490 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chaf. 



the light-stock firm against the ground, the bowstring is put 

 round the drill pin, the left hand presses the pin with the drill 

 block against the light-stock, and the bow is carried backwards 

 and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly, steadily, and un- 

 interruptedly, until fire appears. A couple of minutes are 

 generally required to complete the process. The women appear 

 to be more accustomed than the men to the use of this 

 implement. An improved form of it consisted of a wooden pin 

 on whose lower part a lense-formed and perforated block of wood 

 was fixed. This block served as fly-wheel and weight. Across 

 the wooden pin ran a perforated cross-bar which was fastened 

 with two sinews to its upper end. By carrying this cross-bar 

 backwards and forwards the pin could be turned round with 

 great rapidity. The implement appears to me the more re- 

 markable as it shows a new way of using the stone or brick 

 lenses, which are often found in graves or old house-sites from 

 the Stone Age. 



Among the Chukches, as among many other wild races, 

 lucifer matches have obtained the honour of being the first 

 of the inventions of the civilised races that have been recognised 

 as indisputably superior to their own. A request for lucifer 

 matches was therefore one of the most common of those with 

 which our friends at Behring's Straits tormented us during 

 winter, and they were willing for a single box to offer things 

 that in comparison were very valuable. Unfortunately we had 

 no superfluous supply of this necessary article, or perhaps I 

 ought to say fortunately, for if the Chukches for some years 

 were able to get a couple of boxes of matches for a walrus tusk, 

 I believe that with their usual carelessness they would soon 

 completely forget the use of their own fire-implements. 



Among household articles I may further mention the 

 following : — 



The hide-scraper (fig. 1, p. 486) is of stone or iron and fastened 

 to a wooden handle. With this tool the moistened hide is 

 cleaned very particularly, and is then rubbed, stretched, and 

 kneaded so carefully that several days go to the preparation 

 of a single reindeer skin. That this is hard work is also shown 

 by the woman who is employed at it in the tent dripping with 

 perspiration. While thus employed she sits on a part of the 

 skin and stretches out the other part with the united help of 

 the hands and the bare feet. When the skin has been 

 sufliciently worked, she fills a vessel with her own urine, mixes 

 this with comminuted willow bark, which has been dried over 

 the lamp, and rubs the blood-warm liquid into the reindeer 

 skin. In order to give this a red colour on one side, the bark 

 of a species of Pinus (?) is mixed with the tanning liquid. The 

 skins are made very soft by this process, and on the inner side 



