The Samojedes are the immediate neighbours of the Lapps. Like them, they are nomads; but they are even less civilized, and have profited less by the arduous and enthusiastic labours of the Christian missionaries. They range over the forests and stony tundras of Northern Russia and Western Siberia; driving their reindeer herds from the banks of the Chatanga to the icy shores of the White Sea, or hunting the wild beasts in the dense woods which extend between the Obi and the Yenisei.

They are sunk far deeper than the Lapps in a coarse and debasing superstition. It is true that they believe in a supreme deity—Num, or Jilibeambaertje, who resides in the air, and, like the Greek Zeus, sends down thunder and lightning, rain and snow; and they evince that latent capacity for poetical feeling which is indicated even by the most barbarous tribes in their description of the rainbow as “the hem of his garment.” They regard him, however, as so elevated above the world of man, and so coldly indifferent to humanity, that it is useless to seek to propitiate him either by prayer or sacrifice; and they have recourse, accordingly, to the inferior gods,—who, as they believe, have the direction of human affairs, and are influenced by incantations, vows, or special homage.

The chief of all the Samojede idols is still supposed to consecrate with its presence, as in the days of the adventurous Barentz, the bleak and ice-bound island of Waigatz. It is a block of stone, pointed at the summit, and bearing some rude resemblance to a human head, having been fashioned after this likeness by a freak of nature. This has formed the model for the Samojede sculptors, who have multiplied its effigy in wood and stone; and the idols thus easily created they call sjadæi, because they wear a human (or semi-human) countenance (sja). They attire them in reindeer-skins, and embellish them with innumerable coloured rags. In addition to the sjadæi, they adopt as idols any curiously contorted tree or irregularly shaped stone; and the household idol (Hahe) they carry about with them, carefully wrapped up, in a sledge reserved for the purpose, the hahengan. One of the said penates is supposed to be the guardian of wedded happiness, another of the fishery, a third of the health of his worshippers, a fourth of their herds of reindeer. When his services are required, the Hahe is removed from his resting-place, and erected in the tent or on the pasture-ground, in the wood or on the river’s bank. Then his mouth is smeared with oil or blood, and before him is set a dish of flesh or fish, in return for which repast it is expected that he will use his power on behalf of his entertainers. His aid being no longer needed, he is returned to the hahengan.

Besides these obliging deities, the Samojede believes in the existence of an order of invisible spirits which he calls Tadebtsios. These are ever and everywhere around him, and bent rather upon his injury than his welfare. It becomes important, therefore, to propitiate them; but this can be done only through the interposition of a Tadibe, or sorcerer; who, on occasion, stimulates himself into a state of wild excitement, like the frenzy of the Pythian or Delphic priestess. When his aid is invoked by the credulous Samojede, his first care is to attire himself in full magician’s costume—a kind of shirt, made of reindeer leather, and hemmed with red cloth. Its seams are trimmed in like manner; and the shoulders are also decorated with red cloth tags, or epaulettes. A piece of red cloth is worn over the face as a mask, and a plate of polished metal gleams upon his breast.

Thus costumed, the Tadibe takes his drum of reindeer-skin, ornamented with brass rings, and, attended by a neophyte, walks round and round with great stateliness, while invoking the presence of the spirits by a discordant rattle. This gradually increases in violence, and is accompanied by the droning intonation of the words of enchantment. The spirits in due time appear, and the Tadibe proceeds to consult them; beating his drum more gently, and occasionally pausing in his doleful chant,—which, however, the novice is careful not to interrupt,—to listen, as is supposed, to the answers of the aerial divinities. At length the conversation ceases; the chant breaks into a fierce howl; the drum rattles more and more loudly; the Tadibe seems under a supernatural influence; his body quivers, and foam gathers on his lips. Then suddenly the frenzy ceases, and the Tadibe utters the will of the Tadebtsios, and gives advice how a straying reindeer may be recovered, or the disease of the Samojede worshipper relieved, or the fisherman’s labour rewarded with an abundant “harvest of the sea.”

The office of the Tadibe is usually transmitted from father to son; but occasionally some individual, predisposed by nature to fits of excitement, and endowed with a vivid imagination, is initiated into its mysteries. His morbid fancy is worked upon by long solitary self-communings and protracted fasts and vigils, and his frame by the use of pernicious narcotics and stimulants, until he persuades himself that he has been visited by the spirits. He is then received as a Tadibe with many ceremonies, which take place at midnight, and he is invested with the magic drum. It will be seen, therefore, that the Tadibe, if he deceives others, partly deceives himself. But he does not disdain to have recourse to the commonest tricks of the conjuror, with the view of imposing upon his ignorant countrymen. Among these is the famous rope-trick, introduced into England by the Davenport Brothers, and since repeated by so many professional necromancers. With his hands and feet fastened, he sits down on a carpet of reindeer-skin, and, the lights being put out, invokes the spirits to come to his assistance. Soon their presence is made known by strange noises; squirrels seem to rustle, snakes to hiss, and bears to growl. At length the disturbance ceases, the lights are rekindled, and the Tadibe steps forward unbound; the spectators, of course, believing that he has been assisted by the Tadebtsios.

