PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
267 
then seated upon some skins placed for the purpose ; and bowls of blub- 
ber, walrus, and unicorn flesh (monodon monoceros), with various other 
delicacies of the same kind, were successively offered as temptations to 
our appetite, which, nevertheless, we felt no inclination to indulge. 
After some few exchanges, the advantage of which was on the side 
of our acquaintances, who had nothing curious to part with, an old 
man produced a tambourine, and seating himself upon the roof of one of 
the miserable hovels, threw his legs across, and commenced a song, ac- 
companying it with the tambourine, with as much apparent happiness 
as if fortune had imparted to him every luxury of life. The vivacity and 
humour of the musician inspired two of the old hags, who joined chorus, 
and threw themselves into a variety of attitudes, twisting their bodies, 
snapping their fingers, and smirking from behind their seal-skin hoods, 
with as much shrewd meaning as if they had been half a century 
younger. Several little chubby girls, roused by the music from the 
subterranean abodes, came blinking at the daylight through the greasy 
aperture of the roof, and Joined the performance ; and we had the satis- 
CHAP. 
XL 
August, 
1826. 
faction of seeing a set of people happy who did not seem to possess a 
single comfort upon earth. 
The village consisted of a number of “ yourts” excavated in a ridge 
of mud and gravel, which had been heaped up in a parallel line with 
the beach. Their construction more nearly approached to the habita- 
tions of the Tschutschi than those of the Esquiitaux of Greenland. 
They consisted of two pits about eight feet deep, communicating by a 
door at the bottom. The inner one had a dome-shaped roof, made with 
dry wood or bones ; it was covered with turf, and rose about four feet 
above the surface of the earth. In the centre of this there was a circu- 
lar hole or window, covered with a piece of skin (part of the intes- 
tine of the whale), which gave, however, but very little light. The 
outer pit had a flat roof, and was entered by a square hole, over which 
there was a shed to protect it from the snow and the inclemency 
of the weather. A rude ladder led to a floor of loose boards, be- 
neath which our noses as well as our eyes were greeted by a pool of 
dirty green water. The inner chamber was the sleeping and cooking 
room. 
M M 2 
