THE CHURCHES. 
4.-H 
IX.] 
employed as far as possible. This did not prevent the chatter 
from going on, and great gladness soon came to prevail, especially 
when some presents began to be distributed, mainly consisting 
of tobacco and Dutch clay pipes. It was remarkable that none 
of them could speak a single word of Kussian, while a boy 
could count tolerably well up to ten in English, which shows that 
the natives here come into closer contact with American whalers 
than with Russian traders. They acknowledged the name 
chukch or chautchio. 
Many of them were tall, well-grown men. They were clothed 
in close fitting skin trousers and “ pesks ” of reindeer skin. The 
head was bare, the hair always clipped short, with the exception 
of a small fringe in front, where the hair had a length of four 
centimetres and was combed down over the brow. Some had a 
cap of the sort used by the Russians at Chabarova, stuck into 
the belt behind, but they appeared to consider the weather still 
too warm for the use of this head-covering. The hair of most 
of them was bluish-black and exceedingly thick. The women 
were tattooed with black or bluish-black lines on the brow and 
nose, a number of similar lines on the chin, and finally some 
embellishments on the cheeks. The type of face did not strike 
one as so unpleasant as that of the Samoyeds or Eskimo. Some 
of the young girls were even not absolutely ugly. In comparison 
with the Samoyeds they were even rather cleanly, and had a 
beautiful, almost reddish-white complexion. Two of the men 
were quite fair. Probably they were descendants of Russians, 
who for some reason or other, as prisoners of war or fugitives, 
had come to live among the Chukches and had been nationalised 
by them. 
In a little we continued our voyage, after the Chukches had 
returned to their boats, evidently well pleased with the gifts 
they had received and the leaf tobacco I had dealt out in 
bundles,—along with the clay pipes, of which every one got as 
many as he could carry between his fingers,—with the finery and 
