116 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. XII. 
round. All the men in the tent village, and most of. the 
women, but not the children, had at the time got completely 
intoxicated in order to celebrate the arrival of the foreigners, or 
perhaps rather that of the stock of brandy. As there are no 
Eurojoeans settled at Behring’s Straits, at least on the Asiatic 
side, we learn from the traffic in brandy that there are actually 
natives abstemious enough to be able to deal in it. 
Tobacco is in common use, both for smoking and chewing.^ 
Every native carries with him a pipe resembling that of the 
Tunguse, and a tobacco-pouch (fig. 7, p. 117). The tobacco 
is of many kinds, both Bussian and American, and when the 
stock of it is finished native substitutes are used. Preference 
is given to the sweet, strong chewing tobacco, which sailors 
generally use. In order to make the tobacco sweet which has 
not before been drenched with molasses, the men are accus¬ 
tomed, when they get a piece of sugar, to break it down and 
place it in the tobacco-pouch. The tobacco is often first chewed, 
then dried behind the ear, and kept in a separate pouch sus¬ 
pended from the neck, to be afterwards smoked. The pipes are 
so small that, like those of the Japanese, they may be smoked 
out with a few strong whiffs. The smoke is swallowed. 
Even the women and children smoke and chew, and they begin 
to do so at so tender an age that we have seen a child, who 
could indeed walk, but still sucked his mother, both chew 
tobacco, smoke, and take a “ ram.” 
Some bundles of Ukraine tobacco, which I took with me for 
barter with the natives, put it into my power to procure a large 
number of contributions to the ethnological collection, which 
in the absence of other wares for barter I would otherwise have 
been unable to obtain. For the Chukches do not understand 
money. This is so much the more remarkable as they carry on 
1 Already, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, all the Siberian 
tribes, men and women, old and young, smoked passionately {Hist. 
Genealog. des Tartares, p. 66). 
