X.] LIFE ON BOARD DURING THE WINTER. 387 



owner's curiosity, and on two occasions in very bad drifting 

 weather we were compelled to give shelter to a wanderer who 

 had gone astray. 



When this ice-honse was ready and hourly observations began 

 in it, life on board took the stamp which it afterwards retained 

 in the course of the winter. In order to give the reader an idea 

 of our every-day life, I shall reproduce here the spirited sketch 

 of a day on the Vega, which Dr. Kjellman gave in one of his 

 home letters : — 



" It is about half-past eight in the morning. He wdiose watch 

 has expired has returned after five hours' stay in the ice-house, 

 where the temperature during the night has been about -16°. 

 His account of the weather is good enough. There are only 

 thirty-two degrees of cold, it is half-clear, and, to be out of the 

 ordinary, there is no wind. Breakfast is over. Cigars, cigarettes, 

 and pipes are lighted, and the gunroom ])crsonnel go up on deck . 

 for a little exercise and fresh air, for below it is confined and 

 close. The eye rests on the desolate, still faintly-lighted land- 

 scape, which is exactly the same as it was yesterday ; a white 

 plain in all directions, across which a low, likewise white, chain 

 of hillocks or torosses here and there raises itself, and over which 

 some ravens, with feeble wing-strokes, fly forward, searching for 

 something to support life with. ' Metschinko Orpist,' ' mets- 

 chinko Okerpist,' ' metschinko Kellman,' &c., now sounds every- 

 where on the vessel and from the ice in its neighbourhood. 

 ' Orpist ' represents Nordquist, ' Okerpist ' again Stuxberg. It is 

 the Chukches' morning salutation to us. To-day the com- 

 paratively fine weather has drawn out a larger crowd than usual, 

 thirty to forty hixman beings, from tender sucking babes to grey 

 old folks, men as well as women ; the latter in the word of 

 salutation replacing the tsch-sound with an exceedingly soft 

 caressinof ^s-sound. That most of them have come drivinsj is 

 shown by the equipages standing in the neighbourhood of the 

 vessel. They consist of small, low, narrow, light sledges, drawn 

 by four to ten or twelve dogs. The sledges are made of small 

 pieces of wood and bits of reindeer-horn, held together by seal- 

 skin straps. As runner-shoes thin plates of the ribs of the 

 whale are used. The dogs, sharp-nosed, long-backed, and exces- 

 sively dirty, have laid themselves to rest, curled together in 

 the snow. 



" The salutation is followed almost immediately to-day as 

 oT\ preceding days by some other words : ' Ouinga mouri kauka,' 

 which may be translated thus: 'I am so hungry; I have no 

 food ; give me a little bread ! ' They suffer hunger now, the 

 poor beings. Seal flesh, their main food, they cannot with the 

 best will procure for the time. The only food they can get 



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