who, aware of the danger, ran at their greatest speed until they found a solid footing. At length, about sixty miles from shore, they arrived at the edge of an immense break in the ice, extending east and west farther than the eye could reach.

"We climbed one of the loftiest hummocks," says Wrangell, "whence we obtained an extensive view towards the north, and whence we beheld the wide ocean spread before our gaze. It was a fearful and magnificent, but to us a melancholy spectacle! Fragments of ice of enormous size floated on the surface of the water, and were thrown by the waves with awful violence against the edge of the ice-field on the farther side of the channel before us. The collisions were so tremendous that large masses were every instant broken away, and it was evident that the portion of ice which still divided the channel from the open ocean would soon be completely destroyed. Had we attempted to ferry ourselves across upon one of the floating pieces of ice, we should not have found firm footing upon our arrival. Even on our own side fresh lines of water were continually forming, and extending in every direction in the field of ice behind us. We could go no farther. With a painful feeling of the impossibility of overcoming the obstacles which nature opposed to us, our last hope vanished of discovering the land, which we yet believed to exist. We saw ourselves compelled to renounce the object for which we had striven through three years of hardships, toil, and danger. We had done what honor and duty demanded; further attempts would have been absolutely hopeless, and I decided to return."

They turned, but already the track of their advance was scarcely discernible, as new lanes of water had been formed, and fresh hummocks raised by the sea. To add to their distress, a storm arose, which threatened every moment to swallow up the ice island, on which they hoped to cross a wide space of water which separated them from a firmer ground.

"We had been three long hours in this position, and still the mass of ice beneath us held together, when suddenly it was caught by the storm, and hurled against a large field of ice; the crash was terrific, and the mass beneath us. was shattered into fragments. At that dreadful moment, when escape seemed impossible, the impulse of self-preservation, implanted in every living being, saved us. Instinctively we all sprang at once on the sledges, and urged the dogs to their full speed. They flew across the yielding fragments to the field on which we had been stranded, and safely reached a part of it of firmer character, on which were several hummocks, where the dogs immediately ceased running, conscious, apparently, that the danger was past. We were saved! We joyfully embraced each other, and united in thanks to God for our preservation from such imminent peril."

But their misfortunes did not end here; they were cut off from the deposit of their provisions; they were 360 versts from their nearest magazines, and the food for the dogs was now barely sufficient for three days. Their joy may be imagined when, after a few versts' travelling, they fell in with Matiuschkin and his party, bringing with them an abundant supply of provisions of all kinds.

To leave nothing undone which could possibly be effected, Wrangell ad

vanced to the eastward along the coast, past Cape North, seen in Cook's last voyage, and proceeded as far as Koliutschin Island, where he found some Tchuktchi, who had come over from Bering's Straits to trade.

With this journey terminated Wrangell's labors on the coasts, or on the surface of the Polar Sea, and, at the beginning of the following winter, we find him taking a final leave of Nishne-Kolymsk. On January 10, 1824, he arrived at Jakutsk, and a few months later at Petersburg. If we consider the difficulties he had to encounter, and his untiring zeal and courage in the midst of privations and dangers, it is only fair to admit that his name deserves to be ranked among the most distinguished explorers of the Arctic world.

CHAPTER XXI.

Their Relationship to the Mantchou.

THE TUNGUSI.

Dreadful Condition of the outcast Nomads. - Character of the Tungusi.-Their Outfit for the Chase.-Bear-hunting.-Dwellings.-Diet.-A Night's Halt with Tungusi in the Forest.-Ochotsk.

TH

~HOUGH both belonging to the same stock, the fate of the Tungusi and Mantchou has been very different; for at the same time when the latter conquered the vast Chinese Empire, the former, after having spread over the greatest part of East Siberia, and driven before them the Jakuts, the Jukahiri, the Tchuktchi, and many other aboriginal tribes, were in their turn subjugated by the mightier Russians. In the year 1640 the Cossacks first encountered the Tungusi, and in 1644 the first Mantchou emperor mounted the Chinese throne. The same race which here imposes its yoke upon millions of subjects, there falls a prey to a small number of adventurers. However strange the fact, it is, however, easily explained, for the Chinese were worse armed and less disciplined than the Mantchou, while the Tungusi had nothing but bows and arrows to oppose to the Cossack fire-arms; and history (from Alexander the Great to Sadowa) teaches us that victory constantly sides with the best weapons.

In their intellectual development we find the same difference as in their fortunes between the Mantchou and the Siberian Tungusi. Two hundred and fifty years ago the former were still nomads, like their northern kinsfolk, and could neither read nor write, and already they have a rich literature, and their language is spoken at the court of Peking; while the Tungusi, oppressed and sunk in poverty, are still as ignorant as when they first encountered the Cossacks.

According to their occupations, and the various domestic animals employed by them, they are distinguished by the names of Reindeer, Horse, Dog, Forest, and River Tungusi; but although they are found from the basins of the Upper, Middle, and Lower Tunguska to the western shores of the Sea of Ochotsk, and from the Chinese frontiers and the Baikal to the Polar Ocean, their whole number does not amount to more than 30,000, and diminishes from year to year, in consequence of the ravages of the small-pox and other epidem ic disorders transmitted to them by the Russians. Only a few rear horses and cattle, the reindeer being generally their domestic animal; and the impover ished Tunguse, who has been deprived of his herd by some contagious disor der or the ravages of the wolves, lives as a fisherman on the borders of a river, assisted by his dog, or retires into the forests as a promyschlenik, or hunter. Of the miseries which here await him, Wrangell relates a melancholy instance. In a solitary hut in one of the dreariest wildernesses imaginable, he found a

