The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 53

W.H. Hooper, _Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, London, 1853 (Moore's wintering at Chukotskoj-nos).

John Rodgers, Behring's Sea and Arctic Ocean, from Surveys of the North Pacific Surveying Expedition, 1855 (only charts).--W. Heine, _Die Expedition in die Seen von China, j.a.pan und Ochotsk, unter Commando von Commodore Colin Ringgold und Commodore John Rodgers_, Leipzig, 1858 (the expedition arrived at the result that Wrangel Land did not exist).

(Lindemann) _Wrangels Land im Jahre_ 1866, _durch Kapiten Dallmann besucht (Deutsche Geograph. Blatter_, B. iv. p. 54, 1881).

Petermann, _Entdeckung eines neuen Polar-Landes durch den amerikan, Capt Long_, 1867 (Mittheil. 1868, p. 1).--_Das neu-entdeckte Polar-Land_, &c. (Mittheil 1869, p. 26). ]

[Footnote 340: It ought to be remembered that the voyage of the distinguished Arctic explorer, McClure, carried out with so much gallantry and admirable perseverance, from the Pacific to the Atlantic along the north coast of America, took place to no inconsiderable extent _by sled journeys over the ice_, and that no English vessel has ever sailed by this route from the one sea to the other. The North-west Pa.s.sage has thus never been accomplished by a vessel. ]

[Footnote 341: Amoretti, _Viaggio del mare Atlantico al Pasifico per la via del Nord-Ovest, &c. Fatto del capitano Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, l'anno MDLx.x.xVIII_. Milano, 1811. ]

[Footnote 342: At the date of Maldonado's voyage Spain and Portugal were united. ]

[Footnote 343: The narratives of the Russian voyagers in the Polar Seas bear a quite different stamp. Details are seldom wanting in these, and they correspond with known facts, and the discoveries made are of reasonably modest dimensions. I therefore consider, as I have said already, that the doubts of the trustworthiness of Deschnev, Chelyuskin, Andrejev, Hedenstrom, Sannikov, &c., are completely unfounded, and it is highly desirable that all journals of Russian explorers in the Polar Sea yet in existence be published as soon as possible, and not in a mutilated shape, but in a complete and unaltered form. ]

CHAPTER XIV.

Pa.s.sage through Behring's Straits--Arrival at Nunamo-- Scarce species of seal--Rich vegetation--Pa.s.sage to America-- State of the ice--Port Clarence--The Eskimo--Return to Asia-- Konyam Bay--Natural conditions there--The ice breaks up in the interior of Konyam Bay--St. Lawrence Island--Preceding visits to the Island--Departure to Behring Island.

After we had pa.s.sed the easternmost promontory of Asia, the course was shaped first to St. Lawrence Bay, a not inconsiderable fjord, which indents the Chukch peninsula, a little south of the smallest part of Behring's Straits. It was my intention to anchor in this fjord as long as possible, in order to give the naturalists of the _Vega_ expedition an opportunity of making acquaintance with the natural conditions of a part of Chukch Land which is more favoured by nature than the bare stretch of coast completely open to the winds of the Polar Sea, which we hitherto had visited. I would willingly have stayed first for some hours at Diomede Island, the market-place famed among the Polar tribes, situated in the narrowest part of the Straits, nearly half-way between Asia and America, and probably before the time of Columbus a station for traffic between the Old and the New Worlds. But such a delay would have been attended with too great difficulty and loss of time in consequence of the dense fog which prevailed here on the boundary between the warm sea free from drift-ice and the cold sea filled with drift-ice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEAL FROM THE BEHRING SEA. _Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm. ]

