[Ill.u.s.tration: ICE-SEIVE. One-eighth of the natural size. ]
On the 5th October the openings between the drift-ice fields next the vessel were covered with splendid skating ice, of which we availed ourselves by celebrating a gay and joyous skating festival.
The Chukch women and children were now seen fishing for winter roach along the sh.o.r.e. In this sort of fishing a man, who always accompanies the fishing women, with an iron-shod lance cuts a hole in the ice so near the sh.o.r.e that the distance between the under corner of the hole and the bottom is only half a metre. Each hole is used only by one woman, and that only for a short time. Stooping down at the hole, in which the surface of the water is kept quite clear of pieces of ice by means of an ice-sieve, she endeavours to attract the fish by means of a peculiar wonderfully clattering cry.
First when a fish is seen in seen in the water an angling line, provided with a hook of bone, iron or copper, is thrown down, strips of the entrails of fish being employed as bait. A small metre-long staff with a single or double crook in the end was also used as a fishing implement. With this little leister the men cast up fish on the ice with incredible dexterity. When the ice became thicker, this fishing was entirely given up, while during the whole winter a species of cod and another of grayling were taken in great quant.i.ty in a lagoon situated nearer Behring"s Straits. The coregonus is also caught in the inland lakes, although, at least at this season of the year, only in limited quant.i.ty.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SMELT FROM THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. _Osmerus eperla.n.u.s_, Lin. one-third the natural size. ]
On the morning of the 6th October, we saw from the vessel an extraordinary procession moving forward on the ice. A number of Chukches drew a dog-sledge on which lay a man. At first we supposed it was a man who was very ill, and who came to seek the help of the physician, but when the procession reached the vessel"s side, the supposed invalid climbed very nimbly up the ice-covered rope-ladder (our ice-stair was not yet in order), stepped immediately with a confident air, giving evidence of high rank, upon the half-deck, crossed himself, saluted graciously, and gave us to know in broken Russian that he was a man of importance in that part of the country.
It now appeared that we were honoured with a visit from the representative of the Russian empire, Wa.s.sILI MENKA, the starost among the reindeer-Chukches. He was a little dark man, with a pretty worn appearance, clad in a white variegated "pesk" of reindeer skin, under which a blue flannel shirt was visible. In order immediately on his arrival to inspire us with respect, and perhaps also in order not to expose his precious life to the false Ran"s treachery, he came to the vessel over the yet not quite trustworthy ice, riding in a sledge that was drawn not by dogs but by his men. On his arrival he immediately showed us credentials of his rank, and various evidences of the payment of tribute (or market tolls), consisting of some few red and some white fox-skins, reckoning the former at 1 rouble 80 copecks, the latter at 40 copecks each.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wa.s.sILI MENKA. Starost among the Reindeer Chukches.
(After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]
He was immediately invited down to the gunroom, entertained after the best of our ability, and bothered with a number of questions which he evidently understood with difficulty, and answered in very unintelligible Russian. He was in any case the first with whom some of us could communicate, at least in a way. He could neither read nor write. On the other hand, he could quickly comprehend a map which was shown him, and point out with great accuracy a number of the more remarkable places in north-eastern Siberia. Of the existence of the Russian emperor the first official of the region had no idea; on the other hand, he knew that a very powerful person had his home at Irkutsk. On us he conferred the rank of "Ispravnik"
in the neighbouring towns. At first he crossed himself with much zeal before some photographs and copper-plate engravings in the gunroom, but he soon ceased when he observed that we did not do likewise. Menka was accompanied by two badly-clad natives with very oblique eyes, whom we took at first for his servants or slaves.
