504 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
Chukches wear on the breast. My host said that such an 
amulet worn round the neck was a powerful means of pre¬ 
venting disease. The wolfs skull which I had already got, he 
took back, because his four- or five-year-old son would need it 
in making choice of a wife. What part it played in this I did 
not however ascertain. 
“ While my driver harnessed the dogs for the journey home, 
I had an opportunity of seeing some little girls dance, which 
they did in the same way as that in which I had seen girls 
dance at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen. Two girls then place them¬ 
selves either right opposite to or alongside of each other. In the 
former case they often lay their hands on each other’s shoulders, 
bend by turns to either side, sometimes leap with the feet held 
together and wheel round, while they sing or rather grunt 
the measure. 
'^The journey home was commenced at eight o’clock in the 
morning. In the course of it my driver sang Chukch songs. 
These are often only imitations of the cries of animals or 
improvisations without any distinct metre or rhythm, and very 
little variation in the notes; only twice I thought I could dis¬ 
tinguish a distinct melody. In the afternoon my driver told 
me the Chukch names of several stars. At five o’clock in the 
afternoon I reached the Vega,” 
On the 10th October, the new ice at many places in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the vessel was still so weak that it was impossible to 
walk upon it, and blue water-skies at the horizon indicated, that 
there were still considerable stretches of open water in the neigh¬ 
bourhood. But the drift-ice round about us lay so rock-fast, that 
I could already take solar altitudes from the deck of the vessel 
with a mercurial horizon. In order to ascertain the actual state 
of the case with reference to the open water, excursions were 
undertaken on the 13th October, in different directions. Dr. 
Kjellman could then, from the rocky promontory at Yinretlen, 
forty-two metres high, see large open spaces in the sea to the 
northward. Dr. Almquist went right out over the ice, following 
the track of Chukches, who had gone to catch seals. He 
travelled about twenty kilometres over closely packed drift-ice 
fields, without reaching open water, and found the newly frozen 
