Another attempt was then made by the _Vega_ to reach the islands to the north, but after sighting the two most westerly of the group the shallow sea was too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing on Liakhoff Island having to be given up for the same reason, the course was altered so as to take the ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd of reindeer going south. Justly considering they must have come over the ice from some northern land, he went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from Catherine the Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting the foxes and collecting the ivory there from the fossil mammoths he found in abundance. Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which daily became narrower, the _Vega_ reached Cape Chelagskoi, and when off this promontory Nordenskiöld saw the first natives during his voyage. Two boats built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or women's boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the ship, the men, women, and children in them intimating by shouts and gestures that they wished to come on board. The _Vega_ was brought-to that they might do so, but as none of the Chukches could speak Russian and none of the Swedes knew Chukche, the interview was not so satisfactory as expected, though the universal language of pantomime with presents ensured a favourable termination. On the 12th of September the _Vega_ passed Irkaipii, the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it Nordenskiöld joined up with the westernmost limit of the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned back by fog and snow, and thinking it was "not consistent with prudence to make any further attempts to find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direction, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his death.