Even the high mountains on the Asiatic shore 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 passed the vessel in so large masses

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 anchored 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 anchored in Konyam Bay (64 deg. 49' N.L., 172 deg. 53' W.L. from

Greenwich). We found there only pure reindeer-owning Chukches; there was

no coast population living by hunting and fishing. 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-shore, 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 quantity, 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 masses 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]

Masses 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 bloody 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 passage 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.

[Illustration: 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. Space 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 grass

(_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 assumed on the

shore 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

masses 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-assuring 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 anchored 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 assembled 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

passage 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 anchored 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

anchored 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 spacious 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 shore 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 masses 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 shore,

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 shore

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 shore 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 fishing-hooks. Anxious to procure

as abundant material as possible for instituting 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.

[Illustration: 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 glass,

one-eighth.

9. Quiver, one-eighth. ]

[Illustration: ESKIMO FAMILY AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by

L. Palander.) ]

Many natives were evidently migrating to more northerly

hunting-grounds and fishing 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, glass, 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 glass bead

hanging from the nose, in whose partition a hole had been made for

its suspension, but she was very much embarrassed 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.

[Illustration: ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. (After a photograph by L.

Palander.) ]

[Illustration: 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 shells 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 fishing implements especially were

made with extraordinary skill of coloured sorts of bone or stone,

glass 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.

[Illustration: ESKIMO FISHING 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. Fishing 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.

[Illustration: ESKIMO BONE-CARVINGS, ETC.

1-5. Buttons to carrying straps, representing heads of the Polar bear,

seals &c., carved in walrus ivory, one-half of the natural size.

6. Carrying strap with a similar button, carved, in the form

of a seal, one-third.

7. Stone chisel, one-half.

8. Comb one-third.

9. Buttons of bone, glass, or stone, to be placed in holes in the lips,

natural size.

10. Ivory diadem, two-thirds. ]

On the north side of the harbour we found an old European or

American train-oil boiling establishment. In the neighbourhood of it

were two Eskimo graves. The corpses had been laid on the ground

fully clothed, without the protection of any coffin, but surrounded

by a close fence consisting of a number of tent poles driven

crosswise into the ground. Alongside one of the corpses lay a

_kayak_ with oars, a loaded double-barrelled gun with locks at

half-cock and caps on, various other weapons, clothes, tinderbox,

snow-shoes, drinking-vessels, two masks carved in wood and smeared

with blood (figures 1 and 2, page 241), and strangely-shaped animal

figures. Such were seen also in the tents. Bags of sealskin,

intended to be inflated and fastened to harpoons as floats, were

sometimes ornamented with small faces carved in wood (figure 3, page

241). In one of the two amulets of the same kind, which I brought

home with me, one eye is represented by a piece of blue enamel stuck

in, and the other by a piece of iron pyrites fixed in the same way.

Behind two tents were found, erected on posts a metre and a half in

height, roughly-formed wooden images of birds with expanded wings

painted red. I endeavoured without success to purchase these

tent-idols[350] for a large new felt hat--an article of exchange for

which in other cases I could obtain almost anything whatever. A

dazzlingly white _kayak_ of a very elegant shape, on the other hand,

I purchased without difficulty for an old felt hat and 500 Remington

cartridges.

[Illustration: ESKIMO GRAVE. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

As a peculiar proof of the ingenuity of the Americans when offering

their goods for sale, it may be mentioned in conclusion that an

Eskimo, who came to the vessel during our stay in the harbour,

showed us a printed paper, by which a commercial house at San

Francisco offered to "sporting gentlemen" at Behring's Straits

(Eskimo?) their stock of excellent hunting shot.

As the west coast of Europe is washed by the Gulf Stream, there also

runs along the Pacific coast of America a warm current, which gives

the land a much milder climate than that which prevails on the

neighbouring Asiatic side, where, as on the east coast of Greenland,

there runs a cold northerly current. The limit of trees therefore in

north-western America goes a good way _north of_ Behring's Straits,

while on the Chukch Peninsula wood appears to be wholly wanting.

Even at Port Clarence the coast is devoid of trees, but some

kilometres into the country alder bushes two feet high are met with,

and behind the coast hills actual forests probably occur. Vegetation

is besides already luxuriant at the coast, and far away here, on the

coast of the New World, many species are to be found nearly allied

to Scandinavian plants, among them the _Linnaea_. Dr. Kjellman

therefore reaped here a rich botanical harvest, valuable for the

purpose of comparison with the flora of the neighbouring portion of

Asia and other High Arctic regions.

[Illustration: ANIMAL FIGURE FROM AN ESKIMO GRAVE.

_a._ From above.

_b._ From the side (One-third of the natural size.) ]

[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS FROM PORT CLARENCE.

1-2. Wooden masks, found at a grave, one-sixth of the natural size.

3. Amulet a face with one eye of enamel, the other of pyrites from

a harpoon-float of sealskin, one-third.

4. Oars, one-nineteenth.

5. Boathook, one-twelfth.

6. The hook or carved ivory, one-fourth.

7. Carved knife handle (?) ofivory, one-half. ]

Dr. Almquist in like manner collected very extensive materials for

investigating the lichen-flora of the region, probably before very

incompletely known. The harvest of the zoologists, on the other

hand, was scanty. Notwithstanding the luxuriant vegetation

land-evertebrates appeared to occur in a much smaller number of

species than in northern Norway. Of beetles, for instance, only from

ten to twenty species could be found, mainly Harpalids and

Staphylinids, and of land and fresh-water mollusca only seven or

eight species, besides which nearly all occurred very sparingly.

Among remarkable fishes may be mentioned the same black marsh-fish

which we caught at Yinretlen. The avi-fauna was scanty for a high

northern land, and of wild mammalia we saw only musk-rats. Even the

dredgings in the harbour yielded, on account of the unfavourable

nature of the bottom, only an inconsiderable number of animals and

algae.

On the 26th July, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we weighed

anchor and steamed back in splendid weather and with for the most

part a favourable wind to the shore of the Old World. In order to

determine the salinity and temperature at different depths,

soundings were made and samples of water taken every four hours

during the passage across the straits. Trawling was besides carried

on three times in the twenty-four hours, commonly with an

extraordinarily abundant yield, among other things of large shells,

as, for instance, the beautiful _Fusus deformis_, Reeve, with its

twist to the left, and some large species of crabs. One of the

latter (_Chionoecetes opilio_, Kroeyer) the dredge sometimes brought

up in hundreds. We cooked and ate them and found them excellent,

though not very rich in flesh. The taste was somewhat sooty.

Lieutenant Bove constructed the diagram reproduced at page 244,

which is based on the soundings and other observations made during

the passage, from which we see how shallow is the sound which in the

northernmost part of the Pacific separates the Old World from the

New. An elevation of the land less than that which has taken place

since the glacial period at the well-known Chapel Hills at Uddevalla

would evidently be sufficient to unite the two worlds with each

other by a broad bridge, and a corresponding depression would have

been enough to separate them if, as is probable, they were at one

time continuous. The diagram shows besides that the deepest channel

is quite close to the coast of the Chukch Peninsula, and that that

channel contains a mass of cold water, which is separated by a ridge

from the warmer water on the American side.

[Illustration: SHELL FROM BEHRING'S STRAITS. _Fusus deformis_, Reeve. ]

If we examine a map of Siberia we shall find, as I have already

pointed out, that its coasts at most places are straight, and are

thus neither indented with deep fjords surrounded with high

mountains like the west coast of Norway, nor protected by an

archipelago of islands like the greater part of the coasts of

Scandinavia and Finland. Certain parts of the Chukch Peninsula,

especially its south-eastern portion, form the only exception to

this rule. Several small fjords here cut into the coasts, which

consist of stratified granitic rocks, and in the offing two large

and several small rocky islands form an archipelago, separated from

the mainland by the deep Senjavin Sound. The wish to give our

naturalists an opportunity of once more prosecuting their

examination of the natural history of the Chukch Peninsula, and the

desire to study one of the few parts of the Siberian coast which in

all probability were formerly covered with inland ice, led me to

choose this place for the second anchorage of the _Vega_ on the

Asiatic side south of Behring's Straits. The _Vega_ accordingly

anchored here on the forenoon of the 28th July, but not, as was at

first intended, in Glasenapp Harbour, because it was still occupied

unbroken ice, but in the mouth of the most northerly of the fjords,

Konyam Bay.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM, Showing the Temperature and Depth of the water

at Behring's Straits between Port Clarence and Senjavin Sound. By G.

BOVE. ]

This portion of the Chukch Peninsula had been visited before us by

the corvette _Senjavin_, commanded by Captain, afterwards Admiral,

Fr. Luetke, and by an English Franklin Expedition on board the

_Plover_, commanded by Captain Moore. Luetke stayed here with his

companions, the naturalists MERTENS, POSTELS, and KITTLITZ, some

days in August 1828, during which the harbour was surveyed and

various observations in ethnography and the natural sciences made.

Moore wintered at this place in 1848-49. I have already stated that

we have his companion, Lieut. W.H. Hooper, to thank for very

valuable information relating to the tribes which live in the

neighbourhood. The region appears to have been then inhabited by a

rather dense population. Now there lived at the bay where we had

anchored only three reindeer-Chukch families, and the neighbouring

islands must at the time have been uninhabited, or perhaps the

arrival of the _Vega_ may not have been observed, for no natives

came on board, which otherwise would probably have been the case.

The shore at the south-east part of Konyam Bay, in which the _Vega_

now lay at anchor for a couple of days, consists of a rather

desolate bog, in which a large number of cranes were breeding.

Farther into the country several mountain summits rise to a height

of nearly 600 metres. The collections of the zoologists and

botanists on this shore were very scanty, but on the north side of

the bay, to which excursions were made with the steam-launch, grassy

slopes were met with, with pretty high bushy thickets and a great

variety of flowers, which enriched Dr. Kjellman's collection of the

higher plants from the north coast of Asia with about seventy

species. Here were found too the first land mollusca (Succinea,

Limax, Helix, Pupa, &c.) on the Chukch Peninsula.[351]

We also visited the dwellings of the reindeer-Chukch families. They

resembled the Chukch tents we had seen before, and the mode of life

of the inhabitants differed little from that of the coast-Chukches,

with whom we passed the winter. They were even clothed in the same

way, excepting that the men wore a number of small bells in the

belt. The number of the reindeer which the three families owned was,

according to an enumeration which I made when the herd had with

evident pleasure settled down at noon in warm sunshine on a

snow-field in the neighbourhood of the tents, only about 400, thus

considerably fewer than is required to feed three Lapp families. The

Chukches have instead a better supply of fish, and, above all,

better hunting than the Lapps; they also do not drink any coffee,

and themselves collect a part of their food from the vegetable

kingdom. The natives received us in a very friendly way, and

offered to sell or rather barter three reindeer, a transaction which

on account of our hasty departure was not carried into effect.

The mountains in the neighbourhood of Konyam Bay were high and split up

into pointed summits with deep valleys still partly filled with snow. No

glaciers appear to exist there at present. Probably however the fjords

here and the sounds, like St. Lawrence Bay, Kolyutschin Bay, and

probably all the other deeper bays on the coast of the Chukch Peninsula,

have been excavated by former glaciers. It may perhaps be uncertain

whether a true inland-ice covered the whole country; it is certain that

the ice-cap did not extend over the plains of Siberia, where it can be

proved that no Ice Age in a Scandinavian sense ever existed, and where

the state of the land from the Jurassic period onwards was indeed

subjected to some changes, but to none of the thoroughgoing mundane

revolutions which in former times geologists loved to depict in so

bright colours. At least the direction of the rivers appears to have

been unchanged since then. Perhaps even the difference between the

Siberia where Chikanovski's _Ginko_ woods grew and the mammoth roamed

about, and that where now at a limited depth under the surface

constantly frozen ground is to be met with, depends merely on the

isothermal lines having sunk slightly towards the equator.

[Illustration: KONYAM BAY. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

The neighbourhood of Konyam Bay consists of crystalline rocks,

granite poor in mica, and mica-schist lowermost, and then grey

non-fossiliferous carbonate of lime, and last of all magnesian

schists, porphyry, and quartzites. On the summits of the hills the

granite has a rough trachytic appearance, but does not pass into

true trachyte. Here however we are already in the neighbourhood of

the volcanic hearths of Kamchatka, which for instance is shown by

the hot spring, which Hooper discovered not far from the coast

during a sledge journey towards Behring's Straits. In the middle of

the severe cold of February its waters had a temperature of +69 deg. C.

