Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XVI. Ice-bound in the Arctic Sea
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These mountains form the outskirts of the Verkhoyansk
range, through which the Lena has cut its deep channel. The
range continues to the north-west, until it is abruptly cut
off by the sea.
We turned towards the west and followed the shore, on
which were heaped immense masses of driftwood. The
region was desolate and dreary beyond all description.
No traces of man were to be seen, and only here and
there the track of a fox or wolf. We stopped not long
after at a promontory, on the slope of which was a series
of sticks and poles, placed in groups or singly in a certain
order, at various distances from each other, some of the
poles having mysterious marks cut on them, others having
incisions in which splinters were stuck, pointing in different
directions. These sticks and poles represented, as it were,
the letters and newspapers of this lonely land, and our
drivers studied them carefully. From them they learnt
that this place had been visited during the summer by
Tunguses, hunting the wild reindeer; that a fox-trapper from
Olenek had passed a few weeks before on his way
westward; and that a Dolgan, who had visited the place, had
seen polar-bears in the vicinity. Our drivers in their turn
contributed to these “open letters,” putting up new sticks
and poles in order to inform future travellers about our
journey.
Having followed the shore some fifteen miles westward,
we left the sea and turned over the hills into the tundra,
across a large promontory. Here we saw a large herd of
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