old in London, where I believe it once
figured in an alluring prospectus! Jim, I fancy, was a bit of a humbug,
who had served on a whaler and was therefore not wholly unacquainted
with iron pyrites. Indeed this was the most intelligent Tchuktchi I ever
met, although his language would have startled an English bargee. The
white man he regarded with extreme contempt, alluding to us
indiscriminately as "disfellah" as he sat in our tent, calmly sharing
(without invitation) any repast that was going on, and occasionally
pausing to exclaim, between the mouthfuls, "By G--! you come a long
way!"

At Inchaun, Yaigok left us, and we proceeded alone and rapidly along the
now level beach and rolling tundra. The comparative ease and comfort
with which we accomplished the last three hundred miles of the coast
journey was due to the fact that the natives are in yearly touch with
the American whaling fleet, and are therefore generally well provided
with the necessaries of life. On May 19 we reached East Cape, the
north-easternmost point of Asia, after a voyage of nearly two months
from Sredni-Kolymsk. At this point the expedition had accomplished
rather more than half the entire journey, and had travelled, from Paris,
a distance of about 11,263 English miles.

CHAPTER XII

AMONG THE TCHUKTCHIS

The wintry aspect of nature around Bering Straits seemed to predict a
late summer, and it looked as though months must elapse before the
Revenue cutter courteously placed at my disposal by the United States
Government could break through the ice and reach us. My original idea
was to try and cross over the frozen Straits to Cape Prince of Wales, in
Alaska, a feat never yet attempted by a white man, but I found on
arrival at East Cape that the passage is never essayed by the
Tchuktchis, and only very rarely by the Eskimo. During the past decade
perhaps a dozen of the latter have started from the American side, but
only a third of the number have landed in Siberia, the remainder having
either returned or perished. The distance from shore to shore at the
nearest point is about forty miles, the two Diomede Islands and Fairway
Rock being situated about half-way across. Bering Straits are never
completely closed, for even in midwinter floes are ever on the move,
which, with broad and shifting "leads" of open water, render a trip on
foot extremely hazardous. Our subsequent experience on nearly seven
miles of drifting ice, across which we we