Hot steam and drifting snow combined had thrown over the

spring a lofty vault of dazzling whiteness formed of masses of snow

converted into ice and covered with ice-crystals. The Chukches

themselves appear to have found the contrast striking between the

hot spring from the interior of the earth and the cold, snow, and

ice on its surface. They offered blue glass beads to the spring, and

showed Hooper, as something remarkable, that it was possible to boil

fish in it, though the mineral water gave the boiled fish a bitter

unpleasant taste.[352]

The interior of Konyam Bay was during our stay there still covered

by an unbroken sheet of ice. This broke up on the afternoon of the

30th July, and had almost, rotten as it was, suddenly brought the

voyage of the _Vega_ to a termination by pressing her ashore.

Fortunately the danger was observed in time. Steam was got up, the

anchor weighed, and the vessel removed to the open part of the

fjord. As on this account several cubic feet of coal had to be used

for getting up steam, as our hitherto abundant stock of coal must

now be saved, and as, in the last place I was still urged forward by

the fear that a too lengthened delay in sending home despatches

might not only cause much anxiety but also lead to a heavy

expenditure of money, I preferred to sail on immediately rather than

to enter a safer harbour in the neighbourhood from which the

scientific work might continue to be prosecuted.

The course was now shaped for the north-west point of St. Lawrence

Island. A little off Senjavin Sound we saw drift-ice for the last

time. On the whole the quantity of ice which drifts down through

Behring's Straits into the Pacific is not very great, and most of

that which is met with in summer on the Asiatic side of the Behring

Sea, is evidently formed in fjords and bays along the coast South of

Behring's Straits accordingly I saw not a single iceberg nor any

large block of glacier-ice, but only even and very rotten fields of

bay-ice.

The _Vega_ was anchored on the 31st July in an open bay on the

north-western side of St. Lawrence Island. This island, called by

the natives Enguae, is the largest one between the Aleutian Islands

and Behring's Straits. It lies nearer Asia than America, but is

considered to belong to the latter, for which reason it was handed

over along with the Alaska Territory by Russia to the United States.

The island is inhabited by a few Eskimo families, who have

commercial relations with then Chukch neighbours on the Russian

side, and therefore have adopted some words from their language.

Then dress also resembles that of the Chukches, with the exception

that, wanting reindeer-skin, they use _pesks_ made of the skins of

birds and marmots. Like the Chukches and Eskimo they use overcoats

of pieces of seal-gut sewed together. On St. Lawrence Island their

dress is much ornamented, chiefly with tufts of feathers of the

sea-fowl that breed in innumerable flocks on the island. It even

appears that gut clothes are made here for sale to other tribes;

otherwise it would be difficult to explain how Kotzebue's sailors

could in half an hour purchase at a single encampment 200 coats of

this kind. At the time of our visit all the natives went bareheaded,

the men with their black tallow-like hair clipped to the root, with

the exception of the common small border above the forehead. The

women wore their hair plaited and adorned with beads, and were much

tattooed, partly after very intricate patterns, as is shown by the

accompanying woodcuts. Like the children they mostly went barefooted

and barelegged. They were well grown, and many did not look ill, but

all were merciless beggars, who actually followed our naturalists on

their excursions on land.

[Illustration: TATTOOING PATTERNS, FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.

1., 2. Face tattooing.

3. Arm tattooing. (After drawings by A. Stuxberg.) ]

[Illustration: TATTOOED WOMAN FROM ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND.

(After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.) ]

The summer-tents were irregular, but pretty clean and light huts of

gut, stretched on a frame of drift-wood and whale-bones. The winter

dwellings were now abandoned. They appeared to consist of holes in

the earth, which were covered above, with the exception of a square

opening, with drift-wood and turf.

During winter a sealskin tent was probably stretched over this

opening, but it was removed for the time, probably to permit the

summer heat to penetrate into the hole and melt the ice, which had

collected during winter on its walls. At several tents we found

large under-jaws of whales fixed in the ground. They were perforated

above, and I suppose that the winter-tent, in the absence of other

framework, was stretched over them. Masses of whale-bones lay thrown

up along the shore, evidently belonging to the same species as those

we collected at the shore-dunes at Pitlekaj. In the neighbourhood of

the tents graves were also found. The corpses had been placed,

unburned, in some cleft among the rocks which are split up by the

frost, and often converted into immense stone mounds. They had

afterwards been covered with stones, and skulls of the bear and the

seal and whale-bones had been offered or scattered around the grave.

North-east of the anchorage the shore was formed of low hills rising

with a steep slope from the sea. Here and there ruinlike cliffs

projected from the hills, resembling those we saw on the coast of

Chukch Land. But the rock here consisted of the same sort of granite

which formed the lowermost stratum at Konyam Bay. It was principally

at the foot of these slopes that the natives erected their

dwellings. South-west of the anchorage commenced a very extensive

plain, which towards the interior of the island was marshy, but

along the coast formed a firm, even, grassy meadow exceedingly rich

in flowers. It was gay with the large sunflower-like _Arnica

Pseudo-Arnica_, and another species of Senecio (_Senecio frigidus_);

the _Oxytropis nigrescens_, close-tufted and rich in flowers, not

stunted here as in Chukch Land; several species of Pedicularis in

their fullest bloom (_P. sudetica, P. Langsdorfii, P. Oederi_ and

_P. capitata_); the stately snow auricula (_Primula nivalis_), and

the pretty _Primula borealis_. As characteristic of the vegetation

at this place may also be mentioned several ranunculi, an anemone

(_Anemone narcissiflora_), a species of monkshood with flowers few

indeed, but so much the larger on that account, large tufts of

_Silene acaulis_ and _Alsine macrocarpa_, studded with flowers,

several Saxifrages, two Claytoniae, the _Cl. acutifolia_, important

as a food-plant in the housekeeping of the Chukches, and the tender

_Cl. sarmentosa_ with its delicate, slightly rose-coloured flowers,

and, where the ground was stony, long but yet flowerless, slightly

green tendrils of the favourite plant of our homeland, the _Linnaea

borealis_ Dr. Kjellman thus reaped a rich harvest of higher plants,

and a fine collection of land and marine animals, lichens and algae

was also made here. The ground consisted of sand in which lay large

granite blocks, which we in Sweden would call erratic. They appeared

however not to have been transported hither, but to be lying _in

situ_, having along with the sand probably arisen through the

disintegration of the rocks.

In the sea we found not a few algae and a true littoral

evertebrate-fauna, poor in species indeed, something which is

completely absent in the Polar seas proper. As I walked along

the coast I saw five pretty large self-coloured greyish-brown seals

sunning themselves on stones a short distance from land. They

belonged to a species which I had never seen in the Polar seas.

As there was no boat at hand, I forbade the hunters that accompanied

me, though the seals were within range, to test their skill

as shots upon them. Perhaps they were females of _Histriophoca

fasciata_, whose beautifully marked skin (of the male) I had seen

and described at St. Lawrence Bay. The natives had a few dogs

but no reindeer, which however might find food on the island in

thousands. No _kayaks_ were in use, but large _baydars_ of the

same construction as those of the Chukches.

St. Lawrence Island was discovered during Behring's first

voyage, but the first who came into contact with the natives was

Otto von Kotzebue[353] (on the 27th June 1816, and the 20th July

1817). The inhabitants had not before seen any Europeans, and

they received the foreigners with a friendliness which exposed

Kotzebue to severe suffering. Of this he gives the following

account:--

"So long as the naturalists wandered about on the hills I

stayed with my acquaintances, who, when they found that I

was the commander, invited me into their tents. Here a

dirty skin was spread on the floor, on which I had to sit,

and then they came in one after the other, embraced me,

rubbed their noses hard against mine, and finished their

caresses by spitting in their hands and then stroking me

several times over the face. Although these proofs of

friendship gave me very little pleasure, I bore all

patiently; the only thing I did to lighten their caresses

somewhat was to distribute tobacco leaves. These the

natives received with great pleasure, but they wished

immediately to renew their proofs of friendship. Now I

betook myself with speed to knives, scissors, and beads,

and by distributing some succeeded in averting a new

attack. But a still greater calamity awaited me when in

order to refresh me bodily they brought forward a wooden

tray with whale blubber. Nauseous as this food is to a

European stomach I boldly attacked the dish. This, along

with new presents which I distributed, impressed the seal

on the friendly relation between us. After the meal our

hosts made arrangements for dancing and singing, which was

accompanied on a little tambourine."[352]

As von Kotzebue two days after sailed past the north point of the

island he met three _baydars_. In one of them a man stood up, held

up a little dog and pierced it through with his knife, as Kotzebue

believed, as a sacrifice to the foreigners.[355]

Since 1817 several exploring expeditions have landed on St. Lawrence

Island, but always only for a few hours. It is very dangerous to

stay long here with a vessel. For there is no known haven on the

coast of this large island, which is surrounded by an open sea. In

consequence of the heavy swell which almost constantly prevails

here, when the surrounding sea is clear of ice, it is difficult to

land on the island with a boat, and the vessel anchored in the open

road is constantly exposed to be thrown by a storm rising

unexpectedly upon the shore cliffs. This held good in fullest

measure of the _Vega's_ anchorage, and Captain Palander was on this

account anxious to leave the place as soon as possible. On the 2nd

August at three o'clock in the afternoon we accordingly resumed our

voyage. The course was shaped at first for Karaginsk Island on the

east coast of Kamchatka, where it was my intention to stay some days

in order to get an opportunity of making a comparison between the

natural conditions of middle Kamchatka and the Chukch Peninsula. But

as unfavourable winds delayed our passage longer than I had

calculated on, I abandoned, though unwillingly, the plan of landing

there. The Commander's Islands became instead the nearest goal of

the expedition. Here the _Vega_ anchored on the 14th August in a

very indifferent harbour completely open to the west, north-west,

and south, lying on the west side of Behring Island, between the

main island and a small island lying off it.

[Footnote 344: The enmity appeared, however, to be of a very passive

nature and by no means depending on any tribal dislike, but only

arising from the inhabitants of the villages lying farthest eastward

being known to be of a quarrelsome disposition and having the same

reputation for love of fighting as the peasant youths in some

villages in Sweden. For Lieut. Hooper, who during the winter 1848-9

made a journey in dog-sledges from Chukotskoj-nos along the coast

towards Behring's Straits says that the inhabitants at Cape Deschnev

itself enjoyed the same bad reputation among their Namollo

neighbours to the south as among the Chukches living to the

westward. "They spoke another language." Possibly they were pure

Eskimo. ]

[Footnote 345: There is still in existence a sketch of a tribe,

living far to the south on the coast of the Indian Sea, who at the

time of Alexander the Great used the bones of the whale in a similar

way. "They build their houses so that the richest among them take

bones of the whale, which the sea casts up, and use them as beams,

of the larger bones they make their doors." Arrian, _Historia

Indica_, XXIX. and XXX. ]

[Footnote 346: These strata were discovered during Kotzebue's

cucumnavigation of the globe (_Entdeckungs Reise_, Weimar, 1821, i.

p. 146, and ii. p. 170). The strand-bank was covered by an

exceedingly luxuriant vegetable carpet, and rose to a height of

eighty feet above the sea. Here the "rock," if this word can be used

for a stratum of ice, was found to consist of pure ice, covered with

a layer, only six inches thick, of blue clay and turf-earth. The ice

must have been several hundred thousand years old, for on its being

melted a large number of bones and tusks of the mammoth appeared,

from which we may draw the conclusion that the ice-stratum was

formed during the period in which the mammoth lived in these

regions. This remarkable observation has been to a certain extent

disputed by later travellers, but its correctness has recently been

fully confirmed by Dall. On the other hand, the extent to which the

strong odour, which was observed at the place and resembled that of

burned horns, arose from the decaying mammoth remains, is perhaps

uncertain. Kotzebue fixed the latitude of the place at 66 deg. 15'

36". During Beechey's voyage in 1827 the place was thoroughly

examined by Mr. Collie, the medical officer of the expedition. He

brought home thence a large number of the bones of the mammoth, ox,

musk-ox, reindeer, and horse, which were described by the famous

geologist Buckland (F.W. Beechey, _Narrative of a Voyage to the

Pacific and Behring's Straits, 1825-28_. London, 1831, ii.

Appendix). ]

[Footnote 347: _Further Papers relative to the recent Arctic

Expedition, etc._ Presented to both Houses of Parliament. London,

1855, p. 917. ]

[Footnote 348: Graphite must be found in great abundance on the

Asiatic side of Behring's Straits. I procured during winter a number

of pieces, which had evidently been rolled in running water.

