ands of the Russians they kill
themselves". On the map of LOTTERUS (1765) the Chukch Peninsula is
coloured in a way differing from Russian Siberia, and there is the
following inscription _Tjukzchi natio ferocissima et bellicosa
Russorum inimica, qui capti se invicem interficiunt_. In 1777
GEORGIUS says in his _Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen
Reichs_ (part ii., p. 350) of the Chukches "They are more savage,
coarse, proud, refractory, thievish, false, and revengeful, than the
neighbouring nomads the Koryaeks. They are as bad and dangerous as
the Tunguses are friendly. Twenty Chukches will beat fifty Koryaeks.
The _Ostrogs_ (fortified places) lying in the neighbourhood of their
country are even in continual fear of them, and cost so much that
the Government has recently withdrawn the oldest Russian settlement
in those regions, Anadyrsk". Other statements to the same effect
might be quoted, and even in our day the Chukches are, with or
without justification, known in Siberia for stubbornness, courage,
and love of freedom.

But what violence could not effect has been completely accomplished
in a peaceful way.[276] The Chukches indeed do not pay any other
taxes than some small market tolls, but a very active traffic is now
carried on between them and the Russians, and many travellers have
without inconvenience traversed their country, or have sailed along
its pretty thickly inhabited coast.

Among former travellers on the Chukch peninsula, who visited the
encampments of the coast Chukches, besides Behring, Cook, and other
seafarers, the following may be mentioned:--

The Cossack, PETER ILIIN SIN POPOV, was sent in 1711 with two
interpreters to examine the country of the Chukches, and has left
some interesting accounts of his observations there (MUeLLER,
_Sammlung Russischer Geschichten_, iii. p. 56).[277]

BILLINGS, with his companions SAUER, SARYTSCHEV, &c., visited
Chukch-land in 1791. Among other things, accompanied by Dr. MERK,
two interpreters and eight men, he made a journey from Metschigme
Bay over the interior of Chukch-land to Yakutsk. Unfortunately the
account we have of this remarkable journey is exceedingly
incomplete.[278]

FERDINAND VON WRANGEL during his famous Siberian travels was much in
contact with the Chukches, and among his other journeys travelled in
the winter of 1823 in dog sledges along the coast of the Polar Sea
from the Kolyma to Kolyutschin Island (Wrangel, _Reise_, ii. pp.
176-2