SIBERIA 



IOI 



the Arctic Ocean sometimes stop here and corrupt them 

 with bad morals and villainous whiskey. 



Throughout the village seals and seal oil, reindeer 

 skins, walrus hides,and blubber were most in evidence. 

 Back of the tent I saw a deep, partly covered pit in the 

 ground, nearly 

 filled with oil, 

 and a few rods 

 farther off oth- 

 ers were seen. 

 The bones of 

 whales served 

 instead of tim- 

 bers in most of 

 the rude struc- 

 tures. The win- 

 ter houses were 

 built by stand- 

 ing up a circle 

 of whale ribs about two feet apart, and filling up the in- 

 terstices with turf, making a wall two feet thick. For a 

 roof they used walrus hides, resting upon poles. In my 

 walk over this crescent of land I came here and there upon 

 the huge vertebrae of whales, scattered about and looking 

 like the gray weather-worn granite boulders on a New 

 England farm. 



Beyond the present site of the encampment I saw the 

 ruins of an older or earlier village, the foundations of 

 whale bones partly overgrown by the turf. 



As we came in at one end of the encampment most of 

 the dogs went out at the other end. They had never 

 seen such looking creatures, and they fled off toward the 

 mountain, where they sat down and howled their mournful 

 protest. Some of the children were frightened too; one 

 youngster of five or six years, stuffed like a small scare- 



GROUP OF ESKIMOS, PLOVER BAY. 