Chamisso mentions in Kotzebue's Voyages (iii. p. 169) that he had

seen this mineral along with red ochre among the inhabitants at St.

Lawrence Bay; and Lieut Hooper states in his work (p. 139), that

graphite and red ochre are found at the village Oongwysac between

Chukotskoj-nos and Behring's Straits. The latter colour was sold at

a high price to the inhabitants of distant encampments. These

minerals have undoubtedly been used in the same way from time

immemorial, and they are probably, like flint and nephrite, among

the few kinds of stone which were used by the men of the Stone Age.

So far as is known, graphite come first into use in Europe during

the middle ages. A black-lead pencil is mentioned and delineated for

the first time by Conrad Gessner in 1565. The rich but now exhausted

graphite seam at Borrowdale, in England, is mentioned for the first

time by Dr. Merret in 1667, as containing a useful mineral peculiar

to England. Very rich graphite seams have been found during recent

decades, both at the mouth of the Yenisej (Sidoroff's graphite

quarry) and at a spur of the Sayan mountains in the southern part of

Siberia (Alibert's graphite quarry), and these discoveries have

played a certain _role_ in the recent history of the exploration of

the country. ]

[Footnote 349: Nephrite is a light green, sometimes grass-green, very

hard and compact species of amphibolite, which occurs in High Asia,

Mexico, and New Zealand. At all these places it has been employed

for stone implements, vases, pipes, &c. The Chinese put an immensely

high value upon it, and the wish to procure nephite is said often to

have determined their politics, to have caused wars, and impressed

its stamp on treaties of peace concluded between millions. I also

consider it probable that the precious Vasa Murrhina, which was

brought to Rome after the campaign against Mithridates, and has

given rise to so much discussion, was nephrite. Nephrite was also

perhaps the first of all stones to be used ornamentally. For we find

axes and chisels of this material among the people of the Stone Age

both in Europe (where no locality is known where unworked nephrite

is found) and in Asia, America, and New Zealand. In Asia implements

of nephrite are found both on the Chukch Peninsula and in old graves

from the Stone Age in the southern part of the country. They have

been discovered at Telma, sixty versts from Irkutsk, by Mr. J.N.

Wilkoffski, conservator of the East Siberian Geographical Society.

In scientific mineralogy nephrite is first mentioned under the name

of _Kascholong_ (_i.e._ a species of stone from the river Kasch). It

has been brought home under this name by Renat, a prisoner-of-war

from Charles XII.'s army, from High Asia, and was given by him to

Swedish mineralogists, who described it very correctly, though

kascholong has since been erroneously considered a species of

quarts. ]

[Footnote 350: The Eskimo however, like the Chukches, do not appear

to have any proper religion or idea of a life after this. ]

[Footnote 351: We have already found some land mollusca at Port

Clarence, but none at St. Lawrence Bay. The northernmost _find_ of

such animals now known was made by Von Middendorff, who found a

species of Physa on the Taimur Peninsula. ]

[Footnote 352: That a fire-emitting mountain was to be found in

Siberia east of the Yenisej is already mentioned in a treatise by

Isaak Massa, inserted in Hessel Gerritz, _Detectio Freti_,

Amsterdam, 1612. The rumour about the volcanos of Kamchatka thus

appears to have reached Europe at that early date. ]

[Footnote 353: Kotzebue says that he was the first seafarer who

visited the island. This however is incorrect. Billings landed there

on the 1st August (21st July), 1791. From the vessel some natives

was seen and a _baydar_ which was rowed along the coast. The

natives however were frightened by some gunshots fired as a signal

(Sarytchev's _Reise_, ii. p. 91, Sauer, p. 239). Billings says that

the place where he landed (the south-east point of the island) was

nearly covered with bones of sea-animals. It would be important to

have these thoroughly examined, as it is not impossible that

Steller's sea-cow (Rhytina) may in former times have occasionally

come to this coast. At all events important contributions to a

knowledge of the species of whales in Behring's Straits may be

gained here. ]

[Footnote 354: Otto von Kotzebue _Entdeckungs-Reise an die Sud-See

und nach der Behring-Strasse, 1815-18_ Weimar, 1821, i. p. 135, ii.

p. 104, iii. pp. 171 and 178. ]

[Footnote 355: On the days after our arrival at Pitlekaj several dogs

were killed. I then believed that this was done because the natives

were unwilling to feed them during winter, but it is not impossible

that they sacrificed them to avert the misfortunes which it was

feared the arrival of the foreigners would bring with it. ]

CHAPTER XV.

The position of Behring Island--Its inhabitants--The discovery

of the island by Behring--Behring's death--Steller--The former

and present Fauna on the island: foxes, sea-otters, sea-cows,

sea-lions, and sea-bears--Collection of bones of the Rhytina

--Visit to a "rookery"--Toporkoff Island--Alexander Dubovski

--Voyage to Yokohama--Lightning-stroke.

Behring Island is situated between 54 deg. 40' and 55 deg. 25' N.L. and 165 deg. 40'

and 166 deg. 40' E.L. from Greenwich. It is the westernmost and nearest

Kamchatka of the islands in the long chain formed by volcanic action,

which bounds the Behring Sea on the south between 51 deg. and 56 deg. N.L.

Together with the neighbouring Copper Island and some small islands and

rocks lying round about, it forms a peculiar group of islands separated

from the Aleutian Islands proper, named, after the rank of the great

seafarer who perished here, Commander's or Commandirski Islands. They

belong not to America but to Asia, and are Russian territory.

Notwithstanding this the American Alaska Company has acquired the right

of hunting there,[356] and maintains on the main islands two not

inconsiderable commercial stations, which supply the inhabitants,

several hundreds in number, with provisions and manufactured goods, the

company buying from them instead furs, principally the skin of an eared

seal (the sea-cat or sea-bear), of which from 20,000 to 50,000[357] are

killed yearly in the region. Some Russian authorities are also settled

on the island to guard the rights of the Russian state and maintain

order. Half a dozen serviceable wooden houses have been built here as

dwellings for the officials of the Russian Government and the American

Company, for storehouses, shops, &c. The natives live partly in very

roomy and in the inside not uncomfortable turf houses, partly in small

wooden houses which the company endeavours gradually to substitute for

the former, by yearly ordering some wooden buildings and presenting them

to the most deserving of the population. Every family has its own house.

There is also a Greek-Catholic church and a spacious schoolhouse. The

latter is intended for Aleutian children. The school was unfortunately

closed at the time of our visit, but, to judge by the writing books

which lay about in the schoolroom, the education here is not to be

despised. The specimens of writing at least were distinguished by their

cleanness, and by an even and beautiful style. At "the colony" the

houses were collected at one place into a village, situated near the

sea-shore at a suitable distance from the fishing ground in a valley

overgrown in summer by a rich vegetation, but treeless and surrounded by

treeless rounded heights. From the sea this village has the look of a

northern fishing station. There are besides some scattered houses here

and there on other parts of the island, for instance on its

north-eastern side, where the potato is said to be cultivated on a small

scale, and at the fishing place on the north side where there are two

large sheds for skins and a number of very small earth-holes used only

during the slaughter season.

[Illustration: THE COLONY ON BEHRING ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

[Illustration: THE "COLONY" ON COPPER ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

Behring Island, with regard both to geography and natural history,

is one of the most remarkable islands in the north part of the

Pacific. It was here that Behring after his last unfortunate voyage

in the sea which now bears his name, finished his long course as an

explorer. He was however survived by many of his followers, among

them by the physician and naturalist Steller, to whom we owe a

masterpiece seldom surpassed--a sketch of the natural conditions and

animal life on the island, never before visited by man, where he

involuntarily passed the time from the middle of November 1741, to

the end of August 1742.[358]

It was the desire to procure for our museums the skins or skeletons

of the many remarkable mammalia occurring here, also to compare the

present state of the island which for nearly a century and a half

has been exposed to the unsparing thirst of man for sport and

plunder, with Steller's spirited and picturesque description, which

led me to include a visit to the island in the plan of the

expedition. The accounts I got at Behring Island from the American

newspapers of the anxiety which our wintering had caused in Europe

led me indeed to make our stay there shorter than I at first

intended. Our harvest of collections and observations was at all

events extraordinarily abundant. But before I proceed to give an

account of our own stay on the island, I must devote a few words to

its discovery and the first wintering there, which has a quite

special interest from the island having never before been trodden by

the foot of man. The abundant animal life, then found there, gives

us therefore one of the exceedingly few representations we possess

of the animal world as it was before man, the lord of the creation,

appeared.

After Behring's vessel had drifted about a considerable time at

random in the Behring Sea, in consequence of the severe

scurvy-epidemic, which had spread to nearly all the men on board,

without any dead reckoning being kept, and finally without sail or

helmsman, literally at the mercy of wind and waves, those on board

on the 15th/4th November, 1741, sighted land, off whose coast the

vessel was anchored the following day at 5 o'clock P.M. An hour

after the cable gave way, and an enormous sea threw the vessel

towards the shore-cliffs. All appeared to be already lost. But the

vessel, instead of being driven ashore by new waves, came

unexpectedly into a basin 4-1/2 fathoms deep surrounded by rocks and

with quite still water, being connected with the sea only by a

single narrow opening. If the unmanageable vessel had not drifted

just to that place it would certainly have gone to pieces, and all

on board would have perished.

[Illustration: NATIVES OF BEHRING ISLAND. (After a photograph.) ]

It was only with great difficulty that the sick crew could put out a

boat in which Lieut. Waxel and Steller landed. They found the land

uninhabited, devoid of wood, and uninviting. But a rivulet with

fresh clear water purled yet unfrozen down the mountain sides, and

in the sand hills along the coast were found some deep pits, which

when enlarged and covered with sails could be used as dwellings. The

men who could still stand on their legs all joined in this work. On

the 19th/8th November the sick could be removed to land, but, as

often happens, many died when they were brought out of the cabin

into the fresh air, others while they were being carried from the

vessel or immediately after they came to land. All in whom the

scurvy had taken the upper hand to that extent that they were

already lying in bed on board the vessel, died. The survivors had

scarcely time or strength to bury the dead, and found it difficult

to protect the corpses from the hungry foxes that swarmed on the

island and had not yet learned to be afraid of man. On the 20th/9th

Behring was carried on land; he was already much reduced and

dejected, and could not be induced to take exercise. He died on the

19th/8th December.

VITUS BEHRING was a Dane by birth, and when a young man had already

made voyages to the East and West Indies. In 1707 he was received

into the Russian navy as officer, and as such took part in all the

warlike enterprises of that fleet against Sweden. He was in a way

buried alive on the island that now bears his name, for at last he

did not permit his men to remove the sand that lolled down upon him

from the walls of the sand pit in which he rested. For he thought

that the sand warmed his chilled body. Before the corpse could be

properly buried it had therefore to be dug out of its bed, a

circumstance which appears to have produced a disagreeable

impression on the survivors. The two Lieutenants, Waxel and Chitrov,

had kept themselves in pretty good health at sea, but now fell

seriously ill, though they recovered. Only the physician of the

expedition, Georg Wilhelm Steller, was all the time in good health,

and that a single man of the whole crew escaped with his life was

clearly clue to the skill of this gifted man, to his invincible

energy and his cheerful and sanguine disposition. These qualities

were also abundantly tested during the wintering. On the night

before the 10th December/29th November, the vessel, on which no

watch was kept, because all the men were required on land to care

for the sick, was cast ashore by a violent E.S.E. storm. So great a

quantity of provisions was thus lost, that the remaining stock was

not sufficient by itself to yield enough food for all the men during

a whole winter. Men were therefore sent out in all directions to

inquire into the state of the land. They returned with the

information that the vessel had stranded, not, as was hoped at

first, on the mainland but on an uninhabited, woodless island. It

was thus clear to the shipwrecked men that in order to be saved they

could rely only on their judgment and strength. At the beginning

they found that if any provisions were to be reserved for the voyage

home, it was necessary that they should support themselves during

winter to a considerable extent by hunting. They did not like to use

the flesh of the fox for food, and at first kept to that of the

sea-otter. This animal at present is very scarce on Behring Island,

but at that time the shore was covered with whole herds of it. They

had no fear of man, came from curiosity straight to the fires, and

did not run away when any one approached. A dear-bought experience,

however, soon taught them caution; at all events, from 800 to 900

head were taken, a splendid catch when we consider that the skin of

this animal at the Chinese frontier fetched from 80 to 100 roubles

each. Besides, in the beginning of winter two whales stranded on the

island. The shipwrecked men considered these then provision depots,

and appear to have preferred whale blubber to the flesh of the

sea-otter, which had an unpleasant taste and was tough as

leather.[359]