Afterwards we found that they were owners of reindeer, who considered themselves quite as good as Menka himself, and further on we even heard one of them speak of Menka"s claim to be a chief with a compa.s.sionate smile. Now, however, they were exceedingly respectful, and it was by them that Menka"s gift of welcome, two reindeer roasts, was carried forward with a certain stateliness. As a return present we gave him a woollen shirt and some parcels of tobacco. Menka said that he should travel in a few days to Markova, a place inhabited by Russians on the river Anadyr, in the neighbourhood of the old Anadyrsk. Although I had not yet given up hope of getting free before winter, I wished to endeavour to utilize this opportunity of sending home accounts of the _Vega"s_ position, the state of matters on board, &c. An open letter was therefore written in Russian, and addressed to his Excellency the Governor-General at Irkutsk, with the request that he would communicate its contents to his Majesty, King Oscar. This was placed, along with several private sealed letters between a couple of pieces of board, and handed over to Menka with a request to give them to the Russian authorities at Markova. At first it appeared as if Menka understood the letter as some sort of farther credentials for himself. For when he landed he a.s.sembled, in the presence of some of us, a circle of Chukches round himself, placed himself with dignity in their midst, opened out the paper, but so that he had it upside down, and read from it long sentences in Chukch to an attentive audience, astonished at his learning. Next forenoon we had another visit of the great and learned chief. New presents were exchanged, and he was entertained after our best ability. Finally he danced to the chamber-organ, both alone and together with some of his hosts, to the great entertainment of the Europeans and Asiatics present.
As the state of the ice was still unaltered, I did not neglect the opportunity that now offered of making acquaintance with the interior of the country. With pleasure, accordingly, I gave Lieutenants Nordquist and Hovgaard permission to pay a visit to Menka"s encampment. They started on the morning of the 8th October.
Lieut. Nordquist has given me the following account of their excursion:--
"On Tuesday, the 8th October, at 10 o"clock A.M. Lieut Hovgaard and I travelled from Pitlekaj in dog-sledges into the interior in a S.S.E. direction. Hovgaard and I had each a Chukch as driver. Menka had with him a servant, who almost all the time ran before as guide. My comrade"s sledge, which was heaviest, was drawn by ten dogs, mine by eight, and Menka"s, which was the smallest and in which he sat alone, by five. In general the Chukches appear to reckon four or five dogs sufficient for a sledge with one person.
"The _tundra_, with marshes and streams scattered over it, was during the first part of our way only gently undulating, but the farther we went into the interior of the country the more uneven it became, and when, at 8 o"clock next morning, we reached the goal of our journey--Menka"s brother"s camp--we found ourselves in a valley, surrounded by hills, some of which rose about 300 metres above their bases. A portion of the vegetable covering the _tundra_ could still be distinguished through the thin layer of snow. The most common plants on the drier places were _Aira alpina_ and _Poa alpina_; on the more low-lying places there grew Glyceria, Pedicularis, and _Ledum pal.u.s.tre_; everywhere we found _Petasites frigida_ and a species of Salix. The latter grew especially on the slopes in great ma.s.ses, which covered spots having an area of twenty to thirty square metres. At some places this bush rose to a height of about a metre above the ground. The prevailing rock appeared to be granite. The bottoms of the valleys were formed of post-Tertiary formations, which most frequently consisted of sand and rolled stones, as, for instance, was the case in the great valley in which ilenka"s brother"s camp was pitched.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH DOG-SLEDGE. ]
"When, on the morning of the 9th, we came to the camp there met us some of the princ.i.p.al Chukches. They saluted Menka in the Russian way, by kissing him first on both cheeks and then on the mouth. The Chukches however, appear to be very averse to this ceremony, and scarcely ever touched each other with the mouth. Us they saluted in the common way, by stretching out the hand and bowing themselves. We then went into Menka"s brother"s tent, in front of which the whole inhabitants of the encampment were speedily a.s.sembled to look at us. The camp consisted of eighteen tents, pitched on both sides of a river which ran through the valley. The tents were inhabited by reindeer-Chukches, who carry on traffic between the Russians and a tribe living on the other side of Behring"s Straits, whom they call _Yekargaules_. Between the tents we saw a great number of sledges, both empty and loaded.
