﻿374 TCHUKCHE. 



1 hey also visit by the way Anadyrsk and Kamenoie, 

 where inferior markets are held. After remaining 

 eight or ten days at Ostrownoie, they commence 

 their return ; so that their life is actually passed on 

 the road, allowing barely time for the necessary pre- 

 parations and for their visits to Beering's Straits. 

 These are made in summer in baidars, or skin- 

 boats, and in winter over the ice on sledges, with 

 which they carry Russian wares to the Gwosden 

 Islands in the Straits. There they are met by 

 people from Cape Prince of Wales, with furs and 

 walrus-teeth, collected from the dwellers in Kot- 

 zebue Sound, and from the inhabitants of the coast 

 still further north. The Tchukche trade with St. 

 Lawrence Island also, and with Ukiwok, a rock of 

 not more than three miles in circumference, but 

 rising seven hundred and fifty-six feet above the 

 sea. It is destitute of vegetation, and yet a body 

 of two hundred people, from the American coast, 

 have formed a settlement on it, at the height of 

 one hundred and fifty feet above the water, for 

 the purposes of trade. They inhabit caves of 

 the rocks, and procure clothing, tobacco, and other 

 necessaries by the sale of walrus-teeth. Sledge 

 Island, equally small, is also inhabited by skilful 

 traders, who are employed by the Tchukche as 

 factors, to exchange the articles entrusted to them 

 for furs collected on the banks of the Kwichpak, 

 Kuskokwim, and neighbouring rivers of America. 



