at
various places on eminences strewn with the bones of animals that
had been offered in sacrifice. Our Russian host informed us the
Samoyeds from far distant regions are accustomed to make pilgrimages
to these places in order to offer sacrifices and make vows. They eat
the flesh of the animals they sacrifice, the bones are scattered
over the sacrificial height, and the idols are besmeared with the
blood of the sacrificed animal. I immediately declared that I wished
to visit such a place. But for a long time none of the Russians who
were present was willing to act as guide. At last however a young
man offered to conduct me to a place on Vaygats Island, where I
could see what I wished. Accordingly the following day, accompanied
by Dr. Almquist, Lieutenant Hovgaard, Captain Nilsson, and my
Russian guide, I made an excursion in one of the steam launches to
the other shore of Yugor Straits.

The sacrificial eminence was situated on the highest point of the
south-western headland of Vaygats Island, and consisted of a natural
hillock which rose a couple of metres above the surrounding plain.
The plain terminated towards the sea with a steep escarpment. The
land was even, but rose gradually to a height of eighteen metres
above the sea. The country consisted of upright strata of Silurian
limestone running from east to west, and at certain places
containing fossils resembling those of Gotland. Here and there were
shallow depressions in the plain, covered with a very rich and
uniformly green growth of grass. The high-lying dry parts again made
a gorgeous show, covered as they were with an exceedingly luxuriant
carpet of yellow and white saxifrages, blue _Eritrichia_, _Polemonia_
and _Parryoe_ and yellow _Chrysosplenia_, &c. The last named,
commonly quite modest flowers, are here so luxuriant that they form
an important part of the flower covering. Trees are wholly wanting.
Even bushes are scarcely two feet high, and that only at sheltered
places, in hollows and at the foot of steep slopes looking towards
the south. The sacrificial mound consisted of a cairn of stones some
few metres square, situated on a special elevation of the plain.
Among the stones there were found:--

1. Reindeer skulls, broken in pieces for the purpose of extracting
the brains, but with the horns still fast to the coronal bone; these
were now so arranged among the stones that they formed a close
thicket of reindeer horns, which, gave to the sacrificial m