As barbarous, says Dr. Hartwig—to whose pages we are here indebted—as barbarous as the poor wretches who submit to his guidance, the Tadibe is incapable of improving their moral condition, and has no wish to do so. Under various names,—Schamans among the Tungusi, Angekoks among the Eskimos, Medicine-men among the Crees and Chepewyans,—we find similar magicians or impostors assuming a spiritual dictatorship over all the Arctic nations of the Old and the New World, wherever their authority has not been broken by Christianity or Buddhism; and this dreary faith still extends its influence over at least half a million of souls, from the White Sea to the extremity of Asia, and from the Pacific to Hudson Bay.

The Samojedes, like the Siberian tribes, offer up sacrifices to the dead, and perform various ceremonies in honour of their memory. Like the North American Indians, they believe that the desires and pursuits of the departed continue to be the same as they were on earth; and hence, that they may not be in want of weapons or implements, they deposit in or about their graves a sledge, a spear, a cooking-pot, a knife, an axe. At the funeral, and for several years afterwards, the kinsmen sacrifice reindeer over the grave. When a prince dies, a Starschina, the owner, perhaps, of several herds of reindeer, his nearest relatives fashion an image, which is kept in the tent of the deceased, and to which as much respect is paid as was paid to the man himself in his lifetime. It occupies his usual seat at every meal; every evening it is undressed, and laid down in his bed. For three years these honours are kept up, and then the image is buried, from a belief that the body by that time must have decayed, and lost all recollection of the past. Only the souls of the Tadibes, and of those who have died a violent death, are privileged with immortality, and hover about the air as disembodied spirits.

The Samojedes are scattered—to the number of about a thousand families—over their wild and inhospitable region. Ethnologists generally consider them to have a common origin with the Finns of Europe. In stature they are somewhat taller than the Lapps, and their colour is more of a tawny. The marked features of their countenance recall the Hindu type. The forehead is high, the hair black, the nose long, the mouth well-formed; but the sunken eye, veiled by a heavy lid, expresses a cruel and perfidious nature. The manners of the Samojedes are brutal; and in character they are fierce and cunning. They are shepherds, hunters, traders—and when opportunity serves, robbers. Like the other Arctic peoples, they clothe themselves in reindeer-skins. They shave off their hair, except a tolerably large tuft which they allow to flourish on the top of the head, and they pluck out the beard as fast as it grows. The women decorate their persons with a belt of gilded copper, and with a profusion of glass beads and metallic ornaments.

Continuing our progress eastward, we come to the Ostiaks, a people spreading over the northernmost parts of Siberia, from the Oural Mountains to Kamtschatka.

Some interesting particulars of their habits and customs are recorded by Madame Felinska, a Polish lady whom the Russian Government condemned to a long exile in Siberia.

One day, when she was seeking a pathway through a wood, she fell in with a couple of Ostiaks on the point of performing their devotions. These are of the simplest kind: the worshipper places himself before a tree (the larch, by preference) in the densest recess of the forest, and indulges in a succession of extravagant gestures and contortions. As this form of worship is prohibited by the Russian Government, the Ostiak can resort to it only in secret. He professes, indeed, to have accepted Christianity, but there is too much reason to fear that the majority of the race are still attached to their heathen creed.

Nearly every Ostiak carries about his person a rude image of one of the deities which he adores under the name of Schaïtan; but this does not prevent him from wearing a small crucifix of copper on his breast. The Schaïtan is a rough imitation of the human figure, carved out of wood. It is of different sizes, according to the various uses for which it is intended: if for carrying on the person, it is a miniature doll; but for decorating the Ostiak’s hut an image can be had on a larger scale. It is always attired in seven pearl-embroidered chemises, and suspended to the neck by a string of silver coins. The wooden deity occupies the place of honour in every hut,—sometimes in company with an image of the Virgin Mary or some saint,—and before beginning a repast the Ostiaks are careful to offer it the daintiest morsels, smearing its lips with fish or raw game; this sacred duty performed, they finish their meal in contentment.

The priests of the Ostiaks are called Schamans; their immense influence they employ to promote their own personal interests, and maintain the meanest superstitions.

