ayer of earth.
A violent quarrel between Kraechoj, the chief of these
North-Asiatic Eskimo, and an _errim_ or chief of the
reindeer Chukches, broke out into open feud. Kraechoj drew
the shorter straw, and found himself compelled to fly, and
leave the country with his people; since then the whole
coast has been desolate and uninhabited. Of the emigration
of these Onkilon, the inhabitants of the village Irkaipij,
where Kraechoj appears to have lived, narrated the
following story. He had killed a Ohukch _errim_, and was
therefore eagerly pursued by the son of the murdered man,
whose pursuit he for a considerable time escaped. Finally
Kraechoj believed that he had found a secure asylum on the
rock at Irkaipij, where he fortified himself behind a sort
of natural wall, which can still be seen. But the young
Chukch _errim_, driven by desire to avenge his father's
death, finds means to make his way within the
fortification and kills Kraechoj's son. Although the
blood-revenge was now probably complete according to the
prevailing ideas, Kraechoj must have feared a further
pursuit by his unrelenting enemy, for during night he
lowers himself with thongs from his lofty asylum, nearly
overhanging the sea, enters a boat, which waits for him at
the foot of the cliff, and, in order to lead his pursuers
astray, steers first towards the east, but at nightfall
turns to the west, reaches Schalaurov Island, and there
fortifies himself in an earth hut, whose remains we
(Wrangel's expedition) have still seen. Here he then
collected all the members of his tribe, and fled with them
in 15 "baydars" to the land whose mountains the Chukches
assure themselves they can in clear sunshine see from Cape
Yakan. During the following winter a Chukch related to
Kraechoj disappeared in addition with his family and
reindeer, and it is supposed that he too betook himself to
the land beyond the sea. With this another tradition
agrees, which was communicated to us by the inhabitants of
Kolyutschin Island. For an old man informed me (Wrangel)
that during his grandfather's lifetime a "baydar" with
seven Chukches, among them a woman, had ventured too far
out to sea. After they had long been driven hither and
thither by the wind, they stranded on a country unknown to
them, whose inhabitants struck the