jaesina. With thirty dog-sledges and accompanied by a nomad
Tunguse with eighteen reindeer,[324] he travelled over land to the
Taimur river, followed its course to the sea, and then the coast
towards the west of a distance of 100 versts. Scarcity of provisions
and food for his dogs compelled him to turn. Laptev himself,
convinced as he was of the impossibility of rounding the north point
of Asia, now wished to carry back his vessel and the most of his
stores to the Lena. After having with great danger and difficulty
sailed down the river to the Polar Sea, reaching it on the 10th
Aug./30th July, the vessel on the 24th/13th was beset and nipped
between pieces of ice, according to a statement on a Russian map
published in 1876 by the Hydrographical Department in St.
Petersburg, on the east coast of the Taimur Peninsula in 75 deg.
30' N.L. Six days after there was a strong frost, so that thin ice
was formed between the blocks of drift-ice. Some foolhardy fellows
went over the weakly frozen together pieces of ice to land. Three
days after Laptev himself and the rest of the men could leave the
vessel. Several streams, still unfrozen, lying between them and
their old winter station, however, prevented them from going
further. They endeavoured to get protection from the cold by digging
pits in the frozen earth and lying down in them by turns one after
the other. The men were sent daily to the vessel to fetch as much as
possible of the provisions left behind, but on the 10th Sept./29th
Aug. the ice again broke up, and carried the abandoned vessel out to
sea.

By the 2nd Oct./21st Sept. the streams at last had frozen so much
that the return journey could be begun to the former year's winter
station distant more than 500 kilometres. The journey through the
desolate _tundra_, perhaps never before trodden by the foot of man,
was attended with extreme difficulties, and it was twenty-five days
before Laptev and his men could again rest in a warmed hut and get
hot food. Twelve men perished of cold and exhaustion. Laptev now
determined to remain here during the winter and to go the following
spring over the _tundra_ to the Yenisej, where he hoped to find
depots with provisions and ammunition. Nor did he now remain
inactive. For he did not wish to return until the surveys were
complete. For want of vessels these were to be made by land. Such of
the men as were not required were therefore sent in spring over the
_tundra_ to the Yenisej