In spring the sea-otters disappeared, but now there came to the

island in their stead other animals in large herds, viz sea-bears,

seals, and sea-lions. The flesh of the young sea-lion was considered

a great delicacy.[360] When the sea-otters became scarcer and more

shy and difficult to catch, the shipwrecked men found means also to

kill sea-cows, whose flesh Steller considered equal to beef. Several

barrels of their flesh were even salted to serve as provisions

during the return journey. As the land became clear of snow in the

middle of April, Waxel called together the forty-five men who

survived to a consultation regarding the steps that ought to be

taken in order to reach the mainland. Among many different

proposals, that was adopted of building a new vessel with the

materials supplied by the stranded one. The three ship-carpenters

who had been on board were dead. But fortunately there was among the

survivors a Cossack, SAVA STARODUBZOV, who had taken part as a

workman in shipbuilding at Okotsk, and now undertook to manage the

building of the new vessel. With necessity for a teacher he also

succeeded in executing his commission, so that a new _St. Peter_ was

launched on the 21st/10th August, 1742. The vessel was forty feet

long, thirteen feet beam, and six and a half feet deep, and sailed

as well as if built by an experienced master of his craft, but on

the other hand leaked seriously in a high sea. The return voyage at

all events passed successfully. On the 5th September/25th August

Kamchatka was sighted, and two days after the _St. Peter_ anchored

at Petropaulovsk, where the shipwrecked men found a storehouse with

an _abundant_ stock of provisions according to their ideas, which

probably were not pitched very high. Next year they sailed on with

their Behring-Island-built vessel to Okotsk. On then arrival there,

of the seventy-six persons who originally took part in the

expedition, thirty-two were dead. At Kamchatka they had all been

considered dead, and the effects they left behind them had been

scattered and divided. Steller voluntarily remained some time longer

in Kamchatka in order to carry on his researches in natural history.

Unfortunately he drew upon himself the ill-will of the authorities,

in consequence of the free way in which he criticised their abuses.

This led to a trial at the court at Irkutsk. He was, indeed, found

innocent, and obtained permission to travel home, but at Zolikamsk

he was overtaken by an express with orders to bring him back to

Irkutsk. On the way thither he met another express with renewed

permission to travel to Europe. But the powers of the strong and

formerly healthy man were exhausted by his hunting backwards and

forwards across the immeasurable deserts of Siberia. He died soon

after, on the 23rd/12th November, 1746, at Tjumen, only thirty-seven

years of age, of a fever by which he was attacked during the

journey.[361]

The immense quantity of valuable furs brought home by the survivors

of Behring's so unfortunate third voyage affected the fur-dealers,

Cossacks, and hunters of Siberia much in the same way as the rumour

about Eldorado or about the riches of the Casic Dobaybe did the

Spanish discoverers of middle and southern America. Numerous

expeditions were fitted out to the new land rich in furs, where

extensive territories previously unknown were made tributary to the

Czar of Russia. Most of these expeditions landed on Behring Island

during the voyage out and home, and in a short time wrought a

complete change in the fauna of the island. Thanks to Steller's

spirited sketch of the animal life he observed there, we have also

an opportunity of forming an idea of the alteration in the fauna

which man brings about in a land in which he settles.

Arctic foxes were found in incredible numbers on the island during

the wintering of the Behring expedition. They not only ate up

everything that was at all eatable that was left in the open air,

but forced their way as well by day as by night into the houses and

carried off all that they could, even such things as were of no use

whatever to them, as knives, sticks, sacks, shoes and stockings.

Even if anything had been never so well buried and loaded with

stones, they not only found the place but even pushed away the

stones with their shoulders like men. Though they could not eat what

they found, they carried it off and concealed it under stones. In

such a case some foxes stood on guard, and if a man approached all

assisted in speedily concealing the stolen article in the sand so

that no trace of it was left. When any of the men slept out of doors

at night the foxes carried off their caps and gloves, and made their

way under the covering. They nosed the noses of the sleepers to find

out whether they were dead or living, and attempted to nibble at any

who held their breath. As the female sea-lions and sea-bears often

suffocate their young during sleep, the foxes every morning made an

inspection of the place where these animals lie down in immense

herds, and if they found a dead young one they immediately helped

each other, like good scavengers, to carry away the carcase. When

men were employed out of doors they had to drive the foxes away with

sticks, and they became, in consequence of the slyness and cunning

with which they knew how to carry out their thefts and the skill

which they showed in combining to gain an end which they could not

compass as single animals, actually dangerous to the shipwrecked

men, by whom they were therefore heartily hated, pursued, tormented,

and killed. Since then thousands and thousands of foxes have been

killed on Behring Island by the fur-hunters. Now they are so scarce

that during our stay there we did not see one. Those that still

survive, besides, as the Europeans settled on the island informed

me, do not wear the precious dark blue dress formerly common but the

white, which is of little value. On the neighbouring Copper Island,

however, there are still dark blue foxes in pretty large

numbers.[362]

Nine hundred sea-otters were killed here by Steller and his

companions in 1741-42. The following quotation is taken from

Steller's description of this animal which is now so shy at the

sight of man:--

"With respect to playfulness it surpasses every other

animal that lives either in the sea or on the land. When it

comes up out of the sea it shakes the water from its fur,

and dresses it as a cat its head with its fore-paws,

stretches its body, arranges its hair, throws its head this

way and that, contemplating itself and its beautiful fur

with evident satisfaction. The animal is so much taken up

with this dressing of itself, that while thus employed it

may easily be approached and killed. If one strikes a

sea-otter twenty times across the back, it bears it

patiently, but if its large beautiful tail be struck once

it turns its head to its pursuer, as if to offer it as a

mark for his club in place of the tail. If it eludes an

attack it makes the most laughable gestures to the hunter.

It looks at him, placing one foot above the head as if to

protect it from the sunlight, throws itself on its back,

and turning to its enemy as if in scorn scratches itself on

the belly and thighs. The male and female are much attached

to each other, embrace and kiss each other like men. The

female is also very fond of its young. When attacked she

never leaves it in the lurch, and when danger is not near

she plays with it in a thousand ways, almost like a

child-loving mother with her young ones, throws it

sometimes up in the air and catches it with her fore-feet

like a ball, swims about with it in her bosom, throws it

away now and then to let it exercise itself in the art of

swimming, but takes it to herself with kisses and caresses

when it is tired."

According to recent researches the _sea-otter_, sea-beaver or

Kamchatka-beaver (_Enhydris lutris_, Lin.) is a species neither of

the otter nor the beaver, but belongs to a peculiar genus, allied to

a certain extent to the walrus. Even this animal, unsurpassed in the

beauty of its skin, has been long since driven away not only from

Behring Island but also from most of the hunting-grounds where it

was commonly killed by thousands, and if an effective law be not

soon put in force to keep the hunting in bounds, and check the war

of extermination which greed now carries on against it, no longer

with clubs and darts but with powder and breechloaders, the

sea-otter will meet the same fate which has already befallen

Steller's sea-cow. Of the sea-lion (_Eumetopias Stelleri_, Lesson),

which in Steller's time were found in abundance on the shore cliffs

of Behring Island, there are now only single animals there along

with the sea-bears (_Otaria ursina_, Lin.); and finally, the most

remarkable of all the old mammalia of Behring Island, the great

sea-cow, is completely extinct.

_Steller's sea-cow_ (_Rhytina Stelleri_, Cuvier) in a way took the

place of the cloven-footed animals among the marine mammalia. The

sea-cow was of a dark-brown colour, sometimes varied with white

spots or streaks. The thick leathery skin was covered with hair

which grew together so as to form an exterior skin, which was full

of vermin and resembled the bark of an old oak. The full grown

animal was from twenty-eight to thirty-five English feet in length

and weighed about sixty-seven cwt. The head was small in proportion

to the large thick body, the neck short, the body diminishing

rapidly behind. The short fore-leg terminated abruptly without

fingers or nails, but was overgrown with a number of short thickly

placed brush-hairs, the hind-leg was replaced by a tail-fin

resembling a whale's. The animal wanted teeth, but was instead

provided with two masticating plates, one in the gum the other in

the under jaw. The udders of the female, which abounded in milk,

were placed between the fore-limbs. The flesh and milk resembled

those of horned cattle, indeed in Steller's opinion surpassed them.

The sea-cows were almost constantly employed in pasturing on the

sea-weed which grew luxuriantly on the coast, moving the head and

neck while so doing much in the same way as an ox. While they

pastured they showed great voracity, and did not allow themselves to

be disturbed in the least by the presence of man. One might even

touch them without them being frightened or disturbed. They

entertained great attachment to each other, and when one was

harpooned the others made incredible attempts to rescue it.

When Steller came to Behring Island, the sea-cows pastured along the

shore, collected like cattle into herds. The shipwrecked men, for

want of suitable implements, did not hunt them at first. It was only

after a thoughtless love of slaughter had driven all other animals

suitable for food far from their winter quarters, that they began to

devise means to catch the sea-cow also. They endeavoured to harpoon

the animal with a strong iron hook made for the purpose, and then

drag it to land. The first attempt was made on the 1st June/21st May

1742, but it was unsuccessful. It was not until after many renewed

attempts that they at last succeeded in killing and catching a

number of animals, and dragging them at high water so near land that

they were dry at ebb. They were so heavy that forty men were

required to do this, we may conclude from these particulars that the

number of sea-cows killed during the first wintering on Behring

Island was not very large. For the first one was killed only six

weeks before the shipwrecked men left the island, and the hunting

thus fell at a time when they could leave the building of the vessel

to occupy themselves in that way only in case of necessity. Besides,

only two animals were required to yield flesh-food to all the men

for the period in question.

It is remarkable that the sea-cow is so mentioned by later

travellers only in passing, that this large animal, still hunted by

Europeans in the time of Linnaeus, would scarcely have been

registered in the system of the naturalist if Steller had not

wintered on Behring Island. What Krascheninnikov says of the sea-cow

is wholly borrowed from Steller, and in the same way _nearly all_

the statements of later naturalists as to its occurrence and mode of

life. That this is actually the case is shown by the following

abstract, _complete_ as far as I know, of what is said of the

sea-cow in the only original account of the first hunting voyages of

the Russians to the Aleutian Islands, which was published at Hamburg

and Leipzig in 1776 with the title, _Neue, Nachrichten von denen

neuentdeckten Insuln in der See zwischen Asien und Amerika, aus

mitgetheilten Urkunden und Auszuegen verfasset von J.L.S._**

(Scherer).[363] In this book the sea-cow is mentioned at the

following places:--

"Ivan Krassilnikoff's vessel started first in 1754 and

arrived on the 8th October at Behring Island, where all the

vessels fitted out for hunting the sea-otter on the remote

islands are wont to pass the winter, in order to provide

themselves with a sufficient stock of the flesh of the

sea-cow" (_loc. cit._ p. 38).

"The autumn storms, or rather the wish to take on board a

stock of provisions, compelled them (a number of hunters

sent out by the merchant Tolstyk under command of the

Cossack Obeuchov) to touch at Commander's Island (Behring

Island) where, during the winter up to the 24th/13th June,

1757, they obtained nothing else than sea-cows, sea-lions,

and large seals. They found no sea-otters this year."

(_ibid_ p. 40).

"They (a Russian hunting vessel under Studenzov in 1758)

landed on Behring Island to kill sea-cows, as all vessels

are accustomed to do." (_ibid_ p. 45).

"After Korovin in 1762 (on Behring Island) had provided

himself with a sufficient stock of the flesh and hides of

the sea-cow for his boats.... he sailed on" (_ibid_ p. 82).

In 1772 DMITRI BRAGIN wintered on Behring Island during a hunting

voyage. In a journal kept at the request of Pallas, the large marine

animals occurring on the island are enumerated, but not a word is

said about the sea-cow (PALLAS, _Neue nordische Beytraege_, ii. p.

310).

SCHELECHOV passed the winter 1783-84 on Behring Island, but during

the whole time he only succeeded in killing some white foxes, and in

the narrative of the voyage there is not a word about the sea-cow

(GRIGORI SCHELECHOV _russischen Kaufmanns erste und zweite Reise_,

&c., St. Petersburg, 1793).

