INTREPID LADY EXPLORER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 533, 25 October 1915, Page 4

INTREPID LADY EXPLORER.

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 religious life of the natives for the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford (says a recent issue of the "Daily Chronicle"), f , Slim of figure, with fair hair and blue eyes, Miss CzapJicka undertook the expedition at the suggestion of the university authorities, and when she left this country in the spring she was accompanied by two London ladies, Miss Curtis and Miss Haviland —-an artist and an ornithologist respectively —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 ladies returned, and Misg. Czaplicka and Mr Hall continued their studies, and with a transport of .15 sledges drawn by reindeer and driven by natives they covered more than 3000 verst£ in a tour, during which they were able to study intimately the life and habits and the nomads who inhabit that bleak and inhospitable region. AMONG THE NATIVE^.

"I was the first white woman whom the natives up there had ever seen, r " 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 hair. They are uniformly dark—turning 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 form of greyness.

'' Wherever possible, we made it a practice to sleep in the tents of the natives in our 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 out in the open, within the circle of the sledges, the reindeer, and an outer embankment of snow; and even could hear the howling of the wolves. But tliey never attacked us, as there was plenty of food for them in 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. "Not a day," 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 yery I restive in this process, they become [quiet when harnessed up. They are driven by means of a single thong in the hands of the driver, and this 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 mountains, 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 t ie driver, the deer and the sledge, rolled for yards down a slope in a mass, and only the thickness of your furs saved you from serious accident. Miss Czaplieka, 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 years hence.