they sailed on. On the 31/21st July they sighted Vaygats. They
landed at a headland marked with two crosses, and there fell in with
a native, clad in much the same way as a Kilduin Lapp, who soon took
to flight. Other headlands marked with crosses were afterwards
visited, and places where idols were found set up by hundreds.
Linschoten also landed on that Idol Cape which was visited during
the voyage of the _Vega_. There were then from three to four hundred
wooden idols, which, according to Lindschoten's description, were
very similar in appearance to those we saw. They were so ill made,
says he, that one could scarcely guess that they were intended to
represent men. The visage was very broad, the nose projecting, there
were two holes in place of the eyes, and another hole represented
the mouth. Five, six, or seven faces were often found carved on one
and the same stock "perhaps intended to represent a whole family."
Many Russian crosses were also erected there. Some days later they
found on the south shore of the sound a small house filled with
idols, much better made than the former, with eyes and paps of
metal. While the Dutch were employed in examining this collection of
idols, a reindeer sledge was driven forward in which sat a man armed
with a bow. When he saw the foreigners, he called loudly, on which a
number of sledges with about thirty men drove out of a valley and
endeavoured to surround the Dutch. They now fled in haste to their
boat, and when it had left the beach the Samoyeds shot at it with
their arrows, but without hitting it. This bloodless conflict is, so
far as we know, the only one that took place between the natives and
the north-east voyagers. The latter are thus free from the great
bloodguiltiness which attaches to most of those, who in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made voyages of discovery in
southern regions.

Some days later, on the 10th August/31st July, the Dutch had a
friendly meeting with the Samoyeds, who gave them very correct
information concerning the state of the land and the sea, telling
them that "after ten or twelve days they would meet with no more
ice, and that summer would last six or seven weeks longer." After
the Dutch had learned all they could from these "barbarians, who had
greater skill in managing their bow than a nautical gnomon, and
could give better information regarding their hunting than about the
navigable water," they took their departure. When one of the