Some further accounts of the sea-cow have been obtained through the

mining engineer PET. JAKOVLEV, who visited Commander's Islands in

1755 in order to investigate the occurrence of copper on Copper

Island. In the account of this voyage which he gave to Pallas there

is not indeed one word about the sea-cow, but in 1867 PEKARSKI

published in the _Memoirs_ of the Petersburg Academy some extracts

from Jakovlev's journal, from which it appears that the sea-cow

already in his time was driven away from Copper Island. Jakovlev on

this account on the 27th November, 1755, laid a petition before the

authorities on Kamchatka, for having the hunting of the sea-cow

placed under restraint of law and the extermination of the animal

thus prevented, a thoughtful act honourable to its author, which

certainly ought to serve as a pattern in our times (J. FR. BRANDT,

_Symbolae Sirenologicae, Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, t.

xii. No. 1, 1861-68, p. 295).

In his account of Behring's voyage (1785-94) published in 1802,

Sauer says, p. 181: "Sea-cows were very common on Kamchatka and the

Aleutian Islands,[364] when they were first discovered, but the last

was killed on Behring Island in 1768, and none has been seen since

then."

On the ground of the writings of which I have given an account

above, and of various pieces of information collected during this

century from the Russian authorities in the region, by the skilful

conservator WOSNESSENSKI, the academicians von Baer and Brandt[365]

came to the conclusion that the sea-cow had scarcely been seen by

Europeans before the 19th/8th November, 1741, when Steller, the day

after his landing on Behring Island for the first time saw some

strange animals pasturing with their heads under water on the shores

of the island; and that the animal twenty-seven years afterwards, or

in 1768, was completely exterminated The latter statement however is

undoubtedly incorrect; for, in the course of the many inquiries I

made of the natives, I obtained distinct information that living

sea-cows had been seen much later. A _creole_ (that is, the

offspring of a Russian and an Aleutian), who was sixty-seven years

of age, of intelligent appearance and in the full possession of his

mental faculties, stated "that his father died in 1847 at the age of

eighty-eight. He had come from Volhynia, his native place, to

Behring Island at the age of eighteen, accordingly in 1777. The two

or three first years of his stay there, _i.e._ till 1779 or 1780,

sea-cows were still being killed as they pastured on sea-weed. The

heart only was eaten, and the hide used for _baydars_.[366] In

consequence of its thickness the hide was split in two, and the two

pieces thus obtained had gone to make a _baydar_ twenty feet long,

seven and a half feet broad, and three feet deep. After that time no

sea-cows had been killed."

There is evidence, however, that a sea-cow had been seen at the

island still later. Two _creoles_, Feodor Mertchenin and Stepnoff,

stated, that about twenty-five years ago at Tolstoj-mys, on the east

side of the island, they had seen an animal unknown to them which

was very thick before, but grew smaller behind, had small fore-feet,

and appeared with a length of about fifteen feet above water, now

raising itself up, now lowering itself. The animal "blew," not

through blowholes, but through the mouth, which was somewhat drawn

out. It was brown in colour with some lighter spots. A back fin was

wanting, but when the animal raised itself it was possible, on

account of its great leanness, to see its backbone projecting. I

instituted a through examination of both my informants. Their

accounts agreed completely, and appeared to have claims to be

regarded as trustworthy. That the animal which they saw was actually

a sea-cow, is clearly proved both by the description of the animal's

form and way of pasturing in the water, and by the account of the

way in which it breathed, its colour, and leanness. In _Auesfurliche

Beschreibung von sonderbaren Meerthieren_, Steller says, p. 97,

"While they pasture, they raise every fourth or fifth minute their

nose from the water in order to blow out air and a little water;" p.

98, "During winter they are so lean that it is possible to count

their vertebrae and ribs;" and p. 54, "Some sea-cows have pretty

large white spots and streaks, so that they have a spotted

appearance." As these natives had no knowledge of Steller's

description of the animal, it is impossible that their statement can

be false. The death-year of the Rhytina race must therefore be

altered at least to 1854. With reference to this point it may be

remarked that many circumstances indicate that the Rhytina herds

were rather driven away from the rich pastures on Behring Island

than exterminated there, and that the species became extinct because

in their new haunt they were unable to maintain the struggle for

existence. The form of the sea-cow, varying from that of most recent

animals, besides indicates that, like the long-tailed duck on

Iceland, the dront on Mauritius, and the large ostrich-like birds on

New Zealand, it was the last representative of an animal group

destined to extinction.

Mr. OSCHE, one of the Alaska Company's skin inspectors, a native of

Liffland and at present settled on Copper Island, informed me that

the bones of the sea-cow also occurred on the western side of that

island. On the other hand, such bones are said not to be found on

the small island described farther on lying off the colony on

Behring Island, although Rhytina bones are common on the

neighbouring shores of the main island.

This is the scanty information I have been able to collect from the

natives and others resident in the quarter regarding the animal in

question. On the other hand, my endeavours to procure Rhytina bones

were crowned with greater success, and I succeeded in actually

bringing together a very large and fine collection of skeleton

fragments.

When I first made the acquaintance of Europeans on the island, they

told me that there was little probability of finding anything of

value in this respect, for the company had offered 150 roubles for a

skeleton without success. But before I had been many hours on land,

I came to know that large or small collections of bones were to be

found here and there in the huts of the natives. These I purchased,

intentionally paying for them such a price that the seller was more

than satisfied and his neighbours were a little envious. A great

part of the male population now began to search for bones very

eagerly, and in this way I collected such a quantity that twenty-one

casks, large boxes, or barrels were filled with Rhytina bones; among

which were three very fine, complete skulls, and others more or less

damaged, several considerable collections of bones from the same

skeleton, &c.

[Illustration: SKELETON OF RHYTINA SHOWN AT THE 'VEGA' EXHIBITION AT

THE ROYAL PALACE STOCKHOLM. (After a photograph.) ]

[Illustration: ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF THE RHYTINA.

1. Drawing in an old map of the Behring Sea, found by Middendorff

(_Sibir. Reise_ iv. 2 p. 839).

2. Sketch by Steller, given to Pallas

(Pallas, Icones ad zoographiam _Rosso-Asiaticam_, Fasc. ii.) ]

The Rhytina bones do not lie at the level of the sea, but upon a

strand-bank thickly overgrown with luxuriant grass, at a height of

two or three metres above it. They are commonly covered with a layer

of earth and gravel from thirty to fifty centimetres in thickness.

In order to find them, as it would be too troublesome to dig the

whole of the grassy bank, one must examine the ground with a pointed

iron rod, a bayonet, or some such tool. One soon learns to

distinguish, by the resistance and nature of the sound, whether the

rod stuck into the ground has come into contact with a stone, a

piece of wood, or a fragment of bone. The ribs are used by the

natives, on account of their hard ivory-like structure, for shoeing

the runners of the sledges or for carvings. They have accordingly

been already used up on a large scale, and are more uncommon than

other bones. The finger-bone, which perhaps originally was

cartilaginous, appears in most cases to be quite destroyed, as well

as the outermost vertebrae of the tail. I could not obtain any such

bones, though I specially urged the natives to get me the smaller

bones too and promised to pay a high price for them.

[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED FORM OF THE SEA-COW. After J. Fr. Brandt

(_Symbolae Sirenologicae_, Fasc. iii. p. 282). ]

The only large animal which is still found on Behring Island in

perhaps as large numbers as in Steller's time is the _sea-bear_.

Even it had already diminished so that the year's catch was

inconsiderable,[367] when in 1871 a single company obtained for a

payment to the Russian crown, if I recollect right, of two roubles

for every animal killed, and exclusive right to the hunting, which

was accordingly arranged in a more purposelike way. At certain times

of the year the killing of the sea-bear is wholly prohibited. The

number of the animals to be killed is settled beforehand, quite in

the same way as the farmer at the time of killing in autumn is wont

to do with his herd of cattle. Females and young are only killed

exceptionally. Even the married males, or more correctly the males

that can get themselves a harem and can defend it, commonly escape

being killed, if not for any other reason, because the skin is too

often torn and tattered and the hair pulled out. It is thus the

bachelors that have to yield up their skins.

That a wild animal may be slaughtered in so orderly a way, depends on

its peculiar mode of life.[368] For the sea-bears are found year after

year during summer at certain points projecting into the sea

(rookeries), where, collected in hundreds of thousands, they pass

several months without the least food. The males (oxen) come first to

the place, most of them in the month of May or at the beginning of June.

Combats of excessive violence, often with a deadly issue for one of the

parties, now arise regarding the space of about a hundred square feet,

which each seal-ox considers necessary for its home. The strongest and

most successful in fight retain the best places near the shore, the

weaker have to crawl farther up on land, where the expectation of

getting a sufficient number of spouses is not particularly great. The

fighting goes on with many feigned attacks and parades. At first the

contest concerns the proprietorship of the soil. The attacked therefore

never follows its opponent beyond the area it has once taken up, but

haughtily lays itself down, when the enemy has retired, in order in the

aims of sleep to collect forces for a new combat. The animal in such a

case grunts with satisfaction, throws itself on its back, scratches

itself with its fore-feet, looks after its toilet, or cools itself by

slowly fanning with one of its hind-feet, but it is always on the alert

and ready for a new fight until it is tired out and meets its match, and

is driven by it farther up from the beach. One of the most peculiar

traits of these animals is that during their stay on land they

unceasingly use their hind-paws as fans, and sometimes also as parasols.

Such fans may on a warm day be in motion at the same time by the hundred

thousand at a "rookery."

[Illustration: SEA-BEARS Male, Female, and Young. (From a water colour

painting by H.W. Elliott.) ]

In the middle of June the females come up from the sea. At the

water's edge they are received in a very accommodating way by some

strong oxen that have succeeded in securing for themselves places

next the shore, and now are bent by fair means or foul on annexing

the fair for their harem. But scarcely is the female that has come

up out of the water established with seal-ox No. 1, when this ox

rushes towards a new beauty on the surface of the water. Seal-ox No.

2 now stretches out his neck and without ceremony lays hold of No.

1's spouse, to be afterwards exposed to a repetition of the trick by

No. 3. In such cases the females are quite passive, never fall out

with each other, and bear with patience the severe wounds they often

get when they are pulled about by the combatants, now in one

direction, now in another. All the females are finally distributed

in this way after furious combats among the males, those of the

latter who are nearest the beach getting from twelve to fifteen

consorts to their share. Those that have been compelled to settle

farther from the shore must be content with four or five. Soon after

the landing of the females they bring forth their young, which are

treated with great indifference and are protected by the adopted

father only within the boundaries of the harem. Next comes the

pairing season, and when it has passed there is an end to the

arrangement and distribution into families at first so strictly

maintained. The seal-oxen, rendered lean by three months absolute

fasting, by degrees leave the "rookery," which is taken possession

of by the sea-cows, the young, and a number of young males, that

have not ventured to the place before. In the middle of September,

when the young have learned to swim, the place is quite abandoned,

with the exception of single animals that have remained behind for

one reason or other. In long continued heavy rain many of the

animals besides seek protection in the sea, but return when the rain

ceases. Continuous heat and sunshine besides exert the same

influence, cold, moist air, with mist-concealed sun, on the other

hand draw them up on land by thousands.

Males under six years of age cannot, like the older males, possess

themselves, by fighting, of spouses and a home of their own. They

therefore collect, along with young females, in herds of several

thousand to several hundred thousand, on the shores between the

rookeries proper, some of them close packed next the water's edge,

others scattered in small flocks a little farther from the shore on

the grass, where they by turns play with each other with a

frolicsomeness like that of young dogs, by turns he down to sleep at

a common signal in all conceivable positions.

[Illustration: "SEAL ROOKERY" ON ST. PAUL'S ISLAND, ONE OF THE

PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. (After a drawing by H.W. Elliott.) ]

It is these unfortunate useless bachelors which at the properly

managed hunting stations yield the contingent for slaughter. For

this purpose they are driven by the natives from the shore slowly,

about a kilometre an hour, and with frequent rests, to the place of

slaughter, situated a kilometre or two from the shore. Then the

females and the young ones are driven away, as well as the males

whose skins are unserviceable. The rest are first stunned with a

blow on the head, and afterwards stabbed with a knife.

