ave rise to the custom of burning the dead. Their
nomadic life made it impossible for them to have any one place of
common sepulture, and only with the greatest difficulty could they dig
graves at all in the perpetually frozen ground. Bodies could not be
left to be torn by wolves, and burning them was the only practicable
alternative. Neither of these customs presupposes any original and
innate savageness or barbarity on the part of the Koraks themselves.
They are the natural development of certain circumstances, and only
prove that the strongest emotions of human nature, such as filial
reverence, fraternal affection, selfish love of life, and respect for
the remains of friends, all are powerless to oppose the operation of
great natural laws. The Russian Church is endeavouring by missionary
enterprise to convert all the Siberian tribes to Christianity; and
although they have met with a certain degree of apparent success among
the settled tribes of Yukagirs (yoo-kag'-eers), Chuances (choo-an'-ces),
and Kamchadals, the wandering natives still cling to Shamanism, and
there are more than 70,000 followers of that religion in the scanty
population of north-eastern Siberia. Any permanent and genuine
conversion of the Wandering Koraks and Chukchis must be preceded by
some educational enlightenment and an entire change in their mode of
life.

Among the many superstitions of the Wandering Koraks and Chukchis,
one of the most noticeable is their reluctance to part with a living
reindeer. You may purchase as many dead deer as you choose, up to five
hundred, for about seventy cents apiece; but a living deer they will
not give to you for love nor money. You may offer them what they
consider a fortune in tobacco, copper kettles, beads, and scarlet
cloth, for a single live reindeer, but they will persistently refuse
to sell him; yet, if you will allow them to kill the very same animal,
you can have his carcass for one small string of common glass beads.
It is useless to argue with them about this absurd superstition. You
can get no reason for it or explanation of it, except that "to sell a
live reindeer would be _atkin_ [bad]." As it was very necessary in the
construction of our proposed telegraph line to have trained reindeer
of our own, we offered every conceivable inducement to the Koraks to
part with one single deer; but all our efforts were in vain. They
could sell us a hundred dead deer for a hundred pounds of tobacco; but
five