78 
TPIE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
Among former travellers on the Chukch peninsula, who visited 
the encampments of the coast Chukches, besides Behring, Cook, 
and other seafarers, the following may be mentioned: — 
The Cossack, Peter Iliin Sin Popov, was sent in 1711 with 
two interpreters to examine the country of the Chukches, and 
has left some interesting accounts of his observations there 
(Muller, Sammlung Ettssischer Gescliichten, iii. p. 56).^ 
Billings, with his companions Sauer, Sarytschev, &c., 
visited Chukch-land in 1791. Among other things, accom- 
companied by Dr. Merk, two interpreters and eight men, he 
made a journey from Metschigme Bay over the interior of 
Chukch-land to Yakutsk. Unfortunately the account we 
have of this remarkable journey is exceedingly incomplete.^ 
Ferdinand von Wrangel during his- famous Siberian 
travels was much in contact with the Chukches, and among his 
other journeys travelled in the winter of 1823 in dog sledges 
along the coast of the Polar Sea from the Kolyma to Kolyutschin 
Island (Wrangel, Beise, ii. pp. 176-231). There are besides 
many notices of the Chukches at other places in the same 
work (i. pp. 267-293 ; ii. pp. 156, 168, &c.). 
Friedrich von Lutke in the course of his circumnavigation 
of the globe in 1826-29, came in contact with the population 
of the Chukch peninsula, whom he described in detail in 
Erman’s Arcliiv (iii. pp. 146-461). Here it ought to be noted 
that, Avhile the population on the North coast consists of true 
Chukches, the coast population of the region which Lutke visited, 
1 Mtiller has likewise saved from oblivion some other accounts regarding 
the Chukches, collected soon after at Anadyrsk. When we now read these 
accounts, we find not only that the Chukches knew the Eskimo on tlie 
American side, but also stories regarding the Indians of Western America 
penetrated to them, and further, through the authorities in Siberia, came 
to Europe, a circumstance which deserves to be kept in mind in judging of 
the writings of Herodotus and Marco Polo. 
Sauer, An Account, &c., pp. 255 and 319. Sarytschev, Reise, lihersetzt 
von Basse, ii. p. 102. 
