our having the ninety-six dogs required for eight sledges, I sought anxiously to adopt such precautions as might secure those we obtained, from infection. Orders were given to procure as quickly as possible at least a hundred healthy dogs, and to take them immediately to the greater and lesser Tchukotski rivers, to be kept there at the expense of the expedition, cutting of all communication with the neighbouring district. Part of our provisions had also to be conveyed to the store-house, which had been built near the Baranicha River. But whilst we were endeavouring to execute these plans, the malady spread so rapidly that we had the utmost difficulty in obtaining thirty-six dogs, instead of the required ninety-six; and though they were instantly sent away, they almost all died. The mortality increased daily with the increasing intensity of the cold, and it soon extended to all the villages and settlements in the Kolymsk district. The inhabitants felt the loss of these valuable and almost indispensable servants more acutely than they did the scarcity, to occasional returns of which they are in great measure accustomed and resigned. Such was the unhappy state of things at the opening of a new year (1822). As the time of our departure was near, I gave up all hopes of procuring more dogs in our own district, and sent one of the most trustworthy of the Cossacks to the Indigirka, where the sickness did not prevail, with a commission to purchase sixty, and to keep them in readiness until further orders near the greater Tchukotski River, feeding them well. On the 5th of March I received information from him that he had found it impossible to collect more than forty-five good dogs, with which he awaited me at the appointed place.

"As the intensity of the cold diminished, the sickness gradually abated, until it at last entirely subsided; but not until the inhabitants had lost four-fifths of their dogs. Most of those which survived were the property of the Cossacks, who, with some of the citizens, most generously volunteered to fit out twenty sledges with twelve dogs each.

"On the Lower Kolyma District, the disease, which in 1821 attacked the dogs throughout Northern Siberia, did not make its appearance at Kolymsk till a year later than on the rivers to the west."

TER

CHAPTER XIX.

ERRIBLE misery oppresses at intervals the hyperborean races: it would almost appear, judging from some facts, as if a cause was slowly but surely bringing about the ultimate extirpation of these tenants of the icy zone. Their dogs, of course, endure at least an equal amount of suffering.

"Spring is the severest season. Tunguses and Jukahirs come to the Russian villages to escape starvation. Like wandering phantoms, pale, without strength, scarcely able to walk, they throw themselves greedily on any remains of bones, skin, or aught else which may in any way alleviate the pangs of hunger; but there is little comfort for them in the villages, where want reigns likewise-the inhabitants are obliged to have recourse to the small remains of the provisions designed for their dogs, many of which are often starved in consequence. "I have," says Wrangell, "lived here through three such dreadful springs. I cannot even now look back without shuddering to the scenes of misery which I have witnessed, but which I may not venture to describe."

During the summer the dogs subsist to a certain extent on field-mice, which they make a practice of catching. The very thin fish taken are usually put aside for them, cleaned, cut open, laid flat, and dried in the air.

"The dogs are often too much exhausted by the winter

work and insufficient food to be fit for chasing the rein-deer and elk over the Nast in the spring. When the warmth of the sun thaws the surface of the snow, it freezes again at night and forms a thin crust of ice, which is just strong enough to bear a light sledge, with its team of dogs. This is called nast. The hunters then pursue the elks and rein-deer by night, and as the weight of these animals causes them to break through, they fall an easy prey.

"Not only the elk and rein-deer, but the wild sheep, foxes, sables, and squirrels, are pursued by their traces on the freshfallen snow by trained dogs in sledges. When the rein-deer are in motion in large troops in the summer, some hunters go in boats and others on horseback to the large lakes. The deer are driven into the water by trained dogs, and are then killed with spears as they are swimming. In the moulting season, when the wild swans, geese, and ducks are unable to fly, the fishermen leave the rivers and go to the breeding places of the wildfowl on the lakes. They employ dogs, instructed for the purpose, to pursue them, and kill great numbers with guns, arrows, and sticks."

The wisdom of the government in permitting such massacres, or "battues," at that period of helplessness of the birds, is perhaps open to question. Some of the distress of the people may be due to this conduct.

The Tchuktches inhabit the north-east of Asia to Behring's Straits: they harness four or five dogs abreast, while on the Kolyma dogs are driven two abreast. Tchuktche dogs are smaller than those employed for draught in other parts of Siberia, and inferior both in strength and swiftness. It is

remarkable that in 1821 the Tchuktches lost great numbers of their dogs by the same malady as that which made such ravages among those of the Kolyma, the Indigirka, the Jana, and the Lena. Salt, (as has already been stated), is never eaten by these people. They use only animal food; boiled rein-deers' flesh, with seals'-blubber, is a frequent dish. They are particularly fond of the flesh of white bears and of the skin of the whale, with a layer of meat adhering to it, eaten raw. Fish are not much esteemed. Every article of food is taken cold, and they usually conclude their meals with a lump of snow.

These dogs have a remarkable aversion to bears' flesh as long as it is warm, and will not touch it even when pressed by hunger; but when it is cold they eat it with avidity.

The custom of using dogs as draught animals came, no doubt, originally from the Kamtschatdales, (who are said to castrate them), from whom the Russians adopted it. All the nations of North-eastern Siberia were previously in the habit of employing rein-deer exclusively. The rein-deer is useful to his master in many more ways than the dog, but, on the other hand, is more difficult to maintain.

The narti, or sledges, of Northern Siberia are about 5 feet 10 inches in length, breadth 1 foot 9 inches, height 104 inches. The best material is seasoned birchwood, free from knots. The upper surface, on which the load is placed, is formed of woven shoots of the sand-willow. No iron is used-all the parts are fastened by thongs. Water is poured every evening over the runners to produce a thin crust of ice, which glides with incredible ease over the snow. Under favourable circumstances 1260 lbs. may be placed on a sledge, but in intense