Some of these were light and low sledges for driving in, with runners bent upwards and backwards, others were heavier pack-sledges, made of stronger wood, with the runners not bent back. Some of the light sledges were provided with tilts of splints covered with reindeer skins; others were completely covered, having an entrance only in front.
"The knives, axes, boring tools, &c., which I saw were of iron and steel, and had evidently been obtained from Americans or Russians. The household articles in Menka"s brother"s tent consisted of some copper coffee-pots, which were used for boiling water, a german-silver beaker with an English inscription, two teacups with saucers, flat wooden trays, and barrels. The dress of the reindeer-Chukches is similar to that of the coast-Chukches, only with this difference, that the former use reindeer-skins exclusively, while the latter employ seal-skin in addition. Some, on our arrival, put on blouses of variegated cloth, probably of Russian manufacture. Among ornaments may be mentioned gla.s.s-beads, strung on sinews, which were worn in the ears or on the neck, chiefly by the women. These were tattooed in the same way as those of the coast-Chukches. I saw here, however, an old woman, who, besides the common tattooing of the face, was tattooed on the shoulders, and another, who, on the outside of the hands, had two parallel lines running along the hand and an oblique line connecting them. The men were not tattooed. Two of them carried crosses, with Slavonic inscriptions, at the neck, others carried in the same way forked pieces of wood. Whether these latter are to be considered as their G.o.ds or as amulets I know not.
"As we could not obtain here the reindeer that we wished to purchase on account of the expedition, we betook ourselves with our dogs on the afternoon of the same day along with Menka to his son-in-law"s encampment, which we reached at 8 o"clock in the evening. We were received in a very friendly way, and remained here over night. All the inhabitants of the tent sleep together in the bedchamber of it, which is not more than 2 to 2.4 metres long, 1.8 to 2 metres broad, and 1.2 to 1.5 metres high. Before they lie down they take supper. Men and women wear during the night only a _cingulum pudicitiae_, about fifteen centimetres broad, and are otherwise completely naked. In the morning the housewife rose first and boiled a little flesh, which was then served in the bedchamber, before its inmates had put on their clothes. She cut the meat in slices in a tray, and distributed them afterwards. In the morning we saw the Chukches catch and slaughter their reindeer. Two men go into the herd, and when they have got sight of a reindeer which they wish to have, they cast, at a distance of nine or ten metres, a running noose over the animal"s horns. It now throws itself backwards and forwards in its attempts to escape, and drags after it for some moments the man who holds the noose. The other man in the meantime endeavours to approach the reindeer, catches the animal by the horns and throws it to the ground, killing it afterwards by a knife-stab behind the shoulder.
The reindeer is then handed over to the women, who, by an incision in the side of the belly, take out the entrails.
The stomach is emptied of its contents, and is then used to hold the blood. Finally th skin is taken off.
"About 10 o"clock A.M. we commenced our homeward journey.
At nightfall we sought to have a roof over our head in a wretched Chukch tent on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Utschunutsch. It was partly sunk in one of the small mounds which are found here along the sh.o.r.e, and which are probably the remains of old Onkilon dwellings. The present inhabitants, two old men and an old woman, had their habitation arranged in the following way:--In the bottom of a cylindrical pit, one metre deep and three and a half to four and a half metres in diameter, a vertical pole was erected, against the upper end of which rested a number of obliquely placed bars, rising from the edge of the pit, which were covered with skins. The enclosure or bedchamber, peculiar to the Chukch tent, was not wanting here. Otherwise the whole dwelling bore the stamp of poverty and dirt. The food of the inmates appeared to be fish. Of this, besides the fish we obtained here, the nets hanging in front of the tent afforded evidence. Some clothes, an iron pot, two wooden vessels, and a Shaman drum were the only things I could discover in the tent.
