CHAP. xiL] POPULATION OF THE NORTH COAST OF ASIA. 71 
the interior of the country or died out/ and the north coast of 
Asia first begins again to be inhabited at Chaun Bay, namely, 
by the tribe with whom we came in contact during the latter 
part of the coast voyage of the Vega in 1878 and during the 
wintering. 
I have already, it is true, given an account of various traits 
of the Chukches’ disposition and mode of life, but I believe at 
all events that a- more exhaustive statement of what the Vega 
men experienced in this region will be interesting to my readers, 
even if in the course of it I am sometimes compelled to return 
to subjects of which I have already treated. 
1 The north coast of America still forms the haunt of a not incon¬ 
siderable Eskimo population which, for a couple of centuries, has extended 
to the 80th degree of latitude. As the climate in the north part of the 
Old World differs little from that which prevails in corresponding regions 
of the New, as at both places there is an abundant supply of fish, and as the 
seal and walrus hunting—at least between the Yenisej and the Chatanga—: 
ought to be as productive as on the north coast of America, this difference, 
which has arisen only recently, is very striking. It appears to me to be 
capable of explanation in the following way. Down to our days a large 
number of small savage tribes in America have carried on war with each 
other, the weaker, to escape extermination by the more powerful races, 
being compelled to flee to the ice deserts of the north, deeming themselves 
fortunate if they could there, in peace from their enemies, earn a living by 
adopting the mode of life of the Polar races, suitable as it is to the climate 
and resources of the land. The case was once the same in Siberia, and 
there are many indications that fragments of conquered tribes have 
been in former times driven up from the south, not only to the 
north coast of the mainland, but also beyond it to the islands lying 
off it. In Siberia, however, for the last 250 years, the case has 
been completely changed by the Russian conquest of the country. 
The pressure of the new government has, notwithstanding many single 
acts of violence, been on the whole less destructive to the original popu¬ 
lation than the influence which the Europeans have exerted in America, 
The Russian power has at least had a wholly beneficial influence, inasmuch 
as it has prevented the continual feuds between the native races. The 
tribes driven to the inhospitable North have been enabled to return to 
milder regions, and where this has not taken place they have, in the 
absence of new migrations from the South, succumbed in the fight with cold, 
hunger, and small-pox, or other diseases introduced by their new masters. 