In summer the Ostiak fixes his residence on the banks of the Obi or one of its tributaries. It is generally square in form, with low stone walls, and a high pointed roof made of willow-branches, and covered with pieces of bark. These having been softened by boiling, are sewn together so as to form large mats or carpets, which are easily rolled up and carried from place to place. The hearth is in the centre; it consists of a few stones set round a cavity in the soil. Here the Ostiak lives; supporting himself on fish, which he frequently eats without cooking—and purchasing a few occasional luxuries, such as tobacco and drink, with the salmon and sturgeon caught by his dexterity.

In winter he withdraws into the woods, to hunt the sable or the squirrel, or to pasture the herds of reindeer which some of them possess. He builds his jurt on a small eminence near the bank of a stream, but out of reach of its spring inundations. It is low, small, squalid; its walls plastered with clay; its window made of a thin sheet of ice.

The Ostiaks are generally of small stature, dark-complexioned, and with black hair, like the Samojedes; but this is not invariably the case. They seem to belong to the same family as the Samojedes and Finns. They are honest, good-natured, inert, and extremely careless and dirty in their habits; though it may be conceded that their huts are not filthier than the “interiors” of the Icelandic fishermen. Their women are not much better treated than African slaves, and are given in marriage to the highest bidder. The price necessarily varies according to the condition of the parent; the daughter of a rich man sells for fifty reindeer, of a poor man for half-a-dozen dried sturgeon and a handful of squirrel-skins.

The Ostiaks and the Samojedes are great hunters of the white bear. It is the same with the Jakuts (or Yakouts), a people dwelling near the Bouriats, and, like them, approximating to the Mongol type. Their object in the chase, however, is not always to kill the animal, but to take it alive. Madame Felinska asserts that, one day, she saw a considerable herd of bears conducted to Bérézov, like a herd of tame cattle, and apparently quite as inoffensive. She does not inform us, however, by what means they had been reduced to such a desirable state of subjection. Frequently the Ostiaks and the Jakuts attack the white bears body to body, without any other weapon than a hatchet or long cutlass. They require to strike their formidable antagonist with immense vigour, and to slay it at the first blow, or their own danger is extreme. Should the hunter miss his stroke, his sole resource is to fling himself on the ground and lie motionless, until the bear, while smelling his body and turning him over, incautiously offers himself again to his attack.

We now reach the peninsula of Kamtschatka. In area it is equal to Great Britain, and its natural resources are abundant; yet, owing to the ravages of smallpox, and excessive brandy-drinking, its population does not exceed seven or eight thousand souls. Its climate is much milder than that of the interior of Siberia, being favourably affected by the warm breezes from the sea; and though cereals do not flourish, its pasture-grounds are rich and ample, and its herbaceous vegetation is exceedingly abundant.

The fisheries of Kamtschatka enjoy a well-deserved reputation. In spring the salmon ascend its rivers in such astonishingly numerous legions, that it you plunge a dart into the water you will surely strike a fish; and Steller asserts that the bears and dogs in this fortunate region catch on the banks with their paws and mouths more fish than in less favoured countries the most skilful anglers can ensnare by all the devices of piscatorial science. Hermann also refers to the teeming myriads of the Kamtschatka waters. In a stream only six inches deep he saw countless hosts of chackos (Slagocephalus), two or three feet in length, partly stranded on the grassy banks, partly attempting to force a passage through the shallows.

The coasts of Kamtschatka swarm in like manner with aquatic birds, which roost and breed on every crag and ledge, in every niche and hollow, and at the slightest alarm rise from their resting-places with a whirr of wings and a clamour of voices repeated by a thousand echoes.

The Kamtschatkans display in the pursuit of these birds and their eggs a skill and a daring not inferior to the intrepidity and dexterity of the inhabitants of the Faroe Isles or the Hebrides. Barefooted, and without even the aid of ropes, they venture to descend the most awful declivities, which the foaming waters render inaccessible from below. On the left arm hangs a basket, to be filled with eggs as they advance; in the right hand they carry a short iron hook, with which to drag the birds from their rocky roosts. When a bird is caught, the fowler wrings its neck, slings it to his girdle, and lowers himself still further down the rugged precipice.

The Kamtschatkans are of small stature, but strong-limbed and broad-shouldered. Their cheek-bones are high, their jaws massive, broad, and prominent, their eyes small and black, their noses small, their lips very full. The prevailing colour of the men is a dark brown, sometimes approaching to tawny; the complexion of the women is fairer; and to preserve it from the sun, they embellish it with bears’ guts, adhering to the face by means of fish-lime. They also paint their cheeks a brilliant red with a sea-weed.

