264 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



TCHUKTCHI PIPE. 



cated for the time. The desire to procure a few of its narcotic leaves induces 

 the American Esquimaux, from the Icy Cape to Bristol Bay, to send their prod- 

 uce from hand to hand as far as the Gwosdew Islands in Bering's Straits, 

 where it is bartered for the tobacco of the Tchuktchi, and these again princi- 

 pally resort to the fair of Ostrownoje to purchase tobacco from the Russians. 

 Generally the Tchuktchi receive from the Americans as many skins for half a 

 poud, or eighteen pounds, of tobacco-leaves as they afterwards sell to the Rus- 

 sians for two pouds of tobacco of the same quality. These cost the Russian 

 merchant about 160 roubles at the very utmost, while the skins which he obtains 

 in barter are worth at least 260 at Jakutsk, and are more than double that sum 

 at St. Petersburg. 



The furs of the Tchuktchi principally consist of black and silver-gray foxes, 

 stone-foxes, gluttons, lynxes, otters, beavers, and a fine species of marten which 

 does not occur in Siberia, and approaches the sable in value. They also bring 

 to the fair bear-skins, walrus-thongs and teeth, sledge-runners of whale-ribs, and 

 ready-made clothes of reindeer skin. The American furs are generally packed 

 in sacks of seal skin, which are made in an ingenious manner by extracting the 

 bones and flesh through a small opening made in the abdomen. 



The Russian traders on their part bring to the fair, besides tobacco, iron- 

 ware — particularly kettles and knives — for the Tchuktchi, and tea, sugar, and 

 various stuffs for their countrymen who have settled along the Kolyma. 



But Ostrownoje attracts not only Tchuktchi and Russians; a great num- 

 ber of the Siberian tribes from a vast circuit of 1000 or 1500 versts — Juka- 

 hires, Lamutes, Tungusi, Tschuwanzi, Koriaks — also come flocking in their 

 sledges, drawn partly by dogs, partly by horses, for the purpose of bartering 

 their commodities against the goods of the Tchuktchi. Fancy this barbarous 

 assembly meeting every year during the intense cold and short days of the be- 

 ginning of March. Picture to yourself the fantastic illumination of their red 

 watch-fires blazing under the starry firmament, or mingling their ruddy glare 

 with the Aurora flickering through the skies, and add to the strange sight the 

 hollow sound of the Shaman's drum, and the howling of several hundreds of 

 hungry dogs, and you will surely confess that no fair has a more original char- 

 acter than that of Ostrownoje. A government commissary, assisted by some 

 Cossacks, superintends the fair, and receives the inconsiderable market-tax 

 which the Tchuktchi pay to the Emperor. 