Even the high mountains on the Asiatic sh.o.r.e were still wrapped in a thick mist, from which only single mountain-summits now and then appeared. Next the vessel large fields of drift-ice were visible, on which here and there flocks of a beautifully marked species of seal (_Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm) had settled. Between the pieces of ice sea-birds swarmed, mostly belonging to other species than those which are met with in the European Polar seas. The ice was fortunately so broken up that the _Vega_ could steam forward at full speed to the neighbourhood of St. Lawrence Bay, where the coast was surrounded by some more compact belts of ice, which however were broken through with ease. First, in the mouth of the fjord itself impenetrable ice was met with, completely blocking the splendid haven of St. Lawrence Bay. The _Vega_ was, therefore, compelled to anchor in the open road off the village Nunamo. But even here extensive ice-fields, though thin and rotten, drifted about; and long, but narrow, belts of ice pa.s.sed the vessel in so large ma.s.ses that it was not advisable to remain longer at the place. Our stay there was therefore confined to a few hours.

During the course of the winter Lieutenant Nordquist endeavoured to collect from the Chukches travelling past as complete information as possible regarding the Chukch villages or encampments which are found along the coast between Chaun Bay and Behring's Straits. His informants always finished their list with the village Ertryn, situated west of Cape Deschnev, explaining that farther east and south there lived another tribe, with whom they indeed did not stand in open enmity, but who, however, were not to be fully depended upon, and to whose villages they therefore did not dare to accompany any of us.[344] This statement also corresponds, as perhaps follows from what I have pointed out in the preceding chapter, with the accounts commonly found in books on the ethnography of this region. While we steamed forward cautiously in a dense fog in the neighbourhood of Cape Deschnev, twenty to thirty natives came rowing in a large skin boat to the vessel. Eager to make acquaintance with a tribe new to us, we received them with pleasure. But when they climbed over the side we found that they were pure Chukches, some of them old acquaintances, who during winter had been guests on board the _Vega_. "Ankali" said they, with evident contempt, are first met with farther beyond St. Lawrence Bay. When we anch.o.r.ed next day at the mouth of this bay we were immediately, as usual, visited by a large number of natives, and ourselves visited their tents on land. They still talked Chukch with a limited mixture of foreign words, lived in tents of a construction differing somewhat from the Chukches', and appeared to have a somewhat different cast of countenance. They themselves would not allow that there was any national difference between them and the old warrior and conqueror tribe on the north coast, but stated that the race about which we inquired were settled immediately to the south. Some days after we anch.o.r.ed in Konyam Bay (64 49' N.L., 172 53' W.L. from Greenwich). We found there only pure reindeer-owning Chukches; there was no coast population living by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. On the other hand, the inhabitants near our anchorage off St. Lawrence Island consisted of Eskimo and Namollo. It thus appears as if a great part of the Eskimo who inhabit the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits, had during recent times lost their own nationality and become fused with the Chukches. For it is certain that no violent expulsion has recently taken place here. It ought besides to be remarked that the name _Onkilon_ which Wrangel heard given to the old coast population driven out by the Chukches is evidently nearly allied to the word _Ankali_, with which the reindeer-Chukch at present distinguishes the coast-Chukch, also that, in the oldest Russian accounts of Schestakov's and Paulutski's campaigns in these regions, there never is any mention of two different tribes living here. It is indeed mentioned in these accounts that among the slain Chukches there were found some men with perforated lips, but probably these were Eskimo from the other side of Behring's Straits, previously taken prisoners by the Chukches, or perhaps merely Eskimo who had been paying a friendly visit to the Chukches and who had taken part as volunteers in their war of freedom. It therefore appears to me to be on the whole more probable that the Eskimo have migrated from America to Asia, than that, as some authors have supposed, this tribe has entered America from the west by Behring's Straits or Wrangel Land.

The tent-village Nunamo, or, as Hooper writes, "Noonahmone," does not lie low, like the Chukch villages we had formerly seen, on the sea-sh.o.r.e, but pretty high up on a cape between the sea and a river which debouches immediately to the south-west of the village, and now during the snow-melting season was much flooded. At a short distance from the coast the land was occupied by a very high chain of mountains, which was split up into a number of summits and whose sides were formed of immense stone mounds distributed in terraces.