"Next morning we continued our journey. On the other side of Lake Utschunutsch we saw two dwellings, which only consisted of boats turned upside down with some hides drawn over them. The rest of the way we came past Najtskaj and through Irgunnuk, where we were received in an exceedingly friendly fashion. By 7 o"clock in the evening of the 11th October we were again on board the _Vega_."
From Lieutenant Hovgaard"s report, which princ.i.p.ally relates to the topography of the region pa.s.sed through, we make the following extract relating to the endurance which the Chukches and their dogs showed:--
"During our outward journey, which lasted twenty-one and a half hours, Menka"s attendant, the before-mentioned reindeer owner, whom we at first took to be Menka"s slave or servant, ran without interruption before the sledges, and even when we rested he was actively searching for the track, looking after the dogs, &c. When we came to the camp he did not sleep, and, notwithstanding, was as fresh during the following day"s journey. During the time he got no spirituous liquor, by express order of Menka, who said that if he did he would not be able to continue to run.
Instead he chewed a surprising quant.i.ty of tobacco. The dogs, during the whole time, were not an instant unyoked; in the mornings they lay half snowed up, and slept in front of the sledges. We never saw the Chukches give them any food: the only food they got was the frozen excrements of the fox and other animals, which they themselves snapped up in pa.s.sing. Yet even on the last day no diminution in their power of draught was observable."
Nordquist brought with him, among other things, two reindeer, bought for a rouble and a half each. They were still very serviceable, though badly slaughtered. But the reindeer we purchased farther on in the winter were so poor that no one on board could persuade himself to eat them.
On the 18th October, by which time we believed that Menka would be already at Markova, we were again visited by him and his son-in-law.
He said he had no _akmimil_ (fire-water) to keep holiday with, and now came to us to exchange three slaughtered reindeer for it. Our miscalculation with respect to the letters, which we hoped were long ago on their way to their destination, and my dislike to the mode of payment in question--I offered him, without success, half-imperials and metal rouble pieces instead of brandy--made his reception on this occasion less hearty, and he therefore left us soon. It was not until the 9th. February, 1879, that we again got news from Menka by one of the Chukches, who had attended him the time before. The Chukch said that in ten days he had traversed the way between the _Vega"s_ winter haven and Markova, which would run to about ninety kilometres a day. According to his statement Menka had travelled with the letters to Yakutsk. The statement seemed very suspicious, and appeared afterwards to have been partly fabricated, or perhaps to have been misunderstood by us. But after our return to the world of newspapers we found that Menka had actually executed his commission. He, however, did not reach Anadyrsk until the 7th March/23rd February. Thence the packet was sent to Irkutsk, arriving there on the 10th May/28th April. The news reached Sweden by telegraph six days after, on the 16th May, just at a time when concern for the fate of the _Vega_, was beginning to be very great, and the question of relief expeditions was seriously entertained.[256]
In order to relieve the apprehensions of our friends at home, it was, however, exceedingly important to give them some accounts of the position of the _Vega_ during winter, and I therefore offered all the purchasing power which the treasures of guns, powder, ball, food, fine shirts, and even spirits, collected on board, could exert, in order to induce some natives to convey Lieutenants Nordquist and Bove to Markova or Nischni Kolymsk. The negotiations seemed at first to go on very well, an advance was demanded and given, but when the journey should have commenced the Chukches always refused to start on some pretext or other--now it was too cold, now too dark, now there was no food for the dogs. The negotiations had thus no other result than to make us acquainted with one of the few less agreeable sides of the Chukches"
disposition, namely the complete untrustworthiness of these otherwise excellent savages, and their peculiar idea of the binding force of an agreement.
