rgest one between the Aleutian Islands
and Behring's Straits. It lies nearer Asia than America, but is
considered to belong to the latter, for which reason it was handed
over along with the Alaska Territory by Russia to the United States.
The island is inhabited by a few Eskimo families, who have
commercial relations with then Chukch neighbours on the Russian
side, and therefore have adopted some words from their language.
Then dress also resembles that of the Chukches, with the exception
that, wanting reindeer-skin, they use _pesks_ made of the skins of
birds and marmots. Like the Chukches and Eskimo they use overcoats
of pieces of seal-gut sewed together. On St. Lawrence Island their
dress is much ornamented, chiefly with tufts of feathers of the
sea-fowl that breed in innumerable flocks on the island. It even
appears that gut clothes are made here for sale to other tribes;
otherwise it would be difficult to explain how Kotzebue's sailors
could in half an hour purchase at a single encampment 200 coats of
this kind. At the time of our visit all the natives went bareheaded,
the men with their black tallow-like hair clipped to the root, with
the exception of the common small border above the forehead. The
women wore their hair plaited and adorned with beads, and were much
tattooed, partly after very intricate patterns, as is shown by the
accompanying woodcuts. Like the children they mostly went barefooted
and barelegged. They were well grown, and many did not look ill, but
all were merciless beggars, who actually followed our naturalists on
their excursions on land.

[Illustration: TATTOOING PATTERNS, FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.
1., 2. Face tattooing.
3. Arm tattooing. (After drawings by A. Stuxberg.) ]

[Illustration: TATTOOED WOMAN FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.
(After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.) ]

The summer-tents were irregular, but pretty clean and light huts of
gut, stretched on a frame of drift-wood and whale-bones. The winter
dwellings were now abandoned. They appeared to consist of holes in
the earth, which were covered above, with the exception of a square
opening, with drift-wood and turf.

During winter a sealskin tent was probably stretched over this
opening, but it was removed for the time, probably to permit the
summer heat to penetrate into the hole and melt the ice, which had
collected during winter on its walls. At several tents we found
large under-jaws of whales fixed in the ground. They were perfora