Here a large number of marmots and lagomys had their haunt. The lagomys, a species of rodent that does not occur in Sweden, of the size of a large rat, is remarkable for the care with which in summer it collects great stores for the winter. The village consisted of ten tents built without order on the first high strand bank. The tents differed somewhat in construction from the common Chukch tents, and as drift-wood appears to be met with on the beach only in limited quant.i.ty, whale-bones had been used on a very large scale in the frame of the tent. Thus, for instance, the tent-covering of seal-skin was stretched downwards over the ribs or lower jawbones of the whale which were fixed in the ground like poles. These were united above with slips of whale-bones, from which other slips of the same sort of bones or of whalebone rose to the summit of the tent, and finally, to prevent the blast from raising the tent-covering from the ground, its border was loaded with ma.s.ses of large heavy bones. Eleven shoulder-blades of the whale were thus used round a single tent. In the absence of drift-wood, whale and seal bones drenched in train-oil are also used as fuel in cooking in the open air during summer; a large curved whale rib was placed over the fire-place to serve as a pot-holder; the vertebrae of the whale were used as mortars; the entrances to the blubber-cellars were closed with shoulder-blades of the whale; hollowed whale-bones were used as lamps; shoes of whale-bone or pieces of the under-jaw and the straighter ribs were used for shoeing the sledges, for spades and ice-mattocks, the different parts of the implement being bound together with whale-bone fibres, &c. [345]

Ma.s.ses of black seal-flesh, and long, white, fluttering strings of inflated intestines, were hung up between the tents, and in their interior there were everywhere to be seen b.l.o.o.d.y pieces of flesh, prepared in a disgusting way or lying scattered about, whereby both the dwellings and their inhabitants, who were occupied with hunting, had a more than usually disagreeble appearance. A pleasant interruption was formed by the heaps of green willow branches which were placed at the entrance of nearly every tent, commonly surrounded by women and children, who ate the leaves with delight.

At some places whole sacks of Rhodiola and various other plants had been collected for food during winter. As distinctive of the Chukches here it may be mentioned in the last place that they were abundantly provided with European household articles, among them _Remington guns_, and that none of them asked for spirits.

Most of the seals which were seen in the tents were the common _Phoca hispida_, but along with them we found several skins of _Histriophoca fasciata_, Zimm., and I even succeeded, though with great difficulty, in inducing the Chukches to part with the skin and skull of this uncommon species, distinguished by its peculiar marking. The natives appeared to set a special value on its skin, and parted with it unwillingly. We had ourselves, as I have already stated, seen during our pa.s.sage from Behring's Straits a number of these seals on the ice-floes drifting south, but the limited time at our disposal did not permit us to hunt them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRABA ALPINA L., FROM ST. LAWRENCE BAY. Natural size. ]

When we left Pitlekaj, vegetation there was still far from having reached its full development, but at Nunamo the strand-bank was gay with an exceedingly rich magnificence of colour. On an area of a few acres Dr. Kjellman collected here more than a hundred species of flowering plants, among which were a considerable number that he had not before seen on the Chukch Peninsula. s.p.a.ce does not permit me to give another list of plants, but in order that the reader may have an idea of the great difference in the mode of growth which the same species may exhibit under the influence of different climatal conditions, I give here a drawing of the Alpine whitlow gra.s.s (_Draba alpina_, L.) from St. Lawrence Bay. It would not, perhaps, be easy to recognise in this drawing the species delineated on page 341 of vol. i,; the globular form which the plant a.s.sumed on the sh.o.r.e of Cape Chelyuskin exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, has here, in a region protected from them, completely disappeared.

At the rocky headlands there were still, however, considerable snowdrifts, and from the heights we could see that considerable ma.s.ses of ice were still drifting along the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits. During an excursion to the top of one of the neighbouring mountains, Dr. Stuxberg found the corpse of a native laid out on a stone-setting of the form common among the Chukches.

Alongside the dead man lay a broken percussion gun, spear, arrows, tinder-box, pipe, snow-shade, ice-sieve, and various other things which the departed was considered to be in want of in the part of the Elysian fields set apart for Chukches. The corpse had lain on the place at least since the preceding summer, but the pipe was one of the clay pipes that I had caused to be distributed among the natives. It had thus been placed there long after the proper burial.

