one
at his tent, and that a mammoth tusk stuck out at a place where the
spring floods had cut into the bank of a river which flows from
Table Mount to Riraitinop, I therefore did not hesitate to undertake
an excursion to the place. Our absence from the vessel was reckoned
at five or six days. It was my intention to go up the river in a
skin boat belonging to Notti to the place where the mammoth tusk
was, and thence to proceed on foot to Yettugin's tent. Yettugin
assured us that the river was sufficiently deep for the
flat-bottomed boat. But when we had travelled a little way into the
country it appeared that the river had fallen considerably during
the day that Yettugin passed on the vessel. So certain was I however
that the ice-barrier would not yet for a long time be broken up,
that I immediately after my return from the excursion, which had
thus been rendered unsuccessful, made arrangements for a new journey
in order with other means of transport to reach the goal.

While we were thus employed the forenoon of the 18th passed. We sat
down to dinner at the usual time, without any suspicion that the
time of our release was now at hand. During dinner it was suddenly
observed that the vessel was moving slightly Palander rushed on
deck, saw that the ice was in motion, ordered the boiler fires to be
lighted, the engine having long ago been put in order in expectation
of this moment, and in two hours, by 3:30 P.M. on the 18th July, the
_Vega_, decked with flags, was under steam and sail again on the way
to her destination.

We now found that a quite ice-free "lead" had arisen between the
vessel and the open water next the shore, the ice-fields west of our
ground-ices having at the same time drifted farther out to sea, so that
the clearing along the shore had widened enough to give the _Vega_ a
sufficient depth of water. The course was shaped at first for the N.W.
in order to make a _detour_ round the drift-ice fields lying nearest us,
then along the coast for Behring's Straits. On the height at Yinretlen
there stood as we passed, the men, women, and children of the village
all assembled, looking out to sea at the fire-horse--the Chukches would
perhaps say fire-dog or fire-reindeer--which carried their friends of
the long winter months for ever away from their cold, bleak shores.
Whether they shed tears, as they often said they would we could not see
from the distance which now parted us from them. But it may readily have