owstorm which occasioned another irksome
delay down river. Just as we were starting, the now sober Mikouline
again showed symptoms of weakening, until I plied him with bumpers of
_vodka_. So long as "the spirit moved him" my driver was all right; but
alas! the _Vodka_ would not last for ever, and where should we be then?

[Footnote 49: The Kolyma Russians have apparently always held this tribe
in great awe, for as far back as 1820 Von Wrangell wrote: "Our
sled-drivers were certainly not free from the deeply-rooted fear of
these people (the Tchuktchis), generally entertained by the inhabitants
of Kolymsk."]

Yartsegg begged me to visit some of his relatives in New York and
acquaint them of his existence, but although furnished with their
address I could never trace these people, and the exile talked so wildly
at times that my failure to execute the commission was perhaps due to
his impaired mind and memory. But half-witted and almost repulsive as
this poor fellow had become, it went to my heart to leave him in that
God-forsaken settlement, when on the morning of April 2nd we again set
out, in the teeth of a biting north-easter, for the shores of the Arctic
Ocean.

CHAPTER X

A CRUEL COAST

A few miles below Nijni-Kolymsk vegetation entirely disappears, and in
winter nothing is visible on all sides but vast and dreary plains of
snow-covered tundra. The first night was passed in a tiny log hut
belonging to a trapper and bearing the name, like any town or village,
of Tchorniusova. It was pleasant to reach even this rude shelter, the
last but one to separate us from the homeless immensity of the Arctic,
for the strong breeze of the morning increased by sunset to a northerly
gale which the dogs would not face. Towards midnight two Yukagirs (a
small tribe inhabiting the country due east of the Kolyma) arrived in a
dog-sled and begged for shelter, having with difficulty reached the hut
after several hours of battling against a furious _poorga_ which had
succeeded a change of wind to a westerly quarter. A _poorga_ is a kind
of Arctic typhoon justly dreaded on this coast, for its fury is only
equalled by the suddenness with which it overtakes the traveller. During
these tempests (which sometimes last two or three days) the snow is
whirled up in such dense clouds that objects a few yards away become
invisible, and it is impossible to make headway, for the dogs,
instinctively aware of peril, generally lie down and how