While the _Vega_ steamed down towards Behring Island we met, already

far from land, herds of sea-bears, which followed the vessel from

curiosity for long stretches. Being unacquainted with the sea-bear's

mode of life, I believed from this circumstance that they had

already left their summer haunts, but on our arrival at the colony I

was informed that this was not the case, but that a very great

number of animals still remained at the rookery on the north-eastern

point of the island. Naturally one of our first excursions was to

this place, situated about twenty kilometres from the village. Such

a journey cannot now be undertaken alone and unattended, because

even an involuntary want of caution might easily cause much economic

loss to the natives, and to the company that owns the right of

hunting. During the journey we were accordingly accompanied by the

chief of the village, a black-haired stammering Aleutian, and "the

Cossack," a young, pleasant, and agreeable fellow, who on solemn

occasions wore a sabre nearly as long as himself, but besides did

not in the least correspond to the Cossack type of the writers of

novels and plays.

The journey was performed in large sledges drawn by ten dogs over

snow-free rounded hills and hill-plateaus covered with a rather

scanty vegetation, and through valleys treeless as the mountains,

but adorned with luxuriant vegetation, rich in splendid lilies,

syngenesia, umbellifera, &c. The journey was sometimes tedious

enough, but we now and then went at a whistling rate, especially

when the dog-team descended the steep mountain slopes, or went

through the morasses and the clay puddles formed in the constantly

used way. The driver was bespattered from top to toe with a thick

layer of mud, an inconvenience attending the unusual team, which was

foreseen before our departure from the colony, in consequence of

which our friends there urged that, notwithstanding the fine

weather, we should all take overcoats. The dog-team was kept pretty

far from the shore in order not to frighten the seals, and then we

went on foot to the place where the sea-bears were, choosing our way

so that we had the wind in our faces. We could in this way, without

disturbing them, come very near the animals, which, according to the

undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated statement made to us on the spot,

were collected at the time to the number of 200,000, on the

promontory and the neighbouring shores. We obtained permission to

creep, accompanied by our guide, close to a herd lying a little

apart. The older animals became at first somewhat uneasy when they

observed our approach, but they soon settled down completely,

and we had now the pleasure of beholding a peculiar spectacle.

We were the only spectators. The scene consisted of a beach

covered with stones and washed by foaming breakers, the background

of the immeasurable ocean, and the actors of thousands of

wonderfully-formed animals. A number of old males lay still and

motionless, heedless of what was going on around them. Others

crept clumsily on their small short legs between the stones of

the beach, or swam with incredible agility among the breakers,

played, caressed each other, and quarrelled. At one place two

old animals fought, uttering a peculiar hissing sound, and in

such a way as if the attack and defence had been carried out in

studied attitudes. At another place a feigned combat was going

on between an old and a young animal. It looked as if the latter

was being instructed in the art of fighting. Everywhere the small

black young ones crept constantly backwards and forwards among the

old sea-bears, now and then bleating like lambs calling on their

mothers. The young ones are often smothered by the old, when the

latter, frightened in some way, rush out into the sea. After such

an alarm hundreds of dead young are found on the shore.

[Illustration: SLAUGHTER OF SEA-BEARS. (After a drawing by H.W.

Elliott.) ]

[Illustration: SEA-BEARS ON THEIR WAY TO THE "ROOKERIES."

(After a drawing by H.W. Elliott.) ]

"Only" thirteen thousand animals had been killed that year. Their

flayed carcases lay heaped on the grass by the shore, spreading far

and wide a disagreeable smell, which, however, had not frightened

away their comrades lying on the neighbouring promontory, because,

even among them, a similar smell prevailed in consequence of the

many animals suffocated or killed in fight with their comrades, and

left lying on the shore.[369] Among this great flock of sea-bears

sat enthroned on the top of a high stone a single sea-lion, the only

one of these animals we saw during our voyage.

For a payment of forty roubles I induced the chief of the village to

skeletonise four of the half putrefied carcases of the sea-bear left

lying on the grass, and I afterwards obtained, by the good-will of

the Russian authorities, and without any payment, six animals, among

them two living young, for stuffing. Even the latter we were

compelled to kill, after in vain attempting to induce them to take

some food. One of them was brought home in spirits for anatomical

examination.

The part of Behring Island which we saw forms a high plain resting

on volcanic rocks,[370] which, however, is interrupted at many

places by deep kettle valleys, the bottoms of which are generally

occupied by lakes which communicate with the sea by large or small

rivers. The banks of the lakes and the slopes of the hills are

covered with a luxuriant vegetation, rich in long grass and

beautiful flowers, among them an iris cultivated in our gardens, the

useful dark reddish-brown Sarana lily, several orchids, two species

of rhododendron with large flowers, umbellifera as high as a man,

sunflower-like synanthea, &c. Quite another nature prevailed on the

island lying off the haven, regarding which Dr. Kjellman and Dr.

Stuxberg make the following statements:--

"Toporkoff Island is formed of an eruptive rock, which

everywhere rises along the shore some scores of feet from

high-water mark, in the form of steep cracked walls from

five to fifteen metres in height, which is different at

different places. Above these steep rock-walls the surface

of the island forms an even plain; what lies below them

forms a gently sloping beach.

"This gently sloping beach consists of two well-marked

belts; an outer devoid of all vegetation, an inner

overgrown with _Ammadenia peploides, Elymus mollis_, and

two species of umbellifera, _Heracleum sibiricum_, and

_Angelica archangelica_, the two last forming an almost

impenetrable thicket fifty metres broad and as high as a

man, along the slope. The steep rock-walls are coloured

yellow at some places by lichens, mostly _Calopaca murorum_

and _Cal. crenulata_; at other places they are covered

pretty closely with _Cochlearia fenestrata_. The uppermost

level plain is covered with a close and luxuriant turf,

over which single stalks of the two species of umbellifera

named above raise themselves here and there. The vegetation

on this little island unites a very uncommon poverty in

species with a high degree of luxuriance.

"Of the higher animals we saw only four kinds of birds, viz

_Fratercula cirrhata_, a black guillemot (_Una grylle_ var.

_columba_), a species of cormorant (Phalocrocorax) and a

sort of gull (Larus). _Fratercula cirrhata_ lived here by

millions. They haunted the upper plain, where they had

everywhere excavated short, deep, and uncommonly broad

passages to sleep in, provided with two openings. From

these on our arrival they flew in large flocks to the

neighbouring sea and back. Their number was nearly equal to

that of looms in the Arctic loomeries. The black guillemots

and cormorants kept to the cliffs near the shore.

"The number of the evertebrate land animals amounted to

about thirty species. The most numerous were Machilis,

Vitrina, Lithobius, Talitrus, some Diptera and beetles.

They all lived on the inner belt of the shore, where the

ground was uncommonly damp."

Behring Island might without difficulty feed large herds of cattle,

perhaps as numerous as the herds of sea-cows that formerly pastured

on its shores. The sea-cow besides had chosen its pasture with

discrimination, the sea there being, according to Dr. Kjellman, one

of the richest in algae in the world. The sea-bottom is covered at

favourably situated places by forests of seaweed from twenty to

thirty metres high, which are so dense that the dredge could with

difficulty force its way down into them, a circumstance which was

much against the dredging. Certain of the algae are used by the

natives as food.

In the course of our journey to the hunting place we had an

opportunity, during a rest about halfway between it and the village,

of taking part in a very peculiar sort of fishing. The place where

we rested was in an even grassy plain, resembling a natural meadow

at home, crossed by a large number of small rivulets. They abounded

in several different kinds of fish, among them a Coregonus, a small

trout, a middle-sized long salmon with almost white flesh, though

the colour of its skin was a purplish-red, another salmon of about

the same length, but thick and hump-backed. These fish were easily

caught. They were taken with the hand, were harpooned with common

unshod sticks, were stabbed with knives, caught with the insect net,

&c. Other kinds of salmon with deep red flesh are to be found in the

large rivers of the island. We obtained here for a trifle a welcome

change from the preserved provisions of which we had long ago become

quite tired. The Expedition was also presented by the Alaska Company

with a fine fat ox, milk, and various other provisions, and I cannot

sufficiently value the goodwill shown to us not only by the Russian

official, N GREBNITSKI, a zealous and skilful naturalist, but also

by the officials of the Alaska Company and all others living on the

island with whom we came into contact.

[Illustration: ALGA FROM THE SHORE OF BEHRING ISLAND.

_Thalassiophyllum Clathrus_ Post. and Rupr.

One-fourth of the natural size. ]

It was my original intention to sail from Behring Island to

Petiopaulovsk, in order from thence to put a stop to the

undertakings which were possibly in contemplation for our relief.

This however became unnecessary, because a steamer, which was to

start for Petropaulovsk as soon as its cargo was on board, had

anchored by the side of the _Vega_ two days after our arrival. The

steamer belonged to the Alaska Company, was named the _Alexander_,

was commanded by Captain SANDMAN, and was manned almost exclusively

by Swedes, Danes, Fins, and Norwegians[371]. We found on the

_Alexander_ two naturalists, Dr. BENEDIKT DYBOVSKI and Dr. JULIAN

WIEMUT. The former is a Pole exiled to Siberia but now pardoned,

whose masterly zoological works are among the best contributions

which have been made during recent decades to our knowledge of the

natural conditions of Siberia. His researches have hitherto mainly

concerned the Baikal region. Now he wishes to extend them to

Kamchatka, and has therefore voluntarily taken a physician's post at

Petropaulovsk. Science has reason to expect very rich results from

his work and that of his companions in one of the most interesting,

most mis-known, and least known lands of the north.

The _Vega_ left Behring Island on the afternoon of the 19th August, and

anchored at Yokohama on the evening of the 2nd September. The first part

of the passage, while we were still in the cold northerly Polar Sea

current, was favoured by fair winds and moderate heat. The surface

temperature of the sea was from +9 deg. to +10 deg.. On the 25th August in 45 deg.

15' N.L. and 156 deg. E.L. from Greenwich the temperature of the sea-water

began to rise so rapidly that the thermometer in 40 deg. Lat. and 147 deg. 41'

Long already showed +23.4 deg. at the surface. This indicated that we had

come from the cold current favourable to us into Kuro-sivo, the Gulf

Stream of the Pacific. The wind was now at times unfavourable and the

heat oppressive, notwithstanding the frequent rain showers accompanied

by lightning and heavy squalls. In such unfavourable weather on the 31st

August the mainmast of the _Vega_ was struck by lightning, the flash and

the report being of excessive violence. The vane was broken loose and

thrown into the sea along with some inches of the pole. The pole itself

was split pretty far down, and all on board felt a more or less violent

shaking, the man who felt it most standing at the time near the

hawse-hole. The incident was not attended by any further noteworthy

unpleasant consequences.

On our arrival at Yokohama we were all in good health and the _Vega_

in excellent condition, though, after the long voyage, in want of

some minor repairs, of docking, and possibly of coppering. Naturally

among thirty men some mild attacks of illness could not be avoided

in the course of a year, but no disease had been generally

prevalent, and our state of health had constantly been excellent. Of

scurvy we had not seen a trace.

[Footnote 356: In February 1871 the right of hunting on these islands

was granted by the Russian government to Hutchinson, Kohl,

Philippeus &c. Co., who have made over their rights to the Alaska

Commercial Company of San Francisco. ]

[Footnote 357: According to a communication made to me by Mr. Henry

W. Elliot, who, in order to study the fur-bearing seals in the North

Behring Sea, lived a considerable time at the Seal Islands

(Pribylov's Islands, &c.) on the American side, and has given an

exceedingly interesting account of the animal life there in his

work, _A Report upon the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of

Alaska_, Washington, 1875, the statement in my report to Dr.

Dickson, founded on oral communications of Europeans whom I met with

at Behring Island, that from 50,000 to 100,000 animals are killed

yearly at Behring and Copper Island, is thus probably somewhat

exaggerated. ]

[Footnote 358: Original accounts of the wintering on Behring Island

are to be found in Mueller's _Sammlung Russischen Geschichte_, St

Petersburg, 1768, iii, pp. 228-238 and 242-268, (Steller's)

_Topographische und physikalische Beschreibung der Beringsinsel_

(Pallas' _Neue Nordische Beytraege_, St. Petersburg and Leipzig,

1781-83, ii. p. 225), G.W. Steller's _Tagebuch seiner Seereise aus

dem Petripauls Hafen. . . und seiner Begebenheiten auf der

Rueckreise_ (Pallas' _Neueste Nordische Beytraege_, St. Petersburg and

Leipzig, 1793-96, i. p. 130; ii. p. 1). ]

[Footnote 359: According to Mueller, whose statements (based on

communications by Waxel?) often differ from those of Steller. The

latter says that the flesh of the sea-otter is better than that of

the seal, and a good antidote to scurvy. The flesh of the young

sea-otter might even compete with lamb as a delicacy. ]

[Footnote 360: To judge by what is stated in Steller's description

of Behring Island (_Neue nord. Beytr._, ii, p. 290) no one would

have dared to attack "diese grimmigen Thiere," and the only sea-lion

eaten during the winter was an animal wounded at Kamchatka and

thrown up dead on the coast of Behring Island. The fin-like feet

were the most delicate part of the sea-lion. ]

[Footnote 361: According to Mueller's official report, probably

written for the purpose of refuting the rumours regarding Steller's

fate current in the scientific circles of Europe. According to the

biography prefixed to Georg Wilhelm Steller's _Beschreibung von dem

Lande Kamtschatka, herausgegeben von J.B.S._ (Scheerer), Frankfurt

and Leipzig, 1774, Steller had in 1745 begun his return to St.

