82 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[(;hap. 



or none at all. The circumstance that the Samoyeds for tlie 

 present have as their nearest neighbours several Finnish-Ugriau 

 races (Lapps, Syrjaeni, Ostjaks, and Voguls), and that these 



SAMOYEDS. 



rrom Suhlcissinj's Neu-entdecktes Sieweria, worinnen die Zobeln gefangon werdea. 

 . Zittaul693.' 



1 A still more extraordinary idea of the Samoyeds, than that which this 

 woodcut gives iis, we get from the way in which they are mentioned in 

 the account of the ioumev which the Italian Minorite, Joannes de Piano 

 Carpini, midertook in High Asia in the years 1245-47 as ambassador from 

 the Pope to the mighty conqueror of the Mongolian hordes. In this book 

 of travels it is said that Occodai Khan, Chingis Khan's son, after having 

 b3en defeated by the Hungarians and Poles, turned towards the north, 

 conquered the Bascarti, i e. the Great Hungarians, then came into collision 

 with the Parositi — who had wonderfidly small stomachs and mouths, aTid 

 did no' eat flesh, but only boiled it and nourished themselves by inhaling 

 the steam — and finally came to the Samoffedi, who lived only by the chase 

 and had hous^^s and clothes of skin, and to a land by the ocean, where 

 there were monsters with the bodies of men, the feet of oxen and the faces 

 of dogs (Relation des Mongols ou Tartares, par le frere Jean du Plan de 

 Carnin, publ. par M. d'Avezac, Paris 18.^8, p. 281. Compare Ramusio, 

 Delle navigafioni e viaggi, ii. 1583, leaf 236). At another place in the 

 same work it is said that " tlie land Comania has on the north immediately 

 after Russia, the Mordvini and Bileri, i.e. the Great Bulgarians, the 

 Bascarti, i.e. the Great Hungarians, then the Parositi and Samogedi, who 

 are said to have the faces of dogs" {Relation des Mongols, p. 351. 

 Uanmsio, ii., leaf 23'J). 



