VIII.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 297 



Specimens are given of these curious documents, some of which 

 are touching and even pathetic. "Thou goest hence, and I bide 

 alone, for thy sake still to weep and moan," writes one discon- 

 solate maiden to her parting lover. Another with a touch of 

 jealousy : " Thou goest forth thy Russian flame to seek, who 

 stands 'twixt thee and me, thy heart from me apart to keep. In 

 a new home joy wilt thou find, while I must ever grieve, as thee 

 I bear in mind, though another yet there be who loveth me." 

 Or again : " Each youth his mate doth find ; my fate alone it is 

 of him to dream, who to another wedded is, and I must fain 

 contented be, if only he forget not me." And with a note of 

 wail : " Thou hast gone hence, and of late it seems this place for 

 me is desolate ; and I too forth must fare, that so the memories 

 old I may forget, and from the pangs thus flee of those bright 

 days, which here I once enjoyed with thee." 



Details of domestic life may even be given, and one accom- 

 plished maiden is able to make a record in her note-book of the 

 combs, shawls, needles, thimble, cake of soap, lollipops, skeins of 

 wool, and other sundries, which she has received from a Yakut 

 packman, in exchange for some clothes she has made him. 

 Without illustrations no description of the process would be 

 intelligible. Indeed it would seem these primitive documents 

 are not always understood by the young folks themselves. They 

 gather at times in groups to watch the process of composition by 

 some expert damsel, the village "notary," and much merriment, 

 we are told, is caused by the blunders of those who fail to read 

 the text aright. 



It is not stated whether the system is current amongst the 

 other Yukaghir tribes, who dwell on the banks of the Indigirka, 

 Yana, Kerkodona, and neighbouring districts. They thus skirt 

 the Frozen Ocean from near the Lena delta to and beyond the 

 Kolyma, and are conterminous landwards with the Yakuts on the 

 south-west and the Chukchi on the north-east. With the Chukchi, 

 the Koryaks, the Kamchadales, and the Gilyaks they form a 

 separate branch of the Mongolic division sometimes grouped 

 together as " Hyperboreans." but distinguished from other Ural- 

 Altaic peoples perhaps strictly on linguistic grounds. Although 

 now reduced to scarcely 1500, the Yukaghirs were formerly a 