Petersburg, and was already beyond Novgorod, when he received orders

to appear before the court at Irkutsk. After a year he obtained

permission to travel to St. Petersburg, but when he came to the

neighbourhood of Moscow, he received a new order to return, and for

farther security he was placed under a guard. They had travelled a

good way into Siberia, when he froze to death while the guard went

into a public-house to warm themselves and quench their thirst. ]

[Footnote 362: As early as Schelechov's wintering at 1783-84 the

foxes on Behring Island were principally white. During Steller's

wintering, over a third of the foxes on the island had a bluish fur

(_Neue nord. Beytr._, ii, p. 277). In the year 1747-48 a fur hunter,

Cholodilov, caught on Behring Island 1,481 blue foxes and 350

sea-otters, and the following year another hunter returned with over

a thousand sea otters and two thousand blue foxes, which probably

were also caught on Behring and Copper Islands (_Neue Nachrichten

von denen neuentdeckten Insuln_, Hamburg u Leipzig, 1766, p. 20). In

the year 1751-53 Jugov caught on the same island 790 sea-otters,

6,844 black and 200 white foxes, and 2,212 sea-bears (_loc. cit._ p.

22). In 1752-53 the crew of a vessel belonging to the Irkutsk

merchant, Nikifor Trapeznikoff, caught on Behring Island 5

sea-otters, 1,222 foxes (colour not stated), and 2,500 sea-bears

(_loc. cit._ p. 32). It thus appears as if the eager hunting had an

influence not only on the number of the animals but also on their

colour, the variety in greatest demand becoming also _relatively_

less common than before. ]

[Footnote 363: From this little work, compiled from the original

journals (Cf. Coxe, _Russian Discoveries_, 1780, p. vi.) we see that

the undaunted courage and the resolution which, matched with other

qualities not so praiseworthy, distinguished the _Promyschlenni_

during their expeditions of exploration, tribute-collecting, and

plunder from the Ob to Kamchatka, did not fail them in the attempt

to force their way across the sea to America. It happens yearly that

a ship's crew save themselves from destruction in the most

extraordinary craft, for necessity has no law. But it is perhaps not

so common that an exploring expedition, wrecked on an uninhabited

treeless island, builds for itself of fragments from its own vessel,

indeed even of driftwood, a new one in order to sail out on the

ocean to discover new fishing-grounds or new wild tribes, willing to

pay "jassak" to the adventurers. This however happened very

frequently during the Russian voyages of discovery and hunting to

the Aleutian Islands from 1745 to 1770, and it was remarkable that

the craft built in this way were used for years, even after the

return from the first voyage. ]

[Footnote 364: The sea-cow does not appear to have ever occurred on

the Aleutian Islands; on the other hand, according to Steller, dead

sea-cows have sometimes been cast ashore on Kamchatka, where they

even obtained from the Russians a peculiar name _kapustnik_, derived

from the large quantity of sea-weed found in their stomach. It

appears to me that this name, specially distinctive of a

graminivorous animal, appeals to indicate that on the first arrival

of the Russians at Kamchatka the sea-cow actually visited

occasionally the coasts of that peninsula. It is probable that in

former times the sea-cow was to be met with as far south as the

north part of Japan. Some scientific men have even conjectured that

the animal may have occurred north of Behring's Straits. This

however is improbable. Among the mass of subfossil bones of marine

animals which we examined at Pitlekaj the bones of the sea-cow did

not appear to be present. ]

[Footnote 365: Von Baer's and Brandt's numerous writings on the

sea-cow are to be found in the publications of the St. Petersburg

Academy. ]

[Footnote 366: That the hide of the sea-cow was used for _baydars_

is evident from the short extract given from Korovin's voyage. On

hearing this "creole's" account I inquired whether there were not

to be found remaining on the island any very old sea-cow skins that

had been used for _baydars_, but the answer unfortunately was in the

negative. ]

[Footnote 367: The number of these animals killed on Behring Island

is shown by the following statement given me by Mr. Henry. W.

Elliot:

In the Year In the Year In the Year

1867 27,500 1872 29,318 1877 21,532

1868 12,000 1873 30,396 1878 31,340

1869 24,000 1874 31,292 1879 42,752

1870 24,000 1875 36,274 1880 48,504

1871 3,614 1876 26,960

During the eighteen years from 1862 to 1880 there have thus been

shipped from Behring Island 389,462 skins. The catch on the Pribylov

Islands has been still larger. These islands were discovered in

1786, but the number of animals killed there is not known for the

first ten years; it is only known that it was enormously large. In

the years 1797-1880--that is in eighty-four years--over

three-and-a-half millions of skins have been exported from these

islands. In recent years the catch has increased so that in each of

the years from 1872 to 1880, 99,000 animals might have been killed

without inconvenience. ]

[Footnote 368: The traits here given of the sea-bear's mode of life

are mainly taken from Henry W. Elliot's work quoted above. ]

[Footnote 369: Elliott (_loc. cit._ p. 150) remarks that not a

single self-dead seal is to be found in the "rookery," where there

are so many animals that they probably die of old age in thousands.

This may be explained by the seals, when they become sick,

withdrawing to the sea, and forms another contribution to the

question of the finding of self-dead animals to which I have already

referred (vol. i. p. 322). ]

[Footnote 370: According to a statement by Mr. Giebnitski, tertiary

fossils and coal seams are also to be found on Behring Island, the

former north of the colony in the interior, the latter at the beach

south of Behring's grave. Also in the neighbourhood of the colony

the volcanic rock-masses are under-stratified by thick sandy beds. ]

[Footnote 371: The first European who welcomed us after the

completion of the North-east passage was a Fin now settled in

California, from Bjoerkboda works in Kimito parish, in which I had

lived a great deal when a youth. He was sent by the Alaska Company

to do some work on Behring Island. As we steamed towards the

colony he rowed to meet us, and saluted us with the cry "ar det

Nordenskioeld?" ("Is it Nordenskioeld?") His name was Isak Andersson. ]

CHAPTER XVI.

Arrival at Yokohama--A Telegram sent to Europe--The stranding

of the steamer _A.E. Nordenskioeld_--_Fetes_ in Japan--

The Minister of Marine, Kawamura--Prince Kito-Shira-Kava--

Audience of the Mikado--Graves of the Shoguns--Imperial Garden

at Tokio--The Exhibition there--Visit to Enoshima--

Japanese manners and customs--Thunberg and Kaempfer.

Yokohama, the first harbour, telegraph station, and commercial town

at which the _Vega_ anchored after circumnavigating the north coast

of Asia, is one of the Japanese coast cities which were opened to

the commerce of the world after the treaty between the United States

of America and Japan negotiated by Commodore PERRY.[372] At this

place there was formerly only a little fishing village, whose

inhabitants had never seen Europeans and were forbidden under severe

punishments from entering into communication or trading with the

crews of the foreign vessels that might possibly visit the coast.

The former village is now, twenty years later, changed into a town

of nearly 70,000 inhabitants, and consists not only of Japanese, but

also of very fine European houses, shops, hotels, &c. It is also the

residence of the governor of Kanagava _Ken_. It is in communication

by rail with the neighbouring capital Tokio, by regular weekly

steamship sailings with San Francisco on the one hand, and Hong

Kong, India, &c., on the other, and finally by telegraph not only

with the principal cities of Japan but also with all the lands that

have got entangled in the threads of the world's telegraph net.

The situation of the town on the western shore of the Yedo or Tokio

Bay, which is perhaps rather large for a haven, is not particularly

fine. But on sailing in we see in the west, if the weather be fine,

Fusiyama's snow-clad, incomparably beautiful volcanic cone raise

itself from a cultivated forest-clad region. When one has seen it,

he is no longer astonished that the Japanese reproduce with such

affection on their varnished wares, porcelain, cloth, paper,

sword-ornaments, &c., the form of their highest, stateliest, and also

grimmest mountain. For the number of the men who have perished by

its eruptions is reckoned by hundreds of thousands, and if tradition

speaks truth the whole mountain in a far distant antiquity was

formed in a single night. Before we enter Yedo Bay we pass a

volcano, active during last year, situated on the volcanic island

Oshima, known in Japanese history as the place of exile of several

of the heroes in the many internal struggles of the country.

While we sailed, or more correctly, steamed--for we had still

sufficient coal remaining to permit the engine to be used--up the

Bay of Yedo, the coasts were for the most part concealed with mist,

so that the summit of Fusiyama and the contours of the shore only

now and then gleamed forth from the fog and cloud. The wind besides

was against us, on which account it was 9.30 in the evening of the

2nd September before we could anchor in the haven that had been

longed-for for such a length of time. I immediately hastened on

land, along with Captain Palander, in order to send home a telegram

across Siberia about the fortunate issue of the voyage of the

_Vega_. At the telegraph station I was informed that the Siberian

line was interrupted by inundations for a space of 600 versts, and

that the telegram must therefore be sent by India, whereby the cost

was nearly doubled. The telegraph officials also made difficulties

about taking the foreign gold coin of various kinds which I had

about me. Fortunately the latter difficulty was immediately removed

by the accidental presence of the Russian consul, Mr. PELIKAN, while

I was treating with the telegraph officials. When he heard that it

concerned the sending home of a telegram from the much-talked-of

_Vega_ expedition, he immediately offered to arrange the affair

until I had time to operate on the letter of credit I carried with

me from Messrs. James Dickson &c. Co. of Gothenburg. Soon after I met

with the Swedish consul, Mr. VAN OORDT, who gave us a large parcel

of letters from home. It was very gladly received by most of us, as,

so far as I know, it did not bring the thirty members of the

expedition a single unexpected sorrowful message. I got, however,

soon after landing, an unpleasant piece of news, viz that the

steamer _A.E. Nordenskioeld_, which Mr. Sibiriakoff had sent to

Behring's Straits and the Lena to our relief, had stranded on the

east coast of Yesso. The shipwreck fortunately had not been attended

with any loss of human life, and the vessel lay stranded on a

sandbank in circumstances which made it probable that it would be

got off without too great cost.

As the report of our arrival spread, I was immediately waited upon

by various deputations with addresses of welcome, invitations to

_fetes_, clubs, &c. A series of entertainments and festivities now

began, which occupied a great part of the time we remained in this

splendid and remarkable country. Perhaps a sketch of these

festivities may yield a picture of Japan during the state of

transition, which still prevails there, and which in a decade or two

will undoubtedly belong to a past and to a great extent forgotten

period, a picture which to future writers may possibly form a not

unwelcome contribution to the knowledge of the Japan that now (1879)

is. Such a sketch would however carry me too far beyond the subject

of this narrative of travel, and require too much space, on which

account I must confine myself to an enumeration of the festivities

at the head of which were public authorities, learned societies, or

clubs.

[Illustration: FUSIYAMA. ]

On the 10th September a grand dinner was given at the Grand Hotel,

the principal European hotel--and very well kept--of Yokohama, by

the Dutch minister, Chevalier VAN STOETWEGEN, who at the same time

represents Sweden and Norway in Japan.

[Illustration: THE STEAMER "A.E. NORDENSKIOeLD," STRANDED ON THE EAST

COAST OF YEZO. (After a Japanese photograph.) ]

The members of the Expedition were here introduced to several

members of the Japanese Government.