Kamtschatka boasts of a very valuable domestic animal in its dog. Mr. Hill is of opinion that he must be considered indigenous to the country, where he roves wild upon the hills, and obtains his existence in exactly the same manner as the wolf. In his nature, both physically and in respect to his temper and disposition, he seems about equally to resemble that tameless animal and the mastiff; yet not altogether in the same manner that might be supposed to arise from the cross breed of the two species, but rather as possessing some of the qualities of both, neither confounded nor modified, but distinctly marked, and perhaps in equal perfection to the same qualities possessed severally by those animals. He is about the size of the ordinary mastiff, and his colour is usually buff or silver-gray, with the several darker or lighter shades of these colours as an invariable basis. In the form of his body, too, he resembles the mastiff, but his head is more like that of the wolf. Still more do we recognize the wolfish character in the eye, which is cruel and furtive, as well as in his habits and disposition. Like his fellow-rover, he sleeps more by day than by night, and he sees better through the scanty light afforded by the stars or moon than in the full radiance of the sun: this has given rise to the same vulgar error concerning his vision which, in Britain, prevails respecting that of the cat,—that he can see in the dark.

If there be any exception, says Mr. Hill, to the distinct manner in which the dog of Kamtschatka possesses the character and qualities of both the wolf and mastiff, it is in regard to his voice, which is heard in loud cries and undistinguishable sounds, something between the bark of the one and the howl of the other.

In all things connected with the labour in which he is engaged, the Kamtschatka dog displays a more than ordinary intelligence. He is very eager to work, and obedient, like the canine species generally, to one master only; but he gives no indications of that attachment which, more or less, in all other species of the dog, enables man to sympathize with them, and sometimes even excites a degree of friendship which not every one of his own species is able to inspire. Thus, every pack or team of dogs must always be driven by the same hand and guided by the same voice, which the whip, and not caresses, has taught them to remember and obey.

With these qualities, the dog becomes in this country a very serviceable animal. Whatever, indeed, our horses and bullocks perform for us here in Britain, if we except carrying us on their backs and ploughing our arable land, the dogs perform for the Kamtschatkans. There is not much employment for them, however, in the summer; and at that season they are allowed to range about and secure their food, which they usually find in the rivers, in the best way they can. Some pains are at all times necessary to keep them in good temper and at peace with their neighbours, whether canine or human. And therefore all Kamtschatkans who keep a team near their houses are careful, when the snow is on the ground, to drive a number of stakes into the earth, or poles set up in the same manner as the frame of a hut or wigwam; and to these the dogs are attached singly or in pairs. But when paired, whether at the stakes or in harness, it is requisite that those yoked together should be not only of the same family, but of the same litter, or at all events they should have been paired when they were puppies. It is at no time safe to leave the greater part of them loose; and the younger dogs are described as the most dangerous in this way. They will not only at all times kill domestic fowls,—which the Kamtschatkans, therefore, are unable to breed,—and dogs of the smaller species that may chance to be brought to the place, but they have been known to destroy children. While they do not work they are tolerably fat, and have usually an allowance of half a dried salmon, or a portion weighing about two pounds, a day; but when they labour they are worse treated and more stinted than the Siberian horses, and receive only half the quantity of food apportioned to them when at rest; yet they will, under this treatment, perform journeys of three or four weeks’ duration with much less repose than the horses require. Nay, they will even, upon a journey of four or five days’ duration, work for fourteen or sixteen hours out of the twenty-four without tasting any food whatsoever, and without appearing to suffer any diminution of strength; and the universal opinion seems to be, that the less food they receive on this side of starvation, when travelling, the better.

Five of these dogs will draw a sledge carrying three full-grown persons and sixty pounds weight of luggage. When lightly loaded, such a sledge will travel from thirty to forty versts in a day over bad roads and through the deep snow, while on even roads it will accomplish eighty to one hundred and twenty. And herein lies the inestimable value of the Kamtschatkan dogs, for the horse would be useless in sledging: in the deep snow it would sink; and it would be unable, on account of its weight, to cross the rivers and streams which are covered only with a thin sheet of ice.

But travelling with dogs is by no means easy. Instead of the whip, the driver uses a crooked stick with iron rings, which, by their jingling, supply the leader of the team with the necessary signals. If the dogs show symptoms of relaxing in their efforts, the stick is cast among them to rouse them to greater speed; and the driver dexterously picks it up again as his sledge shoots by. In a snow-storm they keep their master comfortably warm, and will lie round about him quietly for hours. They are experienced weather-prophets too, for if, when resting, they dig holes in the snow, it is a certain sign of a storm.

The training of these dogs begins at a very early age. Soon after their birth they are placed with their mother in a deep pit, so as to see neither man nor beast; and after being weaned, they are still condemned to a total exclusion from “the madding crowd.” A probation of six months having expired, they are attached to a sledge with older dogs, and being extremely shy, they run at their very fastest. On returning home they undergo another period of pit-life, until they are considered perfectly trained, and capable of performing a long journey. They are then allowed to enjoy their summer freedom. Such a mode of training may render them docile and obedient, but it renders them also gloomy, mistrustful, and ill-tempered.

