60 



THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



They took us to a place which proved to be Kolyutschin 

 Island and bay, where there is a large Chukches settlement. 

 The village consisted of seven large circular dome-like 

 tents, of about twenty feet in diameter, made of seal-skins 

 sewed together, and supported by an intricate arrangement 



CHURCHES BOATS. 



of poles of drift-wood. On the side opposite the entrance 

 were arranged three or four sleeping apartments, shut off 

 from the main tent and each other by curtains of reindeer 

 skins. These were the separate tenements of as many fam- 

 ilies, the savage semblance of flats in an apartment-house. 

 The skin drapery of several of these rooms was raised, and 

 upon the beds, which were also of reindeer skins and cov- 

 ered the entire floor of each, sat women engaged in house- 

 hold duties or attending to the wants of a colony of dirty, 

 half nude children. 



"We sailed the same evening for Herald Island, and at 

 seven P. M., August 23d, obtained our first view of Cape 

 Hawaii, Wrangel Island, about twelve miles distant to the 

 northwest, with the ice extending about ten miles oft the 

 shore. The next morning botli Wrangel Island and Herald 

 Island were in plain sight, and we arrived off the latter at 



