northern outskirts of the Kara
Ulak range to their furthest point at the beginning of the
delta, where, at the mouth of the majestic river, the
weird-looking lonely “Stolb” or Pillar-mountain, the Gibraltar
of the Lena, towers up from the surrounding waters to the
height of 1000 feet. Here we camped on a sandy island
opposite the “Stolb,” having made about 60 miles in twelve
hours. The still night was illuminated by the most
magnificent northern lights, against which the three Shaman graves
on the top of the “Stolb” showed off their dark contours.
The sky was clear; only to the north there loomed up
from the Arctic sea a dense wall of fog, above which the
rays of the aurora played like a flying cavalry of fire, the
gorgeous phenomenon with its flaming draperies and coronas
being mirrored in the still waters round about us. During
the night the temperature sank to 14° Fahr.
The following morning, while making our way
northwards through a maze of channels, we were suddenly swept
into the midst of a dense and chilling Arctic fog. Having
several times lost our way, we finally reached Monument
Cape in the afternoon. This hill, a remnant of the
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