Siberia, so far as the valley of the Lena is concerned, and even eastward to the Kolima and westward to the Yenisei, is inhabited by the bold and vigorous race of the Jakuts. Their number is computed at about 200,000, and they inhabit the extensive but dreary province of Jakutsk, with a chief town of the same name.

The Jakuts are to a great extent a pastoral people, but as they trade in horses and cattle, and also carry on a brisk fur-trade with the Russians, they have attained a far higher level of civilization than is common among pastoral races. In summer they live in light conical tents (“urossy”), which are fixed upon poles, and covered with birch rind. These they pitch in the open plains and valleys, and then devote themselves to gathering supplies of hay against the coming winter. This is with them a very important labour, for their chief wealth is in their herds of cattle, and to find a sufficient provision for them in the bleak climate of the Lena basin, and on the borders of the Arctic World, is a task of great difficulty. Often, indeed, the supply fails before the return of spring, and the oxen must then be fed upon the young shoots and saplings of the birch and willow.

When winter approaches, the Jakut removes from his tent into a warm, timber-built hut, or jart, which assumes the form of a truncated pyramid, and has an exterior covering of turf and clay. Its windows are made of thin sheets of ice; which, as soon as a thaw sets in, are replaced by fish-bladders or paper steeped in oil. The floor is of earth, very rarely boarded, and generally sunk two or three feet below the surface of the ground. The seats and sleeping-berths are arranged along the sides; the hearth, or tscherwal, occupies the centre, and its smoke finds an exit through an aperture in the roof. Clothes and weapons are suspended from the walls, and the general appearance of the interior is squalid and disorderly.

Near the jart are stalls for the cows; but when the cold is very intense, they, like the Irishman’s pigs, find accommodation in-doors. As for the horses, they remain night and day in the open air, though the weather may be so severe that even mercury freezes; and they have no other food than the decayed autumn grass, which they find under the snow.

The capacity of endurance which the Jakut horses exhibit is almost incredible. Like other quadrupeds in the Arctic regions, they change their hair in summer. Traversing, month after month, the dreary wilderness where the only vegetation is a scanty and half-rotten grass, they still retain their strength and energy; and notwithstanding the hard conditions of their lives, they do not age so quickly as our own more carefully-tended steeds. To aim at improving the Jakut horse would be, in the opinion of many travellers, to gild refined gold, and perfume “thrown on the violet.” He will continue a steady trot for hours, over roads of which no Englishman can form an idea, and stop to take his rest with no other food but the bark of the larch and willow, or a little hard grass, no covering protecting his foaming sides from the cold, and the temperature down at 40°.

As the horse, so the master. The Jakut is the very personification of hardiness. He seems able to endure anything, and to attempt everything. On the longest winter-journey he carries neither tents nor extra coverings with him, not even one of the large fur-dresses, such as the Siberians generally use. He contents himself, in fact, with his usual dress; in this he generally sleeps in the open air: his bed, a horse-rug stretched upon the snow; his pillow, a wooden saddle. With the same fur jacket which serves him by daytime as a dress, and which he pulls off when he lies down for the night, he defends his back and shoulders, while the front part of his body is turned towards the fire, almost without any covering. He then stops his nose and ears with small pieces of skin, and covers his face so as to leave only a small aperture for breathing; these are all the precautions he takes against the severest cold. Even in Siberia the Jakuts are known as “iron men.”

The horse to the Jakut is as valuable and as important as the camel to the Arab or the reindeer to the Lapp. It is not only his steed, which seems incapable of weariness,—his beast of draught, patient under heavy loads,—but its skin provides him with articles of dress; with its hair he makes his fishing-nets; boiled horse meat is his favourite food, and sour mare’s milk, or koumis, his principal beverage. By mixing this milk with rye flour, or the inner rind of the fir or larch, he makes a thick porridge, which he flavours with berries, or dried fish, or rancid fat.

Before commerce had been diverted into the valley of the Amur, thousands of pack-horses, under the guidance of Jakuts, annually crossed the Stanowoi hills on the way to Ochotsk; a journey of terrible difficulty, which might appal the stoutest nerves. But the Jakut endures the extremes of cold and hunger with a wonderful equanimity. He fears neither the stormy winds, the darkened heavens, the depth of the treacherous morass, nor the darkness and silence of the forest. Nothing appals him but the unseen presence of “Ljeschei,” the spirit of the mountain and the forest. The traveller frequently comes upon a fir-crowned hillock, and from the branches of one of the oldest firs sees suspended innumerable tufts of horse-hair. What does it mean? He needs not to inquire, for, lo! his Jakut driver, dismounting from his steed, hastens to pluck a few hairs from his horse’s mane, and then, with much reverence, attaches them to the nearest bough, in order to propitiate the terrible Ljeschei. Even Jakuts who have been baptized, and are nominally enrolled among the Christian population, are guilty of this silly bit of superstition; while it is suspected, on good grounds, that they still cherish their belief in Schamanism, and their ancient dread of evil spirits. When we remember, however, the absurd beliefs and vulgar errors still lingering in many parts of our own land, we are unable to pass a very severe verdict on the credulity of the Jakuts.

