This place of sacrifice was besides not particularly old, for there had been an older place situated 600 metres nearer the shore, beside a grotto which was regarded by the Samoyeds with superstitious veneration. A larger number of wooden idols had been set up there, but about thirty years ago a zealous, newly-appointed, and therefore clean-sweeping archimandrite visited the place, set fire to the sacrificial mound, and in its place erected a cross, which is still standing. The Samoyeds had not sought to retaliate by destroying in their turn the symbol of Christian worship. They left revenge to the gods themselves, certain that in a short time they would destroy all the archimandrite's reindeer, and merely removed their own place of sacrifice a little farther into the land. There no injudicious religious zeal has since attacked their worship of the "bolvans." [Illustration: SACRIFICIAL CAVITY ON VANGATA ISLAND. After a drawing by A. Hovgaard. ] The old place of sacrifice was still recognisable by the number of fragments of bones and rusted pieces of iron which lay strewed about on the ground, over a very extensive area, by the side of the Russian cross. Remains of the fireplace, on which the Schaman gods had been burned, were also visible. These had been much larger and finer than the gods on the present eminence, which is also confirmed by a comparison of the drawings here given of the latter with those from the time of the Dutch explorers. The race of the Schaman gods has evidently deteriorated in the course of the last three hundred years. After I had completed my examination and collected some contributions from the old sacrificial mound I ordered a little boat, which the steam-launch had taken in tow, to be carried over the sandy neck of land which separates the lake shown on the map from the sea, and rowed with Captain Nilsson and my Russian guide to a Samoyed burying-place farther inland by the shore of the lake.