X.J 
NORDQUIST’S VISIT TO PIDLIN. 
503 
for driving him to Markova, but had not kept his promise. 
Of this journey Lieutenant Nordquist gives the following 
account:— 
‘‘On the 5th December, at 7.50 A.M., I started with a dog- 
sledge for the village Pidlin, lying on Kolyutschin Bay. I was 
driven by the Chukch Auango from Irgunnuk. He had a small, 
light sledge, provided with runners of whalebone, drawn by six 
dogs, of which the leader was harnessed before the other five, 
which were fastened abreast in front of the sledge, each with its 
draught belt. The dogs were weak and ill managed, and there¬ 
fore went so slowly that I cannot estimate their speed at more 
than two or three English miles an hour. As the journey both 
thither and back lasted eight to nine hours, the distance between 
Pitlekaj and Pidlin may be about twenty-five English miles. 
“ Pidlin and Kolyutschin Island are the only inhabited places 
on Kolyutschin Bay. At the former place there are four tents, 
pitched on the eastern shore of the bay, the number of the 
inhabitants being a little over twenty persons. I was received 
in front of the tents by the population of the village and 
carried to the tent, which was inhabited by Chepcho, who now 
promised to go with me in February to Anadyrsk. My host 
had a wife and three children. At night the children were 
completely undressed; the adults had short trousers on, the 
man of tanned skin, the woman of cloth. In the oppressive 
heat, which was kept up by two train-oil lamps burning the 
whole night, it was difficult to sleep even in the heavy reindeer¬ 
skin dresses. Yet they covered themselves with reindeer skins. 
Besides the heat there was a fearful stench—the Chukches 
obeyed the calls of nature within the bedchamber^—which I 
could not stand without going out twice to get fresh air. When 
we got up next morning our hostess served breakfast in a flat 
tray, containing first seals’ flesh and fat, with a sort of sour- 
krout of fermented willow-leaves, then seals’ liver, and finally 
seals’ blood—all frozen. 
“Among objects of ethnographical interest I saw, besides the 
Shaman drum which was found in every tent, and was not 
regarded with the superstitious dread which I have often 
observed elsewhere, a bundle of amulets fastened with a small 
thong, a wolfs skull, which was also hung up by a thong, the 
skin together with the whole cartilaginous portion of a wolfs 
nose and a flat stone. The amulets consisted of wooden forks, 
four to five centimetres long, of the sort which we often see the 
