fore by a European.

"In the background," says Borissoff, "one sees mountains of floating
icebergs of tremendous dimensions, prevented from approaching the
coast by submarine reefs. Here, on the edge of the Arctic, are the
cliffs containing the Holy Place, reached only after a terrible
journey over icy rocks and fearful ravines, through riverbeds stuffed
with snow, up snowy slopes in intricate zig-zags, where the reindeer
floundered and protested."

_Borissoff's Pilgrimage to the Last Pagan Shrines of Europe_

[Illustration: "THE COUNTRY OF THE DEAD"--A STUDY OF THE KARA SEA IN
AUGUST]

Three versts' distance from the shrine, they stopped on the threshold
of the Samoyed Mecca. Borissoff stumbled over huge mounds of idols
heaped between cliffs, one of them so great that forty sledges could
not have removed the idols. He passed mountains of deer-skulls,
antlers, and skulls of polar bears; and heaps of rusty axes, knives,
chains, fragments of anchors, harpoons, and parts of rifles brought as
offerings over weary leagues. The Samoyeds often drive here from a
thousand miles away, stop at the threshold of this dwelling-place of
the supreme Idol-God of the polar regions, and, killing a domestic
deer as the least sacrifice, besprinkle the shrine with its blood.

[Illustration: "SAMOYED LOVE OF COLOR"

IN THE POSSESSION OF THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND]

"People who naively believe that the Samoyeds are no longer heathen
are greatly mistaken," says Borissoff. "Notwithstanding their being
nominally Christians, they still worship their Hyes and Siadeys no
less fervently than in old times. Recent bloodstains on the idols
testified to recent visits; but it was only when we were about to take
our departure that I learned that this was not the chief shrine at
all!"

Borissoff insisting, Ireena reluctantly guided him to it, three or
four versts down the coast, to the east.

"Now we passed far greater mounds of axes, knives, and other valuable
offerings," he says. "The idols stood like an army around two enormous
elevated, round clay altars at the very top of the mountain, cut off
by a deep chasm bridged by a stone archway; but the number of bones
was less than I had expected to find."

Ireena explained.

"This is the dwelling-place of Hye, the god, not that of Siadey, the
devil," she said. "Hye wants for sacrifice the head of a human being
or of a white bear, or at least of a wild deer. Now that white bears
are harder to kill a