S A R Y T S C H E W S T R AVERS. 
JO: 
food, unless they be any way damaged; they even prefer to en¬ 
dure hunger for many days, or content themselves with the bark 
of trees, or, old shrivelled skin, which they constantly carry 
shout with them, to serve in case of exigency. They eat up 
every part of the animal which they kill, not throwing away 
even the impurities of the bowels, with which they make 
a sort of black puddings, by a mixture of blood and fat! They 
eat no raw meat, even when dried, but they are fond of the 
raw marrow from the bones, which having tasted myself, I 
did not rind offensive. 
On the 25th of March, our reindeer carried us to Arka ; a 
place so called from the river of that name running into the 
Ochota- Here we found some pedestrian Tunguses, who go on 
foot in summer for want of reindeer. In the winter they har¬ 
ness dogs to their nartes, and build their juris under ground ; but 
in other respects do not differ from the other tribes of their 
Ration. 
At this place, 1 exchanged my reindeer for the dogs and the 
nartes. These are light sledges, about twelve feet long and 
two broad, and a foot and half high from the bottom. They 
are of so slight a structure that they may be conveyed by hand. 
Ten or twelve dogs are harnessed to them by means of small 
cords, with a large rein between, serving as a pole. The 
foremost couple are used to turn right or left at a word ; but 
when the driver wishes to stop the narte he fixes his oschtol in the 
snow, through the sledge. 
The oschtol is a thick staff tipped with iron, and having a 
rattle at one end, by which.the pace of the dogs is quickened. 
Tovyards the spring this mode of travelling becomes excessively 
incommodious, for the nartes having no indented seats, and the 
road being often uneven and steep, it is not unfrequent for the 
traveller to be thrown over, and sometimes pitched on the 
stumps of trees, or other hard substances ; particularly when 
the dogs get scent of an animal, and become ungovernable. In 
pursuit of an otter, for example, they are not to be restrained 
from going into the water, and dragging their nartes after them ; 
so that if the driver be not dexterous enough either to turn over 
the conveyance, or to jump out, his life is in great danger. 
Whenever there is a great fall of snow, or it be driven into 
unusually large heaps, then two or three persons are obliged to 
go before to make a track, and mark the road, by the position 
of the trees, mountains, and rivers : the snow, thus trodden, 
will be sufficiently firm to bear any weight until the return of 
warm weather. 
On the 27th of March I arrived at Ochotsk, situated on the 
^hore of the sea called by its name/ close by the mouth and 
