he train-oil which may possibly be
spilled.

In summer the natives also cook with wood in the open air or in the
outer tent, in winter only in the greatest necessity in the latter.
For they find the smoke, which the wood gives off in the close tent,
unendurable. Although driftwood is to be found in great abundance on
the beach, scarcity of train-oil was evidently considered by the
natives as great a misfortune as scarcity of food. _Uinqa eek_, no
fuel (properly, no fire), was the constant cry even of those who
drew loads of driftwood on board to earn bread for themselves. The
circumstance that their fuel does not give off any smoke has the
advantage that the eyes of the Chukches are not usually nearly so
much attacked as those of the Lapps.

In the tent the women have always a watchful eye over the trimming
of the lamp and the keeping up of the fire. The wooden pins she uses
to trim the wick, and which naturally are drenched with train-oil,
are used when required as a light or torch in the outer tent, to
light pipes, &c. In the same way other pins dipped in train-oil are
used.[286] Clay lamps are made by the Chukches themselves, the clay
being well kneaded and moistened with urine. The burning is
incomplete, and is indeed often wholly omitted.

Train-oil and other liquid wares are often kept in sacks of
seal-skin, consisting of whole hides, out of which the body has been
taken through the opening made by cutting off the head, and in which
all holes, either natural or caused by the killing of the animal,
have been firmly closed. In one of the forepaws there is then
inserted with great skill a wooden air- and water-tight cock with
spigot and faucet. In sacks intended for dry wares the paws are also
cut off, and the opening through which the contents are put in and
taken out is made right across the breast immediately below the
forepaws.

Fire is lighted partly in the way common in Sweden some decades ago
by means of flint and steel, partly by means of a drill implement.
In the former case the steel generally consists of a piece of a file
or some other old steel tool, or of pieces of iron or steel which
have been specially forged for the purpose. Commonly the form of
this tool indicates a European or Russian-Siberian origin, but I
also acquired clumsily hammered pieces of iron, which appeared to
form specimens of native skill in forging. A Chukch showed me a
large fire-steel of the last mentioned kind, provided with