INTREPID LADY EXPLORER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 319, 30 October 1915, Page 7

INTREPID LADY EXPLORER.

3000 MILES BY SLEDGE IN SIBERI

3000 MILES BY SLEDGE IN SIBERIA

Leader of a scientific expedition which has been travelling in Siberia for over a year, Miss M. A. Czaplicka, a young Polish lady, has arrived back in England with some valuable specimens relating to the social and religions life of the natives for the Pitt-Riv- -- '•• Museum at Oxford (says a recent issue of the Daily Chronicle). Slim of figure, with fair hair and blue eyes, Miss Czaplikca undertook the expedition at the suggestion of the university authorities, and when she left England in the spring she was accompanied by two London ladies, Miss Curtis and Miss Haviland—an artist and an ornithologist' respectivey—and Mr. Hall, of the Philadelphia University. They travelled by the Trans-Siberian Railway to Krasnozarsk, on the Yenisei River, and proceeded by fishing vessel to the mouth, establishing a camp upon the eastern bank, well within the Arctic Circle. They relied upon their own efforts to provide themselves with "fish, flesh, and fowl," Miss Haviland proving an excellent gun shot. Before the winter set in the two London todies returned, and Miss Czaplicka and Mr. Hall continued thenstudies, and with a transport of If sledges drawn by reindeer and driven by natives they covered more than 3,000 • versts in a tour, during which they were able to study intimately the life of habits : and the nomads who inhabit that bleak and inhospitable region. .Among the Natives. "I was the first white woman whom the natives up. there had ever seen," said Miss Czaplicka in an interview, "and whereas they always refer to their own womenfolk in terms which reveal relationship—the mother of So-and-so, or the daughter of So-and-so—-of me they spoke as 'The Woman,' and frequently added their opinion that I was a fool when they understood from my Tungus woman companion what was my object in travelling there.

"I was, of course, wrapped up closely in furs, and they would take off my hood to look at my liair. They are uniformly dark, t.urning to grey in old age. —and it was a source of wonder to them that my face should be so young while my hair was to them so old.' They, mistook the fairness for a. Jor^i of greynesSi ""Wherever possible, we made it a practice fG sleep ill the tents of the natives in out sleeping bags. The natives are very scattered, and you may travel for days without encountering a habitation, but it is a rule that travellers are permitted to enter and sleep for the night because of the terrible cold.

"There were times when we slept cut in the open, within the circfe of the sledges, the reindeer, and an outer embankment of snow, and even could hear the howling of the wolves. But they never attacked us, as there was plenty of food for them h\ the huge herds" of reindeer to be 'found in this region.

Rough Travelling. Miss Czaplicka deprecates the method of travelling "by reindeer sledge as conducive to comfort. {'^ ot a she said, with a smile at the recollection of the expedition's jolting progress, "but had its adventure. The

reindeer team is first gathered from the herd with a lassoo, and while the animals are very restive in this process, they become quiet when harnessed tip.

They are driven by means of a single thong in the hands of the driver, and needs an expert, as the direction is given to the team by jerks. Travelling over the snowdrifts is uneventful, but passing over the spaces—tops of moun-

i tains, for instance—where the sun has thawed through, the bumping is almost intolerable, and I was bruised all : over. Spills occurred, too, in which , you and the driver, the deer and the : sledge, rolled for yards down a slope '. in a mass, and only the thickness of i your furs saved you from serious accident.

Miss Czaplicka, who is a native of Warsaw, was a student at Somerville College, Oxford, being the- first Polish

student to be received at Oxford on the strength of English scholarships. She intends returning to Siberia three 0 years hence.