The plans of travel just mentioned, however, led to Lieutenant Nordquist making an excursion with dog-sledges in order to be even with one of the natives, who had received an advance for driving him to Markova, but had not kept his promise. Of this journey Lieutenant Nordquist gives the following account:--
"On the 5th December, at 7.50 A.M., I started with a dog-sledge for the village Pidlin, lying on Kolyutschin Bay. I was driven by the Chukch Auango from Irgunnuk. He had a small, light sledge, provided with runners of whalebone, drawn by six dogs, of which the leader was harnessed before the other five, which were fastened abreast in front of the sledge, each with its draught belt. The dogs were weak and ill managed, and therefore went so slowly that I cannot estimate their speed at more than two or three English miles an hour. As the journey both thither and back lasted eight to nine hours, the distance between Pitlekaj and Pidlin may be about twenty-five English miles.
"Pidlin and Kolyutschin Island are the only inhabited places on Kolyutschin Bay. At the former place there are four tents, pitched on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the bay, the number of the inhabitants being a little over twenty persons. I was received in front of the tents by the population of the village and carried to the tent, which was inhabited by Chepcho, who now promised to go with me in February to Anadyrsk. My host had a wife and three children. At night the children were completely undressed; the adults had short trousers on, the man of tanned skin, the woman of cloth. In the oppressive heat, which was kept up by two train-oil lamps burning the whole night, it was difficult to sleep even in the heavy reindeer-skin dresses. Yet they covered themselves with reindeer skins.
Besides the heat there was a fearful stench--the Chukches obeyed the calls of nature within the bedchamber--which I could not stand without going out twice to get fresh air.
When we got up next morning our hostess served breakfast in a flat tray, containing first seals" flesh and fat, with a sort of sourkrout of fermented willow-leaves, then seals" liver, and finally seals" blood--all frozen.
"Among objects of ethnographical interest I saw, besides the Shaman drum which was found in every tent, and was not regarded with the superst.i.tious dread which I have often observed elsewhere, a bundle of amulets fastened with a small thong, a wolf"s skull, which was also hung up by a thong, the skin together with the whole cartilaginous portion of a wolf"s nose and a flat stone. The amulets consisted of wooden forks, four to five centimetres long, of the sort which we often see the Chukches wear on the breast. My host said that such an amulet worn round the neck was a powerful means of preventing disease. The wolf"s skull which I had already got, he took back, because his four- or five-year-old son would need it in making choice of a wife. What part it played in this I did not however ascertain.
"While my driver harnessed the dogs for the journey home, I had an opportunity of seeing some little girls dance, which they did in the same way as that in which I had seen girls dance at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen. Two girls then place themselves either right opposite to or alongside of each other. In the former case they often lay their hands on each other"s shoulders, bend by turns to either side, sometimes leap with the feet held together and wheel round, while they sing or rather grunt the measure.
"The journey home was commenced at eight o"clock in the morning. In the course of it my driver sang Chukch songs.
These are often only imitations of the cries of animals or improvisations without any distinct metre or rhythm, and very little variation in the notes; only twice I thought I could distinguish a distinct melody. In the afternoon my driver told me the Chukch names of several stars. At five o"clock in the afternoon I reached the _Vega_."