[Illustration: KAWAMURA SUMIYOSHI. Japanese Minister of Marine. ]

We were invited to a _dejeuner a la fourchette_, at one o'clock P.M.

on the 11th September, at the Imperial summer palace Hamagoten, by

Admiral KAWAMURA, minister of marine. At this entertainment there

were present, besides the scientific men and officers of the _Vega_,

and our minister, Herr van Stoetwegen, several of the ministers and

highest officials of Japan. Some of them spoke one or other of the

European languages, others only Japanese, in which case officials of

lower rank acted as interpreter these however taking no part in the

entertainment along with the other guests. It was arranged after the

European pattern, with abundance of dishes and wines. The palace

consisted of a one-stoned wooden house in the Japanese style of

construction. The rooms, to which we were admitted, were provided

with European furniture, much the same as we would expect to find in

the summer residence of a well-to-do family in Sweden. It was

remarkable that the Japanese did not take the trouble to ornament

the loom or the table to any considerable extent with the beautiful

native bronzes or porcelain, of which there is such abundance in the

country. The summer palace was surrounded by a garden which the

Japanese consider something very extraordinary, and also on a very

large scale. We should call it a small, well and originally kept

miniature park, with carefully dressed turf, wonderful dwarf trees,

miniature stone bridges, small ponds and waterfalls. The

entertainment was very pleasant, and all, from our intelligent host

to the Premier, Daiyo-daiyin, and the Imperial Prince, SANYO

SANITOMI, showed us much friendliness. The latter looked a sickly

young man, some years past twenty. He was, however, much older, and

had taken a leading part in the most important political

transactions since the opening of the ports. Our host, Admiral

Kawamura, had more the appearance of a man of science than of a

warrior. The modest exterior, however, concealed a great and noble

man. For Kawamura, as commander of the Mikado's troops, had with

special distinction brought about the suppression of the revolt

under the brave Saigo Kichinosuke, who had at the restoration of the

power of the Mikado been its heart and sword, but soon after fell

before the government he himself contributed to create, and is now,

a couple of years after, admired and sung by former friends and by

former enemies as a national hero. All the Japanese present at the

_dejeuner_ were clad in European dress--in black dress coat and

white tie. Even the interpreters and attendants wore the European

dress. The people, the lower officials, and the servants in private

houses are still clothed in the Japanese dress, but do not wear a

sword, which is now prohibited. Many of the people have even

exchanged the old troublesome Japanese dressing of the hair for the

convenient European style.

In the course of conversation after the _dejeuner_ the ministers

offered to do all they could to make our stay in the country

agreeable and instructive. Distinguished foreigners are always well

received in Japan, and we are informed that a special committee is

appointed to make arrangements for their reception. This has given

offence in certain quarters, and shortly before our arrival a

proclamation was issued by a secret society, which threatened, if no

change were made, to kill one of the ministers and one of the

foreigners who were entertained in this, in the opinion of the

secret society, extravagant way. One of my Japanese friends promised

me a copy of the proclamation, but did not keep his promise,

probably because it was impossible for the uninitiated to get hold

of the dangerous writing.

On the 13th September a grand dinner was arranged for us by the

German Club, the photographer ANDERSEN being chairman. The hall was

adorned in a festive manner with flags, and with representations of

the _Vega_ in various more or less dangerous positions among the

ice, which had been got up for the occasion, the bill of fare had

reference to the circumstances of our wintering, &c. A number of

speeches were made, the feeling was cheerful and merry.

On the 15th September there was a grand entertainment in Tokio, given by

the Tokio Geographical Society, the Asiatic Society of Japan, and the

German Asiatic Society. It was held in the great hall in Koku-Dai-Gaku,

a large stone building surrounded with beautiful trees, which were

lighted up for the occasion by a number of variegated paper lanterns.

Several Japanese ladies dressed in European style took part in the

entertainment. I sat by the side of the chairman, Prince

KITA-SHIRA-KAVA, a young member of the imperial house, who had served

some time in the German army and speaks German very well. During the

disturbances which were caused by the removal of the residence from

Kioto to Yedo (Tokio), a group of insurgents had seized the prince, then

a minor, who under the name of RINNOJINO-MIYA was chief priest in a

temple, and endeavoured to set him up in opposition to the Emperor. The

plan failed, and in consequence of the reconciliation at the end of the

conflict, which distinguished in so honourable a way the many involved

and bloody political struggles in Japan during recent years, this

adventure was attended with no other insult for him than that the former

chief priest was sent to a German military school. He was recalled

sooner than was intended because he wished to marry a European, which

was considered below the dignity of the family of the Mikado. After his

return he was declared nearest heir to the throne, in case the Mikado

should die without male heirs, and his name, KITA-SHIRA-KAVA-NO-MIYA,

was changed a second time to YOHI HISHA. The former name was at the

bottom of the speech he made for us at the dinner, and which he gave me,

and the latter, with the addition, "Prince of Japan," was on his calling

card. The dinner was quite European, with a large number of speeches,

principally in European languages, but also in Japanese. Before every

guest lay a map, of the form of a fan, with the course of the _Vega_

marked upon it. As a memorial of the feast I received some days after a

large medal in silver inlaid in gold, of which a drawing is given on

pages 306, 307. We were conveyed back to the Tokio railway station in

European equipages, in the same way as we had been brought to the

dinner. During dinner musicians from the band of the imperial navy

played European pieces of music with great skill, to the evident

satisfaction of the Japanese.

On the forenoon of the 17th September we were presented at the court

of the Mikado in Tokio by the Swedish-Dutch minister. We were

fetched from the railway station by imperial equipages, consisting

of simple but ornamental and convenient _suflett_ carriages, each

drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses of no great size. As is

common in Japan, a running groom, clad in black, accompanied each

carriage. The reception took place in the imperial palace, a very

modest wooden building. The rooms we saw were furnished, almost

poorly, in European fashion. We first assembled in an antechamber,

the only remarkable ornament of which was a large piece of nephrite,

which was a little carved and had a Chinese inscription on it. Here

we were met by some of the ministers and the interpreter. After a

short conversation, in the course of which the interpreter got a

sight of the written speech, or more correctly the words of

salutation, I was to speak, we were conducted into an inner

apartment where the Emperor, clad in a uniform of European style and

standing in front of a throne, received us. The only thing unusual

at our reception was that we were requested at our departure not to

turn our backs to the Emperor, and on entering and departing to make

three bows, one at the door, another when we had come forward a

little on the floor, and one at the place where we were to stand.

After we had been presented the Emperor read a speech in Japanese,

which was translated into French by the interpreter, and of which,

before we left the place, a beautiful copy was given me, I then read

my salutation, on which our minister, van Stoetwegen, said a few

words, and got some words in reply. After leaving the imperial

chamber, we were entertained in the anteroom with Japanese tea and

cigars. The two princes who had taken part in the entertainment of

the 15th came and talked a little with us, as did the minister of

foreign affairs. The Emperor MUTSUHITO, in whose name reforms have

been carried out in Japan to an extent to which history can scarcely

show anything equal, was born the 3rd November, 1850. He is

considered the 121st Mikado of the race of Jimmu Tenno, the members

of which have reigned uninterruptedly in Japan for nearly two

thousand years, with varying fates and with varying power--now as

wise lawgivers and mighty warriors, now for long periods as weak and

effeminate rulers, emperors only in seeming, to whom almost divine

homage was paid, but who were carefully freed from the burden of

government and from all actual power. In comparison with this race,

whose first ancestor lived during the first century after the

foundation of Rome, all the royal houses now reigning in Europe are

children of yesterday. Its present representative does not look to

be very strong. During the whole audience he stood so motionless

that he might have been taken for a wax figure, if he had not

himself read his speech. Prince Kita-Shira-Kava has the appearance

of a young lieutenant of hussars. Most of the ministers have sharply

marked features,[373] which remind one of the many furious storms

they have survived, and the many personal dangers to which they have

been exposed, partly in honourable conflict, partly through

murderers' plots. For, unfortunately, a political murder is not yet

considered in Japan an infamous crime, but the murderer openly

acknowledges his deed and takes the consequences. Repeated murderous

attempts have been made against the men of the new time. In order to

protect themselves from these, ministers, when they go out,

generally have their carriages surrounded by an armed guard on

horseback.

[Illustration: THE FIRST MEDAL WHICH WAS STRUCK AS A MEMORIAL OF THE

VOYAGE OF THE "VEGA." Size of the original. ]

[Illustration: THE FIRST MEDAL WHICH WAS STRUCK AS A MEMORIAL OF THE

VOYAGE OF THE "VEGA." Size of the original. ]

On the 18th September several of the members of the _Vega_

expedition were invited to a _dejeuner a la fourchette_ by Admiral

Kawamura, minister of marine. This entertainment had an interest for

us because we were here for the first time received into a Japanese

home. I sat at table by the side of Lady Kawamura. Even the children

were present at the entertainment. Lady Kawamura was dressed in the

Japanese fashion, tastefully but very plainly, if we except a heavy

gold chain encircling the waist. In other respects the entertainment

was arranged according to the European mode, with a succession of

dishes and wines, both in abundance, according to the laws of

gastronomy. When it was over our host offered us an airing in a

carriage, during which I rode with the lady and one of the children,

a little girl about ten years of age, who would have been very

beautiful if she had not been disfigured, in the eyes of Europeans,

by the thick white paint that was evenly spread over her whole face,

and gave it a sickly appearance. Lady Kawamura herself was not

painted, nor was she disfigured with blackened teeth. Most of the

married women of Japan are accustomed after marriage to blacken

their formerly dazzlingly white teeth, but it is to be hoped that

this unpleasant custom will soon disappear, as the women of

distinction have begun to abandon it. During this excursion we

visited, among other places, the graves of the Tycoons, the imperial

garden, and a very remarkable exhibition in the capital.

A number of the Tycoons, or, as they are more correctly called,

Shoguns, are buried in Tokio. Their place of sepulture is one of the

most remarkable memorials of Old Japan. The graves are in a temple

which is divided into several courts, surrounded by walls and

connected with each other by beautiful gates. The first of these

courts is ornamented with more than two hundred stone lanterns,

presented to the temple by the feudal princes of the country, the

name of the giver and the date at which it was given being inscribed

on each. Some of these peculiar memorials are only half-finished,

perhaps an evidence of the sudden close of the power of the Shoguns

and the feudal princes in Japan. In another of the temple courts are

to be seen lanterns of bronze, partly gilt, presented by other

feudal princes. A third court is occupied by a temple, a splendid

memorial of the old Japanese architecture, and of the antique method

of adorning their sanctuaries with wooden carvings, gilding, and

varnishing. The temple abounds in old book-rolls, bells, drums,

beautiful old lacquered articles, &c. The graves themselves lie

within a separate enclosure.

The common Japanese gardens are not beautiful according to European

taste. They are often so small that they might without inconvenience,

with trees, grottos, and waterfalls, be accommodated in a small State's

department in one of the crystal palaces of the international

exhibitions. All, passages, rocks, trees, ponds, yea, even the fishes in

the dams, are artificial or artificially changed. The trees are, by a

special art which has been very highly developed in Japan, forced to

assume the nature of dwarfs, and are besides so pruned that the whole

plant has the appearance of a dry stem on which some green clumps have

been hung up here and there. The form of the gold fish swimming in the

ponds has also been changed, so that they have often two or four

tail-fins each, and a number of growths not known in their natural

state. On the walks thick layers of pebbles are placed to keep the feet

from being dirtied, and at the doors of dwelling-houses there is nearly

always a block of granite with a cauldron-like depression excavated in

it, which is kept filled with clean water. Upon this stone cauldron is

placed a simple but clean wooden scoop, with which one can take water

out of the vessel to wash himself with.

The imperial garden in Tokio is distinguished from these miniature

gardens by its greater extent, and by the trees, at least at most

places, bearing fruit. There is here a veritable park, with

uncommonly large, splendid, and luxuriantly-growing trees.

[Illustration: STONE LANTERN AND STONE MONUMENT. In a Japanese Temple

Court. ]

The public is generally excluded from the garden. At our visit we

were entertained in one of the imperial summer-houses with Japanese

tea, sweetmeats, and cigars.

Last of all we visited the Exhibition. It had been closed for some

time back on account of cholera. We saw here a number of beautiful

specimens of Japanese art, from the flint tools and pottery of the

Stone Age to the silks, porcelain, and bronzes of the present. In no

country is there at this day such a love for exhibitions as in

Japan. There are small exhibitions in most of the large towns. Many

were exceedingly instructive; in all there were to be seen beautiful

lacquered wares, porcelain, swords, silk, cloths, &c. In one I saw a

collection of the birds and fishes of Japan, in another I discovered

some vegetable impressions, by means of which I became acquainted

with the remarkable locality for fossil plants at Mogi, of which I

shall give an account farther on.

[Illustration: JAPANESE HOUSE IN TOKIO. ]