CHAP. X.] THE CHURCHES FISHING FOR WINTER ROACH. 493 
case of necessity one could get along very well, although in this 
newly formed dialect all grammatical inflections 
were totally wanting. Besides, I set one of the 
crew, the walrus-hunter Johnsen, free for a con- 
sideral time from all work on hoard, in order that 
he might wander about the country daily, partly 
for hunting, partly for conversing with the natives. 
He succeeded in the beginning of winter in killing 
some ptarmigan and hares, got for me a great deal 
of important information regarding the mode of 
life of the Chukches, and procured several valuable 
ethnographical objects. But after a time, for what 
reason I could never make out, he took an in¬ 
vincible dislike to visit the Chukch tents more, 
without however having come to any disagreement 
with their inhabitants. 
On the 5th October the openings between the 
drift-ice fields next the vessel were covered with 
splendid skating ice, of which we availed ourselves 
by celebrating a gay and joyous skating festival. 
The Chukch women and children were now seen 
fishing for winter roach along the shore. In this 
sort of fishing a man, who always accompanies the 
fishing women, with an iron-shod lance cuts a 
hole in the ice so near the shore that the distance 
between the under corner of the hole and the 
bottom is only half a metre. Each hole is used 
only by one woman, and that only for a short 
time. Stooping down at the hole, in which the 
surface of the water is kept quite clear of pieces of 
ice by means of an ice-sieve, she endeavours to 
attract the fish by means of a peculiar wonderfully 
clattering cry. First when a fish is seen in 
ICE-SIEVE. 
One-eighth of 
the natural size. 