Anxious as I was to send off soon from a telegraph station some re-a.s.suring lines to the home-land, because I feared that a general uneasiness had already begun to be felt for the fate of the _Vega_, I would willingly have remained at this place, so important and interesting in a scientific point of view, at least for some days, had not the ice-belts and ice-fields drifting about in the offing been so considerable that if a wind blowing on land had risen unexpectedly, they might readily have been dangerous to our vessel, which even now was anch.o.r.ed in a completely open road, for the splendid haven situated farther in in St. Lawrence Bay was still covered with ice, and consequently inaccessible. On the afternoon of 21st July, accordingly, when all were a.s.sembled on board pleased and delighted with the results of the morning visit to land, I ordered the anchor to be weighed that the _Vega_ might steam across to the American side of Behring's Straits. As in all the Polar seas of the northern hemisphere, so also here, the eastern side of the Straits was ice-bestrewn, the western, on the other hand, clear of ice. The pa.s.sage was at all events a rapid one, so that by the afternoon of the 21st July we were able to anchor in Port Clarence, an excellent haven south of the westernmost promontory of Asia, Cape Prince of Wales. _It was the first time the Vega anch.o.r.ed in a proper haven, since on the 18th August 1878 she left Actinia, Haven on Taimur Island._ During the intermediate time she had been constantly anch.o.r.ed or moored in open roads without the least land shelter from sea, wind, and drift-ice. The vessel was, however, thanks to Captain Palander's judgment and thoughtfulness, and the ability of the officers and crew, still not only quite free from damage, but even as seaworthy as when she left the dock at Karlskrona, and we had still on board provisions for nearly a year, and about 4,000 cubic feet of coal.

Towards the sea Port Clarence is protected by a long low sandy reef, between the north end of which and the land there is a convenient and deep entrance. There a considerable river falls into the interior of the harbour, the mouth of which widens to a lake, which is separated from the outer harbour by a sandy neck of land. This lake also forms a good and s.p.a.cious harbour, but its entrance is too shallow for vessels of any considerable draught. The river itself, on the contrary, is deep, and about eighteen kilometres from its mouth flows through another lake, from the eastern sh.o.r.e of which rugged and shattered mountains rise to a height which I estimate at 800 to 1000 metres; but it is quite possible that their height is twice as great, for in making such estimates one is liable to fall into error. South of the river and the harbour the land rises abruptly from the river bank, which is from ten to twenty metres high. On the north side, on the other hand, the bank is for the most part low, but farther into the interior the ground rises rapidly to rounded hills from 300 to 400 metres high. Only in the valleys and at other places where very large ma.s.ses of snow had collected during the winter, were snow-drifts still to be seen. On the other hand, we saw no glaciers, though we might have expected to find them on the sides of the high mountains which bound the inner lake on the east.

It was also clear that during the recent ages no widely extended ice-sheet was to be found here, for in the many excursions we made in different directions, among others up the river to the lake just mentioned, we saw nowhere any moraines, erratic blocks, striated rock-surfaces, or other traces of a past ice-age. Many signs, on the other hand, indicate that during a not very remote geological period glaciers covered considerable areas of the opposite Asiatic sh.o.r.e, and contributed to excavate the fjords there--Kolyutschin Bay, St.

Lawrence Bay, Metschigme Bay, Konyam Bay, &c.

When we approached the American side we could see that the sh.o.r.e cliffs were formed of stratified rocks. I therefore hoped to be able, at last, to make a rich collection of fossils, something that I had no opportunity of doing during the preceding part of the voyage. But I found, on reaching them, that the stratified rocks only consisted of crystalline schists without any traces of animal or vegetable remains. Nor did we find on the sh.o.r.e any whale-bones or any of the remarkable mammoth-bearing ice-strata which were discovered in the bay situated immediately north of Behring's Straits, which was named after Dr. Eschscholz, medical officer during Kotzebue's famous voyage.[346]

Immediately after the anchor fell we were visited by several very large skin boats and a large number of _kayaks_. The latter were larger than the Greenlanders', being commonly intended for two persons, who sat back to back in the middle of the craft. We even saw boats from which, when the two rowers had stepped out, a third person crept who had lain almost hermetically sealed in the interior of the _kayak_, stretched on the bottom without the possibility of moving his limbs, or saving himself if any accident should happen.

