Chukches, who had gone to catch
seals. He travelled about twenty kilometres over closely packed
drift-ice fields, without reaching open water, and found the newly
frozen ice, with which the pieces of drift-ice were bound together,
still everywhere unbroken. The Chukches, who visited the vessel in
dog-sledges on the 28th October, informed us, however, that the sea
a little to the east of us was still completely open.

On the 15th October the hunter Johnsen returned from a hunting
expedition quite terrified. He informed us that during his
wanderings on the _tundra_, he had found a murdered man and brought
with him, with the idea that, away here in the land of the Chukches,
similar steps ought to be taken as in those lands which are blessed
by a well-ordered judiciary, as _species facti_, some implements
lying beside the dead man, among which was a very beautiful lance,
on whose blade traces of having been inlaid in gold could still be
discovered. Fortunately he had come with these things through the
Chukch camp unobserved. From the description which was given me,
however, I was able immediately to come to the conclusion that the
question here was not of any murder, but of a dead man laid out on
the _tundra_. I requested Dr. Almquist to visit the place, in order
that he might make a more detailed examination. He confirmed my
conjecture. As wolves, foxes, and ravens had already torn the corpse
to pieces, the doctor considered that he, too, might take his share,
and therefore brought home with him from his excursion, an object
carefully wrapped up and concealed among the hunting equipment,
namely, the Chukch's head. It was immediately sunk to the
sea-bottom, where it remained for a couple of weeks to be
skeletonised by the crustacea swarming there, and it now has its
number in the collections brought home by the _Vega_. This sacrilege
was never detected by the Chukches, and probably the wolves got the
blame of it, as nearly every spring it was seen that the corpse,
which had been laid out during autumn, lost its head during winter.
It was, perhaps, more difficult to explain the disappearance of the
lance, but of this, too, the maws of the wolves might well bear the
blame.

[Illustration: CHUKCH BONE-CARVINGS. (The two largest figures represent
bears.) ]

Our hunters now made hunting excursions in different directions, but
the supply of game was scanty. The openings in the ice probably
swarmed with seals, but they were t