el, which was soon
after nipped, and go on foot over the ice to land. On the 22nd/12th
November he came to the _simovie_ Ujandino, where famine prevailed
during the winter, _because the vessels, that should have brought
provisions to the place, had either been lost or been compelled to
turn_; a statement which proves that at that time a regular
navigation took place between certain parts of the coast of the
Polar Sea.

The same year, the Cossack, TIMOFEJ BULDAKOV travelled by sea from
the Lena to the Kolyma to take over the command of the neighbouring
region. He reached the Kroma successfully, but was beset there and
drifted out to sea. He then determined to endeavour to get to land
over the ice. But this was no easy matter. The ice, which already
was three feet thick, went suddenly into a thousand pieces, while
the vessel drove before a furious gale farther and farther from the
shore. This was repeated several times. When the sea at last froze
over, the vessel was abandoned, and the party finally succeeded,
worn out as they were by hunger, scurvy, work, and cold, in reaching
land at the mouth of the Indigirka. The narrative of Buldakov's
voyage is, besides, exceedingly remarkable, because a meeting is
there spoken of with twelve "kotsches," filled with Cossacks,
traders, and hunters, bound partly from the Lena to the rivers lying
to the eastward, partly from the Kolyma and Indigirka to the Lena, a
circumstance which shows how active the communication then was in
the part of the Siberian Polar Sea in question. This is further
confirmed by a narrative of NIKIFOR MALGIN. While Knes IVAN
PETROVITSCH BARJATINSKY was _vojvode_ at Yakutsk (1667-75), Malgin
travelled along with a trader, ANDREJ WORIPAJEV, by sea from the
Lena to the Kolyma. During this voyage the pilot directed the
attention of all on board to an island, lying far out at sea, west
of the mouth of the Kolyma. In course of a conversation regarding
it, after Malgin had succeeded in reaching the Kolyma, another
trader, JAKOB WIAeTKA, stated that on one occasion when he was
sailing with nine "kotsches" between the Lena and the Kolyma, three
of them had been driven by wind to this island, and that the men who
had been sent ashore there, found traces of unknown animals, but no
inhabitants.

All these narratives, however, do not appear to have met with full
credence. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, accordingly,
new explorations and new expeditions were