remoniously their quiet camp, and inquired through
Meranef, our interpreter, who we were and what we wanted. A wild,
picturesque group they made, as the moonlight streamed white and clear
into their swarthy faces, and glittered upon the metallic ornaments
about their persons and the polished blades of their long spears.
Their high cheek-bones, bold, alert eyes, and straight, coal-black
hair, suggested an intimate relationship with our own Indians; but the
resemblance went no further. Most of their faces wore an expression
of bold, frank honesty, which is not a characteristic of our western
aborigines, and which we instinctively accepted as a sufficient
guarantee of their friendliness and good faith. Contrary to our
preconceived idea of northern savages, they were athletic, able-bodied
men, fully up to the average height of Americans. Heavy _kukh-lankas_
(kookh-lan'-kas), or hunting-shirts of spotted deerskin, confined
about the waist with a belt, and fringed round the bottom with the
long black hair of the wolverine, covered their bodies from the neck
to the knee, ornamented here and there with strings of small coloured
beads, tassels of scarlet leather, and bits of polished metal. Fur
trousers, long boots of sealskin coming up to the thigh, and wolfskin
hoods, with the ears of the animal standing erect on each side of
the head, completed the costume which, notwithstanding its _bizarre_
effect, had yet a certain picturesque adaptation to the equally
strange features of the moonlight scene. Leaving our Cossack Meranef,
seconded by the Major, to explain our business and wants, Dodd and
I strolled away to make a critical inspection of the encampment. It
consisted of four large conical tents, built apparently of a framework
of poles and covered with loose reindeerskins, confined in their
places by long thongs of seal or walrus hide, which were stretched
tightly over them from the apex of the cone to the ground. They seemed
at first sight to be illy calculated to withstand the storms which
in winter sweep down across this steppe from the Arctic Ocean; but
subsequent experience proved that the severest gales cannot tear them
from their fastenings. Neatly constructed sledges of various shapes
and sizes were scattered here and there upon the snow, and two or
three hundred pack-saddles for the reindeer were piled up in a
symmetrical wall near the largest tent. Finishing our examination, and
feeling somewhat bored by the society o