Tunguse and his daughter. While the father, with his long snow-shoes, was pursuing a reindeer for several days together, this unfortunate girl remained alone and helpless in the hut-which even in summer afforded but an imperfect shelter against the rain and wind-exposed to the cold, and frequently to hunger, and without the least occupation. No wonder that the impoverished Tungusi not seldom sink into cannibalism. Neither the reindeer nor the dogs, nor the wives and children of their more fortunate countrymen, are secure from the attacks and voracity of these outcasts, who, in their turn, are treated like wild beasts, and destroyed without mercy. A bartering trade is, however, carried on with them, but only at a distance, and by signs; each party depos iting its goods, and following every motion of the other with a suspicious eye. The Russian Government, anxious to relieve the misery of the impoverished nomads, has given orders to settle them along the river-banks, and to provide them with the necessary fishing implements; but only extreme wretchedness can induce the Tunguse to relinquish the free life of the forest. His careless temper, his ready wit, and sprightly manner, distinguish him from the other Siberian tribes the gloomy Samoïede, the uncouth Ostiak, the reserved Jakut -but he is said to be full of deceit and malice. His vanity shows itself in the quantity of glass beads with which he decorates his dress of reindeer leather, from his small Tartar cap to the tips of his shoes. When chasing or travelling on his reindeer through the woods, he of course lays aside most of his finery, and puts on large water-tight boots, or sari, well greased with fat, to keep off the wet of the morass. His hunting apparatus is extremely simple. A small axe, a kettle, a leathern bag containing some dried fish, a dog, a short gun, or merely a bow and a sling, is all he requires for his expeditions into the forest. With the assistance of his long and narrow snow-shoes, he flies over the dazzling plain, and protects his eyes, like the Jakut, with a net made of black horse-hair. He never hesitates to attack the bear single-handed, and generally masters him. The nomad Tunguse naturally requires a movable dwelling. His tent is covered with leather, or large pieces of pliable bark, which are oasily rolled up and transported from place to place. The yourt of the sedentary Tunguse resembles that of the Jakut, and is so small that it can be very quickly and thoroughly warmed by a fire kindled on the stone hearth in the centre. In his food the Tunguse is by no means dainty. One of his favorite dishes consists of the contents of a reindeer's stomach mixed with wild berries, and spread out in thin cakes on the rind of trees, to be dried in the air or in the sun. Those who have settled on the Wiluj and in the neighborhood of Nertschinsk, likewise consume large quantities of brick tea, which they boil with fat and berries into a thick porridge, and this unwholesome food adds no doubt to the yellowness of their complexion.

But few of the Tungusi have been converted to Christianity, the majority being still addicted to Shamanism. They do not like to bury their dead, but place them, in their holiday dresses, in large chests, which they hang up between two trees. The hunting apparatus of the deceased is buried beneath the chest. No ceremonies are used on the occasion, except when a Shaman happens to be in the neighborhood, when a reindeer is sacrificed, on whose

flesh the sorcerer and the relations regale themselves, while the spirits to whom the animal is supposed to be offered are obliged to content themselves with the smell of the burnt fat. As among the Samoïedes or the Ostiaks, woman is a marketable ware among the Tungusi. The father gives his daughter in marriage for twenty or a hundred reindeer, or the bridegroom is obliged to earn her hand by a long period of service.

In East Siberia the Tungusi divide with the Jakuts the task of conveying goods or travellers through the forests, and afford the stranger frequent opportunities for admiring their agility and good-humor. On halting after a day's journey, the reindeer are unpacked in an instant, the saddles and the goods ranged orderly on the ground, and the bridles collected and hung on branches of trees. The hungry animals soon disappear in the thicket, where they are left to provide for themselves. The men, who meanwhile have been busy with their axes, drag a larch-tree or two to the place of encampment. The smaller branches are lopped off and collected to serve as beds or seats upon the snow, while the resinous wood of the larger trunks is soon kindled into a lively fire. The kettle, filled with snow, is suspended from a strong forked branch placed obliquely in the ground over the fire, and in a few minutes the tea is ready-for the Tungusi proceed every evening according to the same method, and are consequently as expert as long and invariable practice can make them. Comfortably seated on his reindeer saddle, the traveller may now amuse himself with the dances, which the Tungusi accompany with an agreeable song; or if he choose to witness their agility in athletic exercises, it only costs him a word of encouragement, and a small donation of brandy. Two of the Tungusi hold a rope, and swing it with all their might, so that it does not touch the ground. Meanwhile a third Tunguse skips over the rope, picks up a bow and arrow spans the bow and shoots the arrow, without once touching the rope. Some particularly bold and expert Tungusi will dance over a sword which a person lying on his back on the ground is swinging about with the greatest rapidity. Should our traveller be a friend of chess, the Tungusi are equally at his service, as they are passionately fond of this noblest of games, especially in the Kolymsk district. Like all other Siberian nomads, they visit at least once a year the various fairs which are held in the small towns scattered here and there over their immense territory-such as Kirensk, Olekminsk, Bargusin, Tschita, and Ochotsk, which, before the opening of the Amoor to trade, was the chief port of East Siberia.

Ochotsk is one of the dreariest places imaginable; at least no traveller who ever visited it has a word to say in its favor. Not a single tree grows for miles and miles around, and the wretched huts of which the town is composed lie in the midst of a swamp, which in summer is a fruitful source of malaria and pestilence. The River Ochota, at whose mouth Ochotsk is situated, does not break up before the end of May, and the ice-masses continue to pass the town till the 15th or 20th of June. Soon after begins the most unpleasant time of all the year, or "buss" of the Siberians, characterized by thick fog and a perpetual drizzling rain. The weather clears up in July, but as early as August the night-frosts cover the earth with rime. Salmon, of which no less than