When on the road they beguile the tedium of the way by singing songs of the most doleful character, corresponding to the habitual melancholy which they seem to have inherited from their forefathers; a melancholy suggested, probably, by the gloom of the landscape, the chilling aspect of the sky, the inclemency of the climate, and the prolonged battle in which their lives are passed. Their songs, not the less, are songs worthy of a bold and intelligent people, and, like the poetry of the Norsemen, are replete with images borrowed from nature. They constantly describe in glowing language the lofty magnificence of the snow-crowned mountains, the starry beauty of the night, the roll and rush of the river, the wail of the wind as it streams through a forest of pines. The Jakut minstrels are mostly improvisatores; and, to secure the favour of the Ljeschei, they will extol the charms of the wilderness over which it rules, as if that wilderness were a portion of Elysium.

The Jakut merchants are remarkable for their enterprise. Their capital is Jakutsk, on the Lena, and thence they extend their operations in all directions. In the rigour of winter they will lead their caravans to Ochotsk, or Kjachta, or Ostrownoje.

Yet the country they traverse is at all times a desert. The mean temperature of the year is only +14°. In November the thermometer sinks to -40°, or 72° below freezing-point. The Yana, at Nishni Kolymsk, freezes early in September; and lower down, where the current is sluggish, loaded horses can cross its frozen surface as early as the middle of August: yet the ice does not melt before June. The sun remains, it is true, about fifty-two days above the horizon; but its light, shrouded by almost continual mists, is attended by but little heat,—and its orb, compressed by refraction into an elliptical form, may be examined by the naked eye without inconvenience.

As the climate, so the vegetation. Dwarfish willow-shrubs, stunted grass, moss, and a few berry-bearing plants compose the flora of the cheerless tundras. There is greater abundance and more variety in the neighbouring and better sheltered valleys of the Aniuj; the poplar, birch, thyme, absinth, and low creeping cedar enliven their slopes; but even in these places Nature is most niggardly of her gifts. Such is not the case, however, with the fauna of Arctic Siberia. The forests are tenanted by numbers of reindeer, elks, bears, foxes, sables, and gray squirrels; while in the low grounds stone foxes make their burrows. With the return of spring come immense flights of swans, geese, and ducks, which build their nests in the most sequestered corners. The sea-coast is frequented by eagles, owls, and gulls; the brushwood by the white ptarmigan; the brooks by hundreds of little snipes. Even the songs of the finch are not wanting in spring, nor is the thrush wholly silent in autumn.

Summing up the details recorded by Admiral Wrangell, a recent writer draws an impressive picture of the mode of life of the people of this desolate waste, and observes: “All denotes that here the limits of the habitable earth are passed; and one asks with astonishment, What could induce human beings to take up their abode in so comfortless a region?”

The chief resource of the Sullaheris of the River Aniuj is, he says, the reindeer chase,—the success of which mainly determines whether famine or some degree of plenty is to be their lot during the coming winter. The passage of the reindeer takes place twice a year: in spring, when the mosquito-swarms drive them to the sea-coast, where they feed on the moss of the tundra; and in autumn, when the increasing cold forces them to retire inland. The spring migration, which begins about the middle of May, is not very profitable; partly because the animals are then in poor condition, and partly because it is more difficult to kill them as they dash across the frozen rivers. The chief hunting takes place in August and September, when the herds, each numbering several thousand deer, return to the forests. They invariably cross the river at a particular spot, where a flat sandy bank enables them to land with comparative ease; and here they close up their ranks, as it were, under the guidance of the stalwart veterans of the herd.