It appeared to be specially common for children to accompany their elders in _kayak_ voyages in this inconvenient way.

After the natives came on board a lively traffic commenced, whereby I acquired some arrow-points and stone fis.h.i.+ng-hooks. Anxious to procure as abundant material as possible for inst.i.tuting a comparison between the household articles of the Eskimo and the Chukches, I examined carefully the skin-bags which the natives had with them. In doing so I picked out one thing after the other, while they did not object to me making an inventory. One of them, however, showed great unwillingness to allow me to get to the bottom of the sack, but this just made me curious to ascertain what precious thing was concealed there. I was urgent, and went through the bag half with violence, until at last, in the bottom, I got a solution of the riddle--a loaded revolver. Several of the natives had also breechloaders. The oldest age with stone implements, and the most recent period with breechloaders, thus here reach hands one to the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUNTING IMPLEMENTS AT PORT CLARENCE.

1. Bird dart with wooden handle for throwing, one-ninth of the natural size.

2. Whale harpoon with flint point, one-twelfth.

3. Harpoon-point of bone and nephrite, one-half.

4. Bone leister, one-third.

5. Awl, one-half.

6. Harpoon, one-twelfth.

7. Flint dart-point, one-half.

8. Arrows or harpoon-ends with points of iron, stone or gla.s.s, one-eighth.

9. Quiver, one-eighth. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO FAMILY AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

Many natives were evidently migrating to more northerly hunting-grounds and fis.h.i.+ng places, perhaps also to the markets and play-booths, which Dr. John Simpson describes in his well-known paper on the West Eskimo.[347] Others had already pitched their summer tents on the banks of the inner harbour, or of the river before mentioned. On the other hand, there was found in the region only a small number of winter dwellings abandoned during the warm season of the year. The population consisted, as has been said, of Eskimo. They did not understand a word of Chukch. Among them, however, we found a Chukch woman, who stated that true Chukches were found also on the American side, north of Behring's Straits. Two of the men spoke a little English, one had even been at San Francisco, another at Honolulu. Many of their household articles reminded us of contact with American whalers, and justice demands the recognition of the fact that in opposition to what we commonly see stated, contact with men of civilised race appears to have been to the advantage and improvement of the savage in an economical and moral point of view. Most of them now lived in summer-tents of thin cotton cloth, many wore European clothes, others were clad in trousers of seal or reindeer-skin and a light, soft, often beautifully ornamented _pesk_ of marmot skin, over which in rainy weather was worn an overcoat made of pieces of gut sewn together. The arrangement of the hair resembled that of the Chukches. The women were tattooed with some lines on the chin. Many of the men wore small moustaches, some even a scanty beard, while others had attempted the American goatee. Most of them, but not all, had two holes from six to seven millimetres in length, cut in the lips below the corners of the mouth. In these holes were worn large pieces of bone, gla.s.s, or stone (figure 9, page 237). But these ornaments were often removed, and then the edges of the large holes closed so much that the face was not much disfigured. Many had in addition a similar hole forward in the lip. It struck me, however, that this strange custom was about to disappear completely, or at least to be Europeanised by the exchange of holes in the ears for holes in the mouth. An almost full-grown young woman had a large blue gla.s.s bead hanging from the nose, in whose part.i.tion a hole had been made for its suspension, but she was very much embarra.s.sed and hid her head in a fold of mama's _pesk_, when this piece of grandeur attracted general attention. All the women had long strings of beads in the ears. They wore bracelets of iron or copper, resembling those of the Chukches. The colour of the skin was not very dark, with perceptible redness on the cheeks, the hair black and tallow-like, the eyes small, brown, slightly oblique, the face flat, the nose small and depressed at the root. Most of the natives were of average height, appeared to be healthy and in good condition, and were marked neither by striking thinness nor corpulence. The feet and the hands were small.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by L.

