i\ ] TRAFFIC WITH THE CHUKCHES. 331 



distinguished,^ an observation to which I would scarcely give 

 credence, until I had myself seen something similar at the site 

 of a house in the bottom of Jacobshaven ice-fjord in north- 

 western Greenland, which had been abandoned for one or two 

 centuries. Here footpaths as sharply defined as if they had been 

 trampled yesterday ran from the ruin in different directions. 

 It may therefore very readily happen that the encampments in 

 the neighbourhood of our present anchorage were older than we 

 would be inclined at first sight to suppose. No refuse heaps of 

 any importance were seen here. 



This was the first time that any vessel had lain-to on this 

 coast. Our arrival was therefore evidently considered by the 

 natives a very remarkable occurrence, and the report of it 

 appears to have spread very rapidly. For though there were 

 no tents in the neighbourhood, we had many visitors. I still 

 availed myself of the opportunity of procuring by barter a 

 large number of articles distinctive of the Chukches' mode of 

 life. Eight years before I had collected and purchased a large 

 number of ethnographical articles, and I was now surprised at 

 the close correspondence there was between the household 

 articles purchased from the Chukches, and those found in 

 Greenland in old Eskimo graves. 



My traffic with the natives was on this occasion attended with 

 great difficulty. For I suffered from a sensible want of the first 

 condition for the successful prosecution of a commercial under- 

 taking, goods in demand. Because, during the expeditions of 

 1875 and 1876, I found myself unable to make use of the 

 small wares I carried with me for barter with the natives, and 

 found that Russian paper-money was readily taken. I had, at 

 the deiJarture of the Vega from Sweden, taken with me only 

 money, not wares intended for barter. But money was of little 

 use here. A twenty-five rouble note was less valued by the 

 Chukches than a showy soap-box, and a gold or silver coin less 

 than tin or brass buttons. I could, indeed, get rid of a few 

 fifty-ore pieces, but only after I had first adapted them by 

 b(jring to take the place of earrings. 



The only proper wares for barter I now had were tobacco and 

 Dutch clay pipes. Of tobacco I had only some dozen bundles, 

 taken from a parcel which Mr. Sibiriakoff intended to import into 

 Siberia by theYenisej. Certain as I was of reaching the Pacific 

 this autumn, I scattered my stock of tobacco around me with 

 so liberal a hand that it was soon exhausted, and my Chukch 

 friends' wants satisfied for several weeks. I therefore, as far as 

 this currency was concerned, already when the Vega was beset, 

 suffered the prodigal's fate of being soon left with an empty 



1 H. Kink, Grvtiland gcogroj^hlnl- og slafisiisl- heskrevet, Bd. 2, Copenhagen, 

 1857, p. 344. 



