rather the hatch, of the cellar
consisted of a whale's shoulder-blade. In consequence of the
unlimited confidence which otherwise was wont to prevail between the
natives and us, we were surprised to find them unwilling to give the
_Vega_ men admittance to their storehouses. Possibly the report of
our excavations for old implements at the sites of Onkilon dwellings
at Irkaipij had spread to Kolyutschin, and been interpreted as
attempts at plunder.

[Illustration: CHUKCH OAR. One-sixteenth of the natural size. ]

The tents were always situated on the sea shore, generally on the
small neck of land which separates the strand lagoons from the sea.
They are erected and taken down in a few hours. A Chukch family can
therefore easily change its place of residence, and does remove very
often from one village to another. Sometimes it appears to own the
wooden frame of a tent at several places, and in such cases at
removal there are taken along only the tent covering, the dogs, and
the most necessary skin and household articles. The others are left
without inclosure, lock, or watch, at the former dwelling-place, and
one is certain to find all untouched on his return. During short
stays at a place there are used, even when the temperature of the
air is considerably under the freezing-point, exceedingly defective
tents or huts made with the skin boats that may happen to be
available. Thus a young couple who returned in spring to Pitlekaj
lived happy and content in a single thin and ragged tent or conical
skin hut which below where it was broadest was only two and a half
metres across. An accurate inventory, which I took during the
absence of the newly married pair, showed that their whole household
furniture consisted of a bad lamp, a good American axe, some
reindeer skins, a small piece of mirror, a great many empty preserve
tins from the _Vega_, which among other things were used for
cooking, a fire-drill, a comb, leather for a pair of moccassins,
some sewing implements, and some very incomplete and defective
tools.

The boats are made of walrus skin, sewed together and stretched over
a light frame-work of wood and pieces of bone. The different parts
of the frame-work are bound together with thongs of skin or strings
of whalebone. In form and size the Chukches' large boat, _atkuat_,
called by the Russians _baydar_, corresponds completely with the
Greenlander's _umiak_ or woman's boat. It is so light that four men
can take it