Palander.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. (After photographs by L.

Palander.) ]

A certain elegance and order prevailed in their small tents, the floor of which was covered with mats of plaited plants. In many places vessels formed of cocoa-nut sh.e.l.ls were to be seen, brought thither, like some of the mats, by whalers from the South Sea Islands. For the most part their household and hunting implements, axes, knives, saws, breechloaders, revolvers, &c., were of American origin, but they still used or preserved in the lumber repositories of the tent, bows and arrows, bird-darts, bone boat-hooks, and various stone implements. The fis.h.i.+ng implements especially were made with extraordinary skill of coloured sorts of bone or stone, gla.s.s beads, red pieces of the feet of certain swimming birds, &c.

The different materials were bound together by twine made of whalebone in such a manner that they resembled large beetles, being intended for use in the same way as salmon-flies at home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO FIs.h.i.+NG IMPLEMENTS, ETC.

1-6. Salmon hooks of stone of different colours, and bone in the form of beetles, one-half of the natural size.

7. Fis.h.i.+ng rod one-sixth.

8. End of rod.

9. Bone sinker with tufts and fish-hook, one-half.

10. Fish-hook with bone points, one-half.

11. Fish-hook with iron-wire points, one-half.

12. Snow spectacles one-third. ]

Fire was got partly with steel, flint, and tinder, partly by means of the fire-drill. Many also used American lucifers. The bow of the fire-drill was often of ivory, richly ornamented with hunting figures of different kinds. Their tools were more elegant, better carved and more richly coloured with graphite[348] and red ochre than those of the Chukches; the people were better off and owned a larger number of skin-boats, both _kayaks_ and _umiaks_. This undoubtedly depends on the sea being here covered with ice for a shorter time and the ice being thinner than on the Asiatic side, and the hunting accordingly being better. All the old accounts however agree in representing that in former times the Chukches were recognised as a great power by the other savage tribes in these regions, but all recent observations indicate that that time is now past. A certain respect for them, however, appears still to prevail among their neighbours.

The natives, after the first mistrust had disappeared, were friendly and accommodating, honourable in their dealings though given to begging and to much haggling in making a bargain. There appeared to be no chief among them, complete equality prevailed, and the position of the woman did not appear to be inferior to that of the man. The children were what we would call in Europe well brought up, though they got no bringing up at all. All were heathens. The liking for spirits appeared to be less strong than among the Chukches. We learn besides that all selling of spirits to savages is not only forbidden on the American side, but forbidden in such a way that the law is obeyed.

During our stay among the Chukches my supply of articles for barter was very limited, for up to the hour of departure uncertainty prevailed as to the time at which we would get free, and I was therefore compelled to be sparing of the stores. I often found it difficult on that account to induce a Chukch to part with things which I wished to acquire. Here on the contrary I was a rich man, thanks to the large surplus that was over from our abundant winter equipment, which of course in warm regions would have been of no use to us. I turned my riches to account by making visits like a pedlar in the tent villages with sacks full of felt hats, thick clothes, stockings, ammunition, &c., for which goods I obtained a beautiful and choice collection of ethnographical articles. Among these may be mentioned beautiful bone etchings and carvings, and several arrow-points and other tools of a species of nephrite,[349] which is so puzzlingly like the well-known nephrite from High Asia, that I am disposed to believe that it actually comes originally from that locality. In such a case the occurrence of nephrite at Behring's Straits is important, because it cannot be explained in any other way than either by supposing that the tribes living here have carried the mineral with them from their original home in High Asia, or that during the Stone Age of High Asia a like extended commercial intercommunication took place between the wild races as now exists, or at least some decades ago existed, along the north parts of Asia and America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO BONE-CARVINGS, ETC.