On the 10th October, the new ice at many places in the neighbourhood of the vessel was still so weak that it was impossible to walk upon it, and blue water-skies at the horizon indicated, that there were still considerable stretches of open water in the neighbourhood. But the drift-ice round about us lay so rock-fast, that I could already take solar alt.i.tudes from the deck of the vessel with a mercurial horizon. In order to ascertain the actual state of the case with reference to the open water, excursions were undertaken on the 13th October, in different directions. Dr. Kjellman could then, from the rocky promontory at Yinretlen, forty-two metres high, see large open s.p.a.ces in the sea to the northward. Dr. Almquist went right out over the ice, following the track of 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 un.o.bserved. 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 too distant, and without a boat it was impossible to carry on any hunting there. Not a single Polar bear now appeared to be visible in the neighbourhood, although bears" skulls are found at several places on the beach, and this animal appears to play a great part in the imagination of the natives, to judge of the many figures of bears among the bone carvings I purchased from the Chukches. The natives often have a small strip of bear"s skin on the seat of their sledges, but I have not seen any whole bear"s skin here; perhaps the animal is being exterminated on the north coast of Siberia. Our wintering, therefore, will not enrich Arctic literature with any new bear stories--a very sensible difficulty for the writer himself. Wolves, on the other hand, occur on the _tundra_ in sufficient abundance, even if one or other of the wolves found in mist and drifting snow, and saluted with shot, turned out, on a critical determination of species, to be our own dogs. At least, this was the case with the "wolf," that inveigled one of the crew into shooting a ball one dark night right through the thermometer case, fortunately without injuring the instruments, and with no other result than that he had afterwards to bear an endless number of jokes from his comrades on account of his wolf-hunt. Foxes, white, red and black, also occurred here in great numbers, but they were at that season difficult to get at, and besides they had perhaps withdrawn from the coast. Hares, on the other hand, maintained themselves during the whole winter at Yinretlen, by day partly out on the ice partly on the cape, by night in the neighbourhood of the tents. Sweepings and offal from the proceeds of the chase had there produced a vegetation, which, though concealed by snow, yielded to the hares in winter a more abundant supply of food than the barren _tundra_. It was remarkable that the hares were allowed to live between the tents and in their neighbourhood without being disturbed by the score of lean and hungry dogs belonging to the village. When farther into the winter for the sake of facilitating the hare-hunting I had a hut erected for Johnsen the hunter, he chose as the place for it the immediate neighbourhood of the village, declaring that the richest hunting-ground in the whole neighbourhood was just there. The shooters stated that part of the hares became snow-blind in spring.
The hares here are larger than with us, and have exceedingly delicious flesh.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HARES FROM CHUKCH LAND. ]
On our arrival most of the birds had already left these regions, so inhospitable in winter, or were seen high up in the air in collected flocks, flying towards the south entrance of Behring"s Straits.
Still on the 19th October an endless procession of birds was seen drawing towards this region, but by the 3rd November it was noted, as something uncommon, that a gull settled on the refuse heaps in the neighbourhood of the vessel. It resembled the ivory gull, but had a black head. Perhaps it was the rare _Larus Sabinii_, of which a drawing has been given above.[257] All the birds which pa.s.sed us came from the north-west, that is, from the north coast of Siberia, the New Siberian Islands or Wrangel Land. Only the mountain owl, a species of raven and the ptarmigan wintered in the region, the last named being occasionally snowed up.
The ptarmigan here is not indeed so plump and good as the Spitzbergen ptarmigan during winter, but in any case provided us with an always welcome, if scanty change from the tiresome preserved meat. When some ptarmigan were shot, they were therefore willingly saved up by the cook, along with the hares, for festivals. For in order to break the monotony on board an opportunity was seldom neglected that offered itself for holding festivities. Away there on the coast of the Chukch peninsula there were thus celebrated with great conscientiousness during the winter of 1878-9, not only our own birthdays but also those of King Oscar, King Christian and King Humbert, and of the Emperor Alexander. Every day a newspaper was distributed, for the day indeed, but for a past year. In addition we numbered among our diversions constant intercourse with the natives, and frequent visits to the neighbouring villages, driving in dog-sledges, a sport which would have been very enjoyable if the dogs of the natives had not been so exceedingly poor and bad, and finally industrious reading and zealous studies, for which I had provided the expedition with an extensive library, intended both for the scientific men and officers, and for the crew, numbering with the private stock of books nearly a thousand volumes.
All this time of course the purely scientific work was not neglected. In the first rank among these stood the meteorological and magnetical observations, which from the 1st November were made on land every hour. However fast the ice lay around the vessel it was impossible to get on it a sufficiently stable base for the magnetical variation instrument. The magnetical observatory was therefore erected on land of the finest building material any architect has had at his disposal, namely, large parallelopipeds of beautiful blue-coloured ice-blocks. The building was therefore called by the Chukches _Tintinyaranga_ (the ice-house), a name which was soon adopted by the _Vega_ men too. As mortar the builder, Palander, used snow mixed with water, and the whole was covered with a roof of boards. But as after a time it appeared that the storm made its way through the joints and that these were gradually growing larger in consequence of the evaporation of the ice so that the drifting snow could find an entrance, the whole house had a sail drawn over it. As supports of the three variation instruments large blocks of wood were used, whose lower ends were sunk in pits, which, with great trouble, were excavated in the frozen ground, and then, when the block supports were placed, were filled with sand mixed with water.
