666 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



order on the first high strand bank. The tents differed some- 

 what in construction from the common Chukch tents, and as 

 drift-wood appears to be met with on the beach only in Hmited 

 quantity, whale-bones had been used on a very large scale in 

 the frame of the tent. Thus, for instance, the tent-covering 

 of seal-skin was stretched downwards over the ribs or lower 

 jawbones of the whale which were fixed in the ground like 

 poles. These were united above with slips of whale-bones, 

 from which other slips of the same sort of bones or of whale- 

 bone rose to the summit of the tent, and finally, to prevent 

 the blast from raising the tent-covering from the ground, its 

 border was loaded with masses of large heavy bones. Eleven 

 shoulder-blades of the whale were thus used round a single 

 tent. In the absence of drift-wood, whale and seal bones 

 drenched in train-oil are also used as fuel in cooking in the 

 open air during summer ; a large curved whale rib was placed 

 over the fire-place to serve as a pot-holder ; the vertebrae of 

 the whale were used as mortars ; the entrances to the blubber- 

 cellars were closed with shoulder-blades of the whale ; hollowed 

 whale-bones were used as lamps ; slices of whale-bone or pieces 

 of the under-jaw and the straighter ribs were used for shoeing 

 the sledges, for spades and ice-mattocks, the different parts 

 of the implement being bound together with whale-bone 

 fibres, &c.^ 



Masses of black seal-flesh, and long, white, fluttering strings 

 of inflated intestines, were hung up between the tents, and in 

 their interior there were everywhere to be seen bloody pieces 

 of flesh, prepared in a disgusting way or lying scattered about, 

 whereby both the dwellings and their inhabitants, who were 

 occupied with hunting, had a more than usually disagreeable 

 appearance, A pleasant interruption was formed by the heaps 

 of green willow branches which were placed at the entrance 

 of nearly every tent, commonly surrounded by women and 

 children, who ate the leaves with delight. At some places 

 whole sacks of Rhodiola and various other plants had been 

 collected for food during winter. As distinctive of the Chukches 

 here it may be mentioned in the last place that they were 

 abundantly provided with European household articles, among 

 them Remington guns, and that none of them asked for 

 spirits. 



Most of the seals which were seen in the tents were the common 



1 There is still in existence a sketch of a tribe, living far to the south on 

 the coast of the Indian Sea, who at the time of Alexander the Great used 

 the bones of the whale in a similar way. "They build their houses so 

 that the richest among them take bones of the whale, which the sea casts 

 up, and use them as beams ; of the larger bones they make their doors. 

 Arrian, Historia Indica, XXIX. and XXX. 