After a brief pause of hesitation the herd plunge into the waters, and in a few minutes the surface of the river seems alive with swimming reindeer. Now is the hunter’s time; and out from his concealment in the reedy creek he darts in his little boat, wounding as many animals as he can. While he and his comrades are thus engaged, they run some risk of being capsized in the turmoil, for the bucks gallantly defend themselves with horns, and teeth, and hind legs, while the roes usually attempt to spring with their fore feet upon the gunwale of the boat. If the hunter should be overset, his sole chance of safety is to cling to a strong animal, which will carry him securely across the stream. Such an accident, however, is of rare occurrence. A good hunter will kill a hundred reindeer, or even more, in half an hour. Meantime, the other boats seize the slaughtered animals, which become the property of their crews; while those that are merely wounded and swim ashore belong to the hunters, who, in the midst of the uproar, when all their strength is tasked to the uttermost, so aim their strokes as only to wound severely the larger animals. The noise of the horns striking against each other, the “incarnadined” waters, the shouts of the hunters, the cries of pain, rage, and alarm of the struggling animals, all form a scene which, once seen, is not easily forgotten.

While the men of Kolymsk are thus engaged during the brief summer-time in hunting, fishing, and haymaking, the women wander over the country, and climb the sides of the mountains, for the purpose of gathering edible roots, aromatic herbs, and various kinds of berries—though the last do not ripen every year. The berry-plucking season at Kolymsk, like the vintage in France or Italy, is a season of mirth, a holiday interval in a hard and laborious life. The young women and girls form large parties, and spend whole days and nights in the open air. When the berries are collected, cold water is poured over them, and they are preserved in a frozen state as an addition to the scanty winter fare. We are told that “social parties” are not unknown at Kolymsk, and probably afford as much or as little entertainment there as in more favoured and more civilized communities. The staple luxury is a deluge of weak tea—very weak, for the aromatic leaves which cheer but not inebriate are very dear at Kolymsk; and as sugar is also a costly article, every guest takes a lump of candy in his mouth, lets the tea which he sips flow by, and then replaces it upon the saucer. It would be considered a breach of courtesy if he consumed the entire lump, which thus is made to do duty at more than one soiree. Next to tea, but not less esteemed, the principal requisite for a Kolymsk entertainment is brandy.

Another important Siberian people are the Tungusi, who spread from the basins of the Upper, Middle, and Lower Tunguska to the western shores of the Sea of Ochotsk, and from the Chinese frontiers and the Baikal to the Polar Ocean. Their number does not exceed thirty thousand. According to their avocations, and the domestic animals which constitute their wealth, they are known as the Reindeer, Horse, Dog, Forest, and River Tungusi. Those who keep or rear horses and cattle are but a few; the majority depend on the reindeer. The condition of all is deplorably wretched. The Tungusi has no resource but fishing or hunting. When the rivers are frozen, he withdraws into the forest. Here his misery is so great and his need so extreme that he frequently becomes a cannibal, and attacks the wives and children of his more fortunate countrymen. In happier circumstances he is remarkable for the readiness of his wit, the vivacity of his manner, and the blithesome carelessness of his disposition. It is asserted, however, that he is both malignant and deceitful. He is vain; and loves to decorate his person with strings and ornaments of glass beads, from his small Tartar cap to the tips of his shoes. When hunting the reindeer, or travelling through the forests, however, he puts on large water-tight boots, or sari, well greased with fat; and he carries, on these occasions, a small axe, a kettle, a leathern wallet containing some dried fish, and a short gun, or a bow and a sling. He is always accompanied by his faithful dog.

“With the assistance of his long and narrow snow-shoes, he flies over the dazzling plain; and protects his eyes, like the Jakut, with a net made of black horse-hair. He never hesitates to attack the bear single-handed, and generally masters him. The nomad Tungusi naturally requires a movable dwelling. His tent is covered with leather, or large pieces of pliable bark, which are easily rolled up, and transported from place to place. The jart of the sedentary Tungusi resembles that of the Jakut, and is so small that it can be very quickly and thoroughly warmed by a fire kindled on the stone hearth in the centre. In his food the Tungusi is by no means dainty. One of his favourite dishes consists of the contents of a reindeer’s stomach mixed with wild berries, and spread out in thin cakes on the rind of trees, to be dried in the air or in the sun. Those who have settled on the Wilnj and in the neighbourhood of Nertschinsk likewise consume large quantities of birch tea, which they boil with fat and berries into a thick porridge; and this unwholesome food adds, no doubt, to the yellowness of their complexion.”

We shall now, and lastly, take a glance at the Tchuktche (or Tuski), who inhabit the north-eastern point of Asia, with the ice-covered waters of the Polar Sea on one side, and those of Behring Sea on the other. Their land is but seldom visited; all, however, who have ventured thither agree in describing it as one of the most melancholy regions of the earth. The soil is barren, and half-frozen, yielding no other vegetation than mosses and lichens, the vaccinium, and the dwarf birch and willow,—except in the low grounds, where the reedy marshes are frequented in the summer by geese, and swans, and ducks, and wading-birds. The climate is so rigorous that one wonders man can make up his mind to endure it. There is no summer earlier than the 20th of July; and on the 20th of August the shadow of winter comes upon the earth. Animal life, however, if not very varied, is abundant: walruses, sea-lions, and seals inhabit the coasts; and the reindeer, the wolf, the argali, and the Arctic fox are found in the interior.

