Gulf settlements.

Our travel for the next few days after leaving the third encampment
was fatiguing and monotonous. The unvarying routine of our daily life
in smoky Korak tents, and the uniform flatness and barrenness of the
country over which we journeyed, became inexpressibly tiresome, and we
looked forward in longing anticipation to the Russian settlement of
Gizhiga, at the head of Gizhiginsk Gulf, which was the Mecca of our
long pilgrimage. To spend more than a week at one time with the
Wandering Koraks without becoming lonesome or homesick, requires an
almost inexhaustible fertility of mental resource. One is thrown for
entertainment entirely upon himself. No daily paper, with its fresh
material for thought and discussion, comes to enliven the long blank
evenings by the tent fire; no wars or rumours of wars, no _coup
d'etat_ of diplomacy, no excitement of political canvass ever agitates
the stagnant intellectual atmosphere of Korak existence. Removed to an
infinite distance, both physically and intellectually, from all of the
interests, ambitions, and excitements which make up our world, the
Korak simply exists, like a human oyster, in the quiet waters of his
monotonous life. An occasional birth or marriage, the sacrifice of a
dog, or, on rare occasions, of a man to the Korak Ahriman, and the
infrequent visits of a Russian trader, are the most prominent events
in his history, from the cradle to the grave. I found it almost
impossible sometimes to realise, as I sat by the fire in a Korak tent,
that I was still in the modern world of railroads, telegraphs,
and daily newspapers. I seemed to have been carried back by some
enchantment through the long cycles of time, and made a dweller in
the tents of Shem and Japheth. Not a suggestion was there in all our
surroundings of the vaunted enlightenment and civilisation of the
nineteenth century, and as we gradually accustomed ourselves to the
new and strange conditions of primitive barbarism, our recollections
of a civilised life faded into the unreal imagery of a vivid dream.

[Illustration: Ice scratcher used in stalking seals]

CHAPTER XX

THE KORAK TONGUE--RELIGION OF TERROR--INCANTATIONS OF SHAMANS--KILLING
OF OLD AND SICK--REINDEER SUPERSTITION--KORAK CHARACTER

Our long intercourse with the Wandering Koraks gave us an opportunity
of observing many of their peculiarities, which would very likely
escape the notice of a transient visitor; and as our journe