XII.] 
CHARACTER OF THE OLD CHURCHES. 
77 
will have nothing to do with the Russians, whom they inhumanly 
kill when they fall in with them, and when any of them fall 
into the hands of the Russians they kill themselves.” On the 
map of Lotterus (1765) the Chukch Peninsula is coloured in a 
way differing from Russian Siberia; and there is the following 
inscription: TjuMzchi natio ferocissima et hellicosa Biissorum 
inimica, qui capti se invicem interficiunt. In 1777 Georgius 
says in his Besclireibibng alter Nationen des Bussischen Beichs 
(part ii., p. 350) of the Chukches : “ They are more savage, 
coarse, proud, refractory, thievish, false, and revengeful, than the 
neighbouring nomads the Koryaks. They are as bad and 
dangerous as the Tunguses are friendly. Twepty Chukches will 
beat fifty Koryaks. The Ostrogs (fortified places) lying in the 
neighbourhood of their country are even in continual fear of 
them, and cost so much that the Government has recently 
withdrawn the oldest Russian settlement in those regions, 
Anadyrsk.” Other statements to the same effect raight be 
quoted, and even in our day the Chukches are, with or with¬ 
out justification, known in Siberia for stubbornness, courage, and 
love of freedom. 
But what violence could not effect has been completely 
accomplished in a peaceful way.^ The Chukches indeed do not 
pay any other taxes than some small market tolls, but a very 
active traffic is now carried on between them and the Russians, 
and many travellers have without inconvenience traversed their 
country, or have sailed along its pretty thickly inhabited coast. 
1 Liitke says (Erman’s ArcMv, iii. p. 464) that the peaceful relations 
with the Chukches began after the conclusion of a peace which was 
brought about ten years after the abandonment of Anadyrsk, where for 
thirty-six years there had been a garrison of 600 men, costing over a 
million roubles. This peace this formerly so quarrelsome people has 
kept conscientiously down to our days with the exception of some market 
brawls, which induced Treskin, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, 
to conclude with them, in 1817, a commercial treaty which appears to have 
been faithfullj^ adhered to, to the satisfaction and advantage of both 
parties (Dittmar, p. 128). 
