Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XVII. Across the Tundra to the Anabar
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the natives without leaving any other traces than a trifle
lighter complexion than usual, and sometimes a little beard
on the faces of their male descendants. Themselves
uncivilised, they could not of course exert any civilising
influence on the natives.
From Volkalak I made a pilgrimage to the grave of
Lieutenant Prontchischtschev and his wife, who after an
heroic attempt to sail from the mouth of Lena westward
around Cape Tscheliuskin, were obliged to return, and died
from scurvy in September 1737, at the mouth of the
Olenek. In the vicinity of a small group of yurtas on the
most northern point of the neck of land east of the river,
at its mouth, I found their grave, over which stood a rude
and dilapidated wooden cross, so rotten that the next
Arctic gale must have levelled it with the ground. “To
the sad fate of Prontchischtschev,” says Baron Nordenskjöld
in his “Voyage of the Vega,” “is attached a unique interest
in the whole history of Arctic exploration. He had recently
married when he started on his expedition. His young
wife accompanied him, sharing his dangers and privations.
She survived him only two days and now slumbers by his
side on the desolate coast of the Arctic sea.”
It was twilight when I reached the spot, and while I
was taking a photograph of the lonely grave, a number of
natives came running from their yurtas, and stopped at a
distance, looking on with shy astonishment at the mysterious
doings of the stranger.
On account of our delay on the island of Kangelak
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