hardship. Our method of harnessing was also
inferior to the Tchuktchi method, which brings the strain on the
shoulders instead of the neck. These people, like the Yakutes, are very
kind to animals. I never once saw them strike their dogs, which were
urged on by rattling an iron ring fixed for the purpose to the end of
the brake. Yaigok knew every inch of the road and saved many a mile by
short cuts taken across land or sea. The cold here was great and
drift-wood scarce, but one could be sure now of passing some settlement
at least every three or four days, where even a foul glimmer of a
seal-oil lamp was better than no fire at all. About this time the sleds
gave us much trouble--the rough usage they had undergone necessitating
constant repairs, but these were quickly made, for not a scrap of metal
enters into the construction of a Kolyma dog-sled; merely wooden pegs
and walrus-hide thongs, which are more durable and give more spring and
pliancy than iron nails. Three days after leaving Cape North, and in
fine weather, Wrangell Land was sighted, or, I should perhaps say, was
probably sighted, for at times huge barriers of icebergs can easily be
mistaken for a distant island. Yaigok, however, averred that it was an
island, and his judgment was probably correct.

The journey from here eastwards to Bering Straits would under ordinary
circumstances of travel have seemed a severe one, for we travelled
through head winds and constant snowstorms, which now, with a rising
temperature, drenched our furs and made the nights even more miserable
than those of intense, but dry, cold. One thing here struck me as
curious, every snow-flake was a most perfect five-pointed star, as
accurately shaped as though it had passed through a tiny mould.
Discomforts, as I have said, continued, not to say hardships, but we had
become so inured to the latter that we could now, with well-lined
stomachs, afford to despise even blizzards with shelter never more than
twenty or thirty miles distant. Our diet was not appetising, consisting
as it did for the most part of oily seal and walrus-meat, but
drift-wood was now more plentiful, and we could usually reckon on that
blessing, a fire at night. There was now little difficulty in finding
settlements, one of which was reached on an average every twenty-four
hours, but it was necessary to keep a sharp look-out, for the low,
mushroom-like huts of the Tchuktchis are invisible a short distance away
and are ea