tered they could still make their way along a narrow ice-free
channel near the coast. Snowstorms, fog, and drifting ice compelled
careful navigation, but a pleasant change occurred early in September
by a visit from the natives. We have already heard of the Chukches
from Behring--the Chukches whom no man had yet vanquished, for when
Siberia was conquered by a Kossack chief in 1579, the Chukches in this
outlying north-eastern corner of the Old World, savage, courageous,
resolute, kept the conquerors at bay. For the last six weeks the
explorers had not seen a human being on that wild and desolate stretch
of coast, so they were glad enough to see the little Chukches with
their coal-black hair and eyes, their large mouths and flat noses.
"Although it was only five o'clock in the morning, we all jumped out
of our berths and hurried on deck to see these people of whom so little
was known. The boats were of skin, fully laden with laughing and
chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries
and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was
stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed
beings climbed up over the gunwale and a lively talk began. Great
gladness prevailed when tobacco and Dutch clay pipes were distributed
among them. None of them could speak a word of Russian; they had come
in closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders."
The Chukches were all very short and dressed in reindeer skins with
tight-fitting trousers of seal-skin, shoes of reindeer-skin with
seal-skin boots and walrus-skin soles. In very cold weather they wore
hoods of wolf fur with the head of the wolf at the back.

[Illustration: MENKA, CHIEF OF THE CHUKCHES.]

But Nordenskiold could not wait long. Amid snow and ice and fog he
pushed on, hoping against hope to get through to the Pacific before
the sea was completely frozen over. But the ice was beginning to close.
Large blocks were constantly hurled against the ship with great
violence, and she had many a narrow escape of destruction.

At last, it was 28th September, the little _Vega_ was finally and
hopelessly frozen into the ice, and they made her fast to a large
ice-block. Sadly we find the entry: "Only one hundred and twenty miles
distant from our goal, which we had been approaching during the last
two months, and after having accomplished two thousand four hundred
miles. It took some time before we could accusto