The ice-house was a s.p.a.cious observatory, well-fitted for its purpose in every respect. It had but one defect, the temperature was always at an uncomfortably low point. As no iron could be used in the building, and we had no copper-stove with us, we could not have any fireplace there. We endeavoured, indeed, to use a copper fireplace, that had been intended for sledge journeys, for heating, but only with the result that the observatory was like to have gone to pieces. We succeeded little better when we discovered farther on in the winter, while tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the hold, a forgotten cask of bear"s oil. We considered this _find_ a clear indication that instead of a stove fired with wood we should, according to the custom of the Polar races, use oil-lamps to mitigate the severe cold which deprived our stay in Tintinyaranga of part of its pleasure. But this mode of firing proved altogether impracticable. The fumes of the oil smelled worse than those of the charcoal, and the result of this experiment was none other than that the splendid crystals of ice, with which the roof and walls of the ice-house were gradually clothed, were covered with black soot. Firing with oil was abandoned, and the oil presented to our friends at Yinretlen, who just then were complaining loudly that they had no other fuel than wood.
Besides the nine scientific men and officers of the _Vega_, the engineer Nordstrom and the seaman Lundgren took part in the magnetical and meteorological observations. Every one had his watch of six hours, five of which were commonly pa.s.sed in the ice-house.
To walk from the vessel to the observatory, distant a kilometre and a half, with the temperature under the freezing point of mercury, or, what was much worse, during storm, with the temperature at -36, remain in the observatory for five hours in a temperature of -17, and then return to the vessel, commonly against the wind--for it came nearly always from the north or north-west--was dismal enough. None of us, however, suffered any harm from it. On the contrary, it struck me as if this compulsory interruption to our monotonous life on board and the long-continued stay in the open air had a refreshing influence both on body and soul.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OBSERVATORY AT PITLEKAJ. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]
In the neighbourhood of the ice-house the thermometer case was erected, and farther on in the winter there were built in the surrounding snowdrifts, two other observatories, not however of ice, but of snow, in the Greenland snow-building style. Our depot of provisions was also placed in the neighbourhood, and at a sufficient distance from the magnetical observatory there was a large wooden chest, in which the Remington guns, which were carried for safety in excursions from the vessel, and other iron articles which the observer had with him, were placed before he entered the observatory.
The building of Tintinyaranga was followed by the Chukches with great interest. When they saw that we did not intend to live there, but that rare, glancing metal instruments were set up in it, and that a wonderfully abundant flood of light in comparison with their tent illumination was constantly maintained inside with a kind of light quite unknown to them (stearine candles and photogen lamps) a curious uneasiness began to prevail among them, which we could not quiet with the language of signs mixed with a Chukch word or two, to which our communications with the natives were at that time confined. Even farther on in the year, when an efficient though word-poor international language had gradually been formed between us, they made inquiries on this point, yet with considerable indifference. All sensible people among them had evidently already come to the conclusion that it was profitless trouble to seek a reasonable explanation of all the follies which the strange foreigners, richly provided with many earthly gifts but by no means with practical sense, perpetrated. In any case it was with a certain amazement and awe that they, when they exceptionally obtained permission, entered one by one through the doors in order to see the lamps burn and to peep into the tubes. Many times even a dog-team that had come a long way stopped for a few moments at the ice-house to satisfy the owner"s curiosity, and on two occasions in very bad drifting weather we were compelled to give shelter to a wanderer who had gone astray.