IX.] 
GREEN FOOD FOR WINTER. 
435 
or slaughtered reindeer were being cut in pieces. At a third an 
old woman was employed in taking out of the paunch of the 
reindeer the green spinage-like contents and cramming them 
into a sealskin bag, evidently to be preserved for green food 
during winter. The hand was used in this case as a scoop, and 
the naked arms were coloured high up with the certainly un¬ 
appetising spinage, which however, according to the statements 
of Danish colonists in Greenland, has no unpleasant taste. Other 
skin sacks filled with train-oil stood in rows along the walls of 
the tent. 
The Chukches offered train-oil for sale, and appeared to he 
surprised that we would not purchase any. In all the tents 
were found seals cut in pieces, a proof that the catch of seals had 
recently been abundant. At one tent lay two fresh walrus heads 
with large beautiful tusks. I tried without success to purchase 
these heads, but next day the tusks w^efe offered to us. The 
Chukches appear to have a prejudice against disposing of 
the heads of slain animals. According to older travellers they 
even pay the walrus-head a sort of worship. 
Children were met with in great numbers, healthy and 
thriving. In the inner tent the older children went nearly 
naked, and I saw them go out from it without shoes or other 
covering and run between the tents on the hoarfrost-covered 
ground. The younger were carried on the shoulders both of 
men and women, and were then so wrapped up that they 
resembled balls of skin. The children were treated with marked 
friendliness, and the older ones were never heard to utter an 
angry word. I purchased here a large number of household 
articles and dresses, which I shall describe further on. 
On the morning of the 9th September we endeavoured to 
steam on, but were soon compelled by the dense fog to lie-to 
again at a ground-ice, which, when the fog lightened, was found 
to have stranded quite close to land. The depth here was 
eleven metres. At this place we lay till the morning of the 
F F 2 
