hey have gradually adopted Russian
customs and lost all their distinctive traits of character; and in a
few years not a single living soul will speak the languages of those
once powerful tribes. By the Russians, Chuances, and Yukagirs,
Anadyrsk was finally rebuilt, and became in time a trading-post of
considerable importance. Tobacco, which had been introduced by the
Russians, soon acquired great popularity with the Chukchis; and
for the sake of obtaining this highly prized luxury they ceased
hostilities, and began making yearly visits to Anadyrsk for the
purpose of trade. They never entirely lost, however, a certain feeling
of enmity toward the Russians who had invaded their territory, and for
many years would have no dealings with them except at the end of a
spear. They would hang a bundle of furs or a choice walrus tooth upon
the sharp polished blade of a long Chukchi lance, and if a Russian
trader chose to take it off and suspend in its place a fair equivalent
in the shape of tobacco, well and good; if not, there was no trade.
This plan guaranteed absolute security against fraud, for there was
not a Russian in all Siberia who dared to cheat one of these fierce
savages, with the blade of a long lance ten inches from his breast
bone. Honesty was emphatically the best policy, and the moral suasion
of a Chukchi spear developed the most disinterested benevolence in the
breast of the man who stood at the sharp end. The trade which was thus
established still continues to be a source of considerable profit to
the inhabitants of Anadyrsk, and to the Russian merchants who come
there every year from Gizhiga.

[Illustration: CHUKCHIS ASSEMBLING AT ANADYRSK FOR THE WINTER FAIR]

The four small villages which compose the settlement, and which are
distinctively known as "Pokorukof," "Osolkin," "Markova," and "The
Crepast," have altogether a population of perhaps two hundred souls.
The central village, called Markova, is the residence of the priest
and boasts a small rudely built church, but in winter it is a dreary
place. Its small log houses have no windows other than thick slabs of
ice cut from the river; many of them are sunken in the ground for the
sake of greater warmth, and all are more or less buried in snow. A
dense forest of larch, poplar, and aspen surrounds the town, so that
the traveller coming from Gizhiga sometimes has to hunt for it a whole
day, and if he be not familiar with the net-work of channels into
which th