ticles distinctive of the
Chukches' mode of life. Eight years before I had collected and
purchased a large number of ethnographical articles, and I was now
surprised at the close correspondence there was between the
household articles purchased from the Chukches, and those found in
Greenland in old Eskimo graves.

My traffic with the natives was on this occasion attended with great
difficulty. For I suffered from a sensible want of the first
condition for the successful prosecution of a commercial
undertaking, goods in demand. Because, during the expeditions of
1875 and 1876, I found myself unable to make use of the small wares
I carried with me for barter with the natives, and found that
Russian paper-money was readily taken. I had, at the departure of
the _Vega_ from Sweden, taken with me only money, not wares intended
for barter. But money was of little use here. A twenty-five rouble
note was less valued by the Chukches than a showy soap-box, and a
gold or silver coin less than tin or brass buttons. I could, indeed,
get rid of a few fifty-oere pieces, but only after I had first
adapted them by boring to take the place of earrings.

The only proper wares for barter I now had were tobacco and Dutch
clay pipes. Of tobacco I had only some dozen bundles, taken from a
parcel which Mr. Sibiriakoff intended to import into Siberia by the
Yenisej. Certain as I was of reaching the Pacific this autumn, I
scattered my stock of tobacco around me with so liberal a hand that
it was soon exhausted, and my Chukch friends' wants satisfied for
several weeks. I therefore, as far as this currency was concerned,
already when-the _Vega_ was beset, suffered the prodigal's fate of
being soon left with an empty purse. Dutch clay pipes, again, I had
in great abundance, from the accident that two boxes of these pipes,
which were to have been imported into Siberia with the expedition of
1876, did not reach Trondhjem until the _Ymer_ had sailed from that
town. They were instead taken on the _Vega_, and now, though quite too
fragile for the hard fingers of Chukches, answered well for smaller
bargains, as gifts of welcome to a large number of natives collected
at the vessel, and as gifts to children in order to gain the favour
of their parents. I besides distributed a large quantity of silver
coin with King Oscar's effigy, in order, if any misfortune overtook
us, to afford a means of ascertaining the places we had visited.

For the benefit of fu