They had now almost reached the borders of the great Frozen Sea. The
village is situated about eighteen degrees farther north than London,
and is nearly as far north as Boothia Felix, the scene of Captain
Ross's four years' sojourn in the ice. It was founded two hundred
years ago by a wandering Cossack; though what could have induced
people to settle in a place which the sun lights, but never warms, is
a mystery; where there is a day that lasts fifty-two English days,
and a night that lasts thirty-eight; where there is no spring and no
autumn, but a faint semblance of summer for three months, and then
winter; where a few dwarf willows and stunted grass form all the
vegetation; and where, at a certain distance below the surface, there
is frost as old as the "current epoch" of the geologist. But by way
of compensation, reindeer and elks, brown and black bears, foxes and
squirrels, abound; there are also wolves, and the isatis or polar fox;
there are swans, and geese, and ducks, partridges and snipes, and in
the rivers abundance of fish. And yet, though the population be now
so scanty, and the date of the peopling of Kolimsk is known, there was
once a numerous race in these regions, the ruins of whose forts and
villages are yet found. The population is about 5000, including the
whole district, of whom about 300 are Russians, the descendants of
Siberian exiles. They dwell in houses made of wood thrown up on the
shore, and collected by years of patience, and of moss and clay.
The panes of the windows in winter are of ice, six inches thick; in
summer, of skins. The better class are neatly and even tastefully
dressed, and are clean, which is the very highest praise that can be
given to half-civilized as well as to civilized people.

They are a bold, energetic, and industrious race. Every hour of
weather fit for out-door work is spent in fishing and hunting, and