336 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



axes, which, after lying 250 years in the earth, were still fixed 

 to their handles of wood or bone. Even the thongs with which 

 the axe had been bound fast to, or loedged into, the handle, were 

 still remaining. The tusks of the walrus ^ had to the former 

 inhabitants of the place, as to the Chukches of the present, 

 yielded a material which in many cases may be used with 

 greater advantage than flint for spear-heads, bird-arrows, fish- 

 hooks, ice-axes, &c. Walrus tusks, more or less worked, accord- 

 ingly were found in the excavations in great abundance. The 

 bones of the whale had also been employed on a great scale, but 

 we did not find any large pieces of mammoth tusks, an indication 

 that the race was not in any intimate contact with the inhabi- 

 tants of the regions to the westward, so rich in the remains of 

 the mammoth.^ At many places the old Onkilon houses were 

 used by the Chukches as stores for blubber; and at others, 

 excavations had been made in the refuse heaps in search of 

 walrus tusks. Our researches were regarded by the Chukches 

 with mistrust. An old man who came, as it were by chance, 

 from the interior of the country past the place where we worked, 

 remained there a while, regarding our labours with apparent 

 indifference, until he convinced himself that from simj^licity, or 

 some other reason unintelligible to him, we avoided touching the 

 blubber-stores, but instead rooted up in search of old fragments 

 of bone or stone-flakes. 



Kemains of old dwellings were found even at the highest 

 points among the stone mounds of Irkaipij, and here perhaps was 

 the last asylum of the Onkilon race. At many places on the 

 mountain slopes were seen large collections of bones, consisting 

 partly of a large number (at one place up to fifty) of bears' 

 skulls overgrown with lichens, laid in circles, with the nose 

 inwards, partly of the skulls of the reindeer. Polar bear,^ and 

 walrus, mixed together in a less regular circle, in the midst of 



^ The walrus now appears to be very rare in the sea north of Behring's 

 Straits, but formerly it must have been found there in large numbers, and 

 made that region a veritable paradise for every hunting tribe. While we 

 during our long stay there saw only a few walruses, Cook, in 1778, saw an 

 enormous number, and an interesting drawing of walruses is to be found 

 in the account of his third voyage. A Voyaqe to the Pacific Ocean, etc., 

 Vol. III. (by James King), London, 1784, p. 259, pi. 52. 



" The greatest number of mammoth tusks is obtained fi'om the stretches 

 of land and the islands between the Chatanga and Chaun Bay. Here the 

 walrus is wanting. The inhabitants of North Siberia therefore praise the 

 wisdom of the Creator, who lets the walrus live in the regions where the 

 mammoth is wanting, and has scattered mammoth ivory in the earthy layers 

 of the coasts where the walrus does not occur (A. Erman, Re'ise um die 

 Erde, Berlin, 1833—48, D. 1, B. 2, p. 264). 



•^ Among the bears' skulls brought home from this place Lieut. Nordquist 

 found after his return home the skull of a sea-lion {Otar'ia SteUeri). It is, 

 however, uncertain whether the animal was captured in the region, or 

 whether the cranium was brought hither from Kamchatka. 



