nglish sportsman, Mr. JOHN PALLISER[174] sailed
across the Kara Sea, through Matotschkin Schar to Beli Ostrov. He
returned through Yugor Schar with abundance of booty[175] from the
hunting grounds where formerly the walruses tumbled undisturbed
among the drift-ice, and where the white bear has not yet met his
superior.[176]

These voyages are amongst the most remarkable that the history of
Arctic navigation can show. They at once overturned all the theories
which, on the ground of an often superficial study of preceding
unsuccessful voyages, had been set up regarding the state of the ice
east of Novaya Zemlya, and they thus form the starting-point of a
new era in the history of the North-east Passage.

After his return to Norway Johannesen sent to the Academy of
Sciences in Stockholm a paper on his voyage in 1869, and on his
hydrographical observations in the Kara Sea, for which he received a
silver medal. This I was commissioned to send him, and in the
correspondence which took place regarding it I on one occasion said
in jest that a circumnavigation of Novaya Zemlya would certainly
entitle him to a gold medal from the same famous scientific
institution that had given him the silver medal. I myself travelled
the following summer, in 1870, to Greenland, and returned thence
late in autumn. I then had the pleasure of receiving from Captain
Johannesen a new paper, afterwards inserted in the _Oefcersigt_, of
the transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the year 1871,
p. 157, "Hydro-grafiske Iakttagelser under en Fangsttour 1870 rundt
om Novaja Zemlja." Johannesen now as on the first occasion sailed
backwards and forwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, then
through the Kara Port, which was passed on the 12th July. He then
followed the east coast of Vaygats to Mestni Island, where he came
in contact with Samoyeds, in connection with which he makes the
remark, certainly quite unexpected by philologists, that in the
language of the Samoyeds "certain Norwegian words were recognised."
Their exterior was not at all attractive. They had flat noses, their
eyes were dreadfully oblique, and many had also oblique mouths. The
men received the foreigners drawn up in a row, with the women in the
second rank. All were very friendly. On the 11th August he was on
the coast of Yalmal in 71 deg. 48' N.L., whence he sailed over to
Novaya Zemlya in order to take on board wood and water. He anchored
in the neighbourhood of Udd