X.] 
LIFE ON BOARD DURING THE WINTER. 
513 
of a day on the Vega, which Dr. Kjellman gave in one of his 
home letters:— 
“ It is about half-past eight in the morning. He whose watch 
has expired has returned after live hours’ stay in the ice-house, 
where the temperature during the night has been about -16°. 
His account of the weather is good enough. There are only 
thirty-two degrees of cold, it is half-clear, and, to be out of the 
ordinary, there is no wind. Breakfast is over. Cigars, cigarettes, 
and pipes are lighted, and the gunroom personnel go up on deck 
for a little exercise and fresh air, for below it is confined and 
close. The eye rests on the desolate, still faintly-lighted land¬ 
scape, which is exactly the same as it was yesterday; a white 
plain in all directions, across which a low, likewise white, chain 
of hillocks or torosses here and there raises itself, and over which 
some ravens, with feeble wing-strokes, fiy forward, searching for 
something to support life with. ‘ Metschinko Orpist,’ ‘ mets- 
chinko Okerpist,’ ‘ metschinko Kellman,’ &c., now sounds every¬ 
where on the vessel and from the ice in its neighbourhood. 
‘ Orpist ’ represents Nordquist, ' Okerpist ’ again Stuxberg. It is 
the Chukches’ morning salutation to us. To-day the com¬ 
paratively fine weather has drawn out a larger crowd than usual, 
thirty to forty human beings, from tender sucking babes to grey 
old folks, men as well as women; the latter in the word of 
salutation replacing the i^scA-sound with an exceedingly soft 
caressing fe-sound. That most of them have come driving is 
shown by the equipages standing in the neighbourhood of the 
vessel. They consist of small, low, narrow, light sledges, drawn 
by four to ten or twelve dogs. The sledges are made of small 
pieces of wood and bits of reindeer-horn, held together by seal¬ 
skin straps. As runner-shoes thin plates of the ribs of the 
whale are used. The dogs, sharp-nosed, long-backed, and exces¬ 
sively dirty, have laid themselves to rest, curled together in 
the snow. 
‘‘The salutation is followed almost immediately to-day as 
on preceding days by some other words : ‘ Ouinga mouri kauka,’ 
which may be translated thus: ‘I am so hungry; I have no 
food; give me a little bread! ’ They suffer hunger now, the 
poor beings. Seal flesh, their main food, they cannot with the 
best will procure for the time. The only food they can get 
consists of fish (two kinds of cod)., but this is quite too poor diet 
for them, they have fallen off since we first met with them. 
Soon we are all surrounded by our Chukch acquaintances. 
L L 
