On the 12th/2nd July Nay and Tetgales sailed from Kilduin for Vaygats Island. Three days afterwards they fell in with much drift-ice. On the 20/10th they arrived at Toxar, according to Linschoten's map an island on the Timan coast, a little west of the entrance to Petchora. They there met with a Russian _lodja_, whose captain stated that he believed, after hearsay, that the Vaygats Sound[132] was continually covered with ice, and that, when it was passed, men came to a sea which lay to the south of, and was warmer than, the Polar Sea. Some other Russians added, the following day, that it was quite possible to sail through Vaygats Sound, if the whales and walruses, that destroy all vessels that seek to pass through, did not form an obstacle; that the great number of rocks and reefs scarcely permitted the passage of a vessel; and finally, that the Grand Duke had ordered three vessels to attempt the passage, but that they had all been crushed by ice. On the 22nd/12th July there came to Toxar hunters from the White Sea, who spoke another language than the Russians, and belonged to another race of men--they were evidently Finns or Karelians. A large number of whales were seen in the haven, which gave occasion to a remark by Linschoten that whale-fishing ought to be profitable there. After the ice had broken up, and crosses with inscriptions giving information of their movements had been erected on the shore, 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.