The Tchuktche are an enterprising people, and fond of independence. Unlike their neighbours, the Koriaks, they have always maintained their freedom against the encroachments of Russia. They are active and spirited traders. In skin-covered boats they cross Behring Straits, and barter furs and walrus-teeth with the natives of America. In long caravans, their sledges drawn by reindeer, they repair to the great fair of Ostrownoje, and carry on a vigorous commerce with the Russian merchants. In their train follow sledges laden with supplies of lichen and moss for the reindeer, as in their wanderings, however circuitous these may be, they are compelled to traverse broad spaces of stony desert, where even these abstemious animals can obtain no food. As their movements are regulated by the necessities of their herds, they occupy five or six months in a journey which, in a straight line, would not exceed a thousand versts in length; they are almost always migrating from place to place, yet, as they invariably carry their dwellings with them, they never leave home. A caravan generally consists of fifty or sixty families; and as soon as one fair is at an end, they depart to make their preparations for the next.

The great staple of the trade at Ostrownoje is tobacco. To secure a small supply of the narcotic which forms the sole luxury of their dreary lives, the Eskimos of North America, extending from the Icy Cape to Bristol Bay, send their articles of barter from hand to hand as far as the Gwosdus Islands in Behring Strait, where the Tchuktche purchase them with tobacco bought at Ostrownoje. Thus, in the icy regions of the extreme north, tobacco is the source and support of considerable commerce; and the narcotic weed which Raleigh and his contemporaries introduced from America into Europe, and which from Europe made its way into Asia, is exported from Asia for the use of American tribes.

The balance of trade, however, seems entirely against the latter. We are told that the skins which a Tchuktche purchases of an Eskimo for half a pood (eighteen pounds) of tobaccoleaves, he sells to the Russian for two poods (seventy-two pounds); and these skins, costing the Russian about one hundred and sixty roubles, the latter sells at Jakutsk for two hundred and sixty, and at St. Petersburg for upwards of five hundred roubles.

The furs sold at Ostrownoje are chiefly those of stone foxes, black and silver-gray foxes, gluttons, lynxes, otters, beavers, and martens. Other products brought thither by the Tchuktche are bear-skins, walrus-teeth, and thongs, sledge-runners (made of whale ribs), and dresses of reindeer-skin. The Russians, besides tobacco, dispose of kettles, axes, knives, guns, tea, and sugar.

A visit to the family of a Tchuktche chief is thus described by one of Admiral Wrangell’s companions:—

We entered the outer tent, or namet, consisting of tanned reindeer-skins outstretched on a slender framework. An opening at the top to give egress to the smoke, and a kettle on the hearth in the centre, showed that antechamber and kitchen were here harmoniously blended into one. But where might be the inmates? Most probably in that large sack made of the finest skins of reindeer calves, which occupied, near the kettle, the centre of the namet. To penetrate into this “sanctum sanctorum” of the Tchuktch household, we raised the loose flap which served as a door, crept on all fours through the opening, cautiously refastened the flap by tucking it under the floor-skin, and found ourselves in the polog—that is, the reception or withdrawing-room. A snug box, no doubt, for a cold climate, but rather low, as we were unable to stand upright in it; nor was it quite so well ventilated as a sanitary commissioner would require, as it had positively no opening for light or air. A suffocating smoke met us on entering: we rubbed our eyes; and when they had at length got accustomed to the pungent atmosphere, we perceived, by the gloomy light of a train-oil lamp, the worthy family sitting on the floor in a state of almost complete nudity. Without being in the least embarrassed, Madame Leütt and her daughter received us in their primitive costume; but to show us that the Tchuktche knew how to receive company, and to do honour to their guests, they immediately inserted strings of glass beads in their hair.

Their hospitality equalled their politeness; for, instead of a cold reception, a hot dish of boiled reindeer flesh, copiously irrigated with rancid train-oil by the experienced hand of the mistress of the household, was soon after smoking before them. The culinary taste of the Russians, however, could not appreciate this work of art, and the Leütt family were left to do justice to it unaided.

The Tchuktche are polygamous. Their women are regarded as slaves, but are not badly treated. Most of the Tchuktche have been baptized, but they cling in secret to their heathen creed, and own the power of the shamans, or necromancers. They form two great divisions: the reindeer, or wandering Tchuktche, who call themselves Tennygk; and the stationary Tchuktche, or Oukilon, who exhibit affinities with the Eskimos, and subsist by hunting the whale, the walrus, and the seal. The Oukilon are supposed to number 10,000, and the Tennygk about 20,000.