s said that if we could get
safely across the Kara Sea and past Cape Cheliuskin, the worst would
be over. Our prospects were not bad--an open passage to the east,
along the land, as far as we could see from the masthead.

An hour and a half later we were at the edge of the ice. It was so
close that there was no use in attempting to go on through it. To the
northwest it seemed much looser, and there was a good deal of blue in
the atmosphere at the horizon there. [28] We kept southeast along the
land through broken ice, but in the course of the day went further
out to sea, the blueness of the atmosphere to the east and northeast
promising more open water in that direction. However, about 3 P.M. the
ice became so close that I thought it best to get back into the open
channel along the land. It was certainly possible that we might have
forced our way through the ice in the sea here, but also possible
that we might have stuck fast, and it was too early to run this risk.

Next morning (August 5th), being then off the coast near to the
mouth of the River Kara, we steered across towards Yalmal. We soon
had that low land in sight, but in the afternoon we got into fog and
close ice. Next day it was no better, and we made fast to a great
ice-block which was lying stranded off the Yalmal coast.

In the evening some of us went on shore. The water was so shallow
that our boat stuck fast a good way from the beach, and we had to
wade. It was a perfectly flat, smooth sand-beach, covered by the
sea at full tide, and beyond that a steep sand-bank, 30 to 40 feet,
in some places probably 60 feet, high.

We wandered about a little. Flat, bare country on every hand. Any
driftwood we saw was buried in the sand and soaking wet. Not a bird
to be seen except one or two snipe. We came to a lake, and out of
the fog in front of me I heard the cry of a loon, but saw no living
creature. Our view was blocked by a wall of fog whichever way we
turned. There were plenty of reindeer tracks, but of course they were
only those of the Samoyedes' tame reindeer. This is the land of the
Samoyedes--and oh but it is desolate and mournful! The only one of
us that bagged anything was the botanist. Beautiful flowers smiled
to us here and there among the sand-mounds--the one message from a
brighter world in this land of fogs. We went far in over the flats,
but came only to sheets of water, with low spits running out into them,
and ridges between. We often heard th