252 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
tribes; otherwise it would be difficult to explain how Kotzebue’s 
sailors could in half an hour purchase at a single encampment 
200 coats of this kind. At the time of our visit all the natives 
went bareheaded, the men with their black tallow-like hair 
clipped to the root, with the exception of the common small 
border above the forehead. The women wore their hair 
plaited and adorned with beads, and were much tattooed, partly 
after very intricate patterns, as is shown by the accompanying 
woodcuts. Like the children they mostly went barefooted and 
TATTOOED WOMAN, FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND. 
(After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.) 
barelegged. They were well grown, and many did not look ill, 
but all were merciless beggars, who actually followed our 
naturalists on their excursions on land. 
The summer-tents were irregular, but pretty clean and light 
huts of gut, stretched on a frame of drift-wood and whale-bones. 
The winter dwellings were now abandoned. They appeared 
to consist of holes in the earth, which were covered above, with 
the exception of a square opening, with drift-wood and turf. 
