40 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



feathered game, bear and reindeer flesh, when such 

 can be obtained. The roots of certain shore-plants, 

 also willow-leaves, ranunculus, and saxifrage, &c., 

 enter pretty largely into their diet. The leaves are 

 collected in the latter end of summer, pressed, and 

 consumed during the winter ; and in these they are 

 provided with a powerful anti-scorbutic. During 

 the winter, when getting short of other provisions, 

 the bones of seals and walrusses caught during sum- 

 mer are crushed, and prepared in the form of a broth 

 or soup, which is consumed by both men and dogs. 

 Of the latter there are a great number in every vil- 

 lage, which are chiefly employed in conveying their 

 owners by sledge from one place to another. Al- 

 though these dogs are not large, three or four of 

 them can with ease carry a man long distances. 

 When the Tchuktchis undertakes long journeys 

 of 300 to 500 miles, he often has as many as 

 eighteen dogs harnessed to his sledge, with which 

 he is able to accomplish seventy to eighty miles 

 a-day. 



During the first half of the winter we were daily 

 visited by twenty to thirty natives, who got any 

 food the crew might have left. Besides this, they 

 received a considerable quantity of bread from the 

 ship's stores. They made themselves useful in sev- 

 eral small ways, such as sawing wood, carrying ice, 

 &c., &c. In the beginning of February, when their 

 provisions began to run short, they all removed from 



