and the Yenisej, sometimes wholly by sea round Yalmal, but most
frequently partly by sea and partly by land transport over that
peninsula. In the latter case the Russians went to work in the
following way; they first sailed through Yugor Straits, and over the
southern part of the Kara Sea to the mouth of the Mutnaja, a river
debouching on Yalmal; they then rowed or towed the boats up the
river and over two lakes to a ridge about 350 metres broad, which
forms the watershed on Yalmal between the rivers running west and
those running east; over this ridge the boats and the goods were
dragged to another lake, Selennoe, from which they were finally
carried down the River Selennaja to the Gulf of Obi.[159]

These and similar accounts were collected with great difficulty, and
not without danger, by the Muscovy Company's envoys; but among the
accounts that have been thus preserved we do not find a single
sketch of any special voyage, on the ground of which we could place
a Russian name beside that of Willoughby, Burrough, Pet and Barents
in the older history of the North-East Passage. The historical
sources of Russia too must be similarly incomplete in this respect,
to judge from the otherwise instructive historical introduction to
Luetke's voyage. Gallant seamen, but no Hakluyt, were born during the
sixteenth and seventeenth century on the shores of the White Sea,
and therefore the names of these seamen and the story of their
voyages have long since fallen into complete obscurity, excepting
some in comparatively recent times.

In the second edition of Witsen's great work we find, at page 913,
an account of an unsuccessful hunting voyage to the Kara Sea,
undertaken in 1690, that is to say, at a time when voyages between
the White Sea and the Obi and Yenisej were on the point of ceasing
completely. The account was drawn up by Witsen from an oral
communication by one of the shipwrecked men, Rodivan Ivanov, who was
for several years mate on a Russian vessel, employed in seal-fishing
on the coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island.

On the 11th/1st September this Rodivan Ivanov suffered shipwreck
with two vessels on Serapoa Koska (Serapov's Bank), probably
situated in the Southern part of the Kara Sea. The ice was thrown up
here in winter into lofty ice-casts with such a crashing noise that
"the world was believed to be coming to an end," and at high water
with a strong breeze the whole island was submerged with the
exception