228 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE JAKUTS. 



Tlieir energetic Nationality. — Their Descent,— Their gloomy Character.— Summer and Winter Dwell- 

 ings. — The Jakut Horse. — Incredible Powers of Endurance of the Jakuts. — Their Sharpness of Vis- 

 ion. — Surprising local Memory. — Their manual Dexterity. — Leather, Poniards, Carpets. — Jakut 

 Gluttons. — Supersti;ious Fear of the Mountain-spirit Ljeschei. — Offerings of Horse-hair. — Improvised 

 Songs. — The River Jakut. 



^HE Jakuts are a remarkably energetic race, for though subject to the Mus- 



covite yoke, they not only successfully mamtain their language and man- 

 ners, but even impose their own tongue and customs upon the Russians who 

 have settled in their country. Thus in Jakutsk, or the " capital of the Jakuts," 

 as with not a little of national pride and self-complacency they style that dreary 

 city, their language is much more frequently spoken than the Russian, for al- 

 most all the artisans are Jakuts, and even the rich fur-merchant has not seldom 

 a Jakut wife, as no Russian now disdains an alliance with one of that nation. 



At Amginskoie, an originally Russian settlement, Middendorff found the 

 greatest difficulty in procuring a guide able to speak the Russian language, and 

 all the Tunguse whom he met with between Jakutsk and Ochotsk understood 

 and spoke Jakut, which is thus the dominant language from the basin of the 

 Lena to the extreme eastern confines of Siberia. In truth, no Russian workman 

 can compete with the Jakuts, whose cunning and effrontery would make it diffi- 

 cult even for a Jew to prosper among them. 



Though of a Mongolian physiognomy, their language, which is said to be 

 intelligible at Constantinople, distinctly points to a Turk extraction, and their 

 traditions speak of their original seats as situated on the Baikal and Angora, 

 whence, retreating before more powerful hordes, they advanced to the Lena, 

 where in their turn they dispossessed the weaker tribes which they found in 

 possession of the country. At present their chief abode is along the banks of 

 that immense river, which they occupy at least as far southward as the Aldan. 

 Eastward they are found on the Kolyma, and westward as far as the Jenissei. 

 Their total number amounts to about 200,000, and they form the chief part of 

 the population of the vast but almost desert province of J akutsk. 



They are essentially a pastoral people, and their chief wealth consists in 

 horses and cattle, though the northern portion of their nation is reduced to the 

 reindeer and the dog. Besides the breeding of horses, the Russian fur-trade 

 has developed an industrial form of the hunter's state, so that among the 

 Jakuts property accumulates, and we have a higher civilization than will be 

 found elsewhere in the same latitude, Iceland, Finland, and Norway alone ex- 

 cepted. Of an unsocial and reserved disposition, they prefer a solitary settle- 

 ment, but at the same time they are very hospitable, and give the stranger who 



J 



