the _Vega_ could steam forward at full
speed to the neighbourhood of St. Lawrence Bay, where the coast was
surrounded by some more compact belts of ice, which however were
broken through with ease. First, in the mouth of the fjord itself
impenetrable ice was met with, completely blocking the splendid
haven of St. Lawrence Bay. The _Vega_ was, therefore, compelled to
anchor in the open road off the village Nunamo. But even here
extensive ice-fields, though thin and rotten, drifted about; and
long, but narrow, belts of ice passed the vessel in so large masses
that it was not advisable to remain longer at the place. Our stay
there was therefore confined to a few hours.

During the course of the winter Lieutenant Nordquist endeavoured to
collect from the Chukches travelling past as complete information as
possible regarding the Chukch villages or encampments which are found
along the coast between Chaun Bay and Behring's Straits. His informants
always finished their list with the village Ertryn, situated west of
Cape Deschnev, explaining that farther east and south there lived
another tribe, with whom they indeed did not stand in open enmity, but
who, however, were not to be fully depended upon, and to whose villages
they therefore did not dare to accompany any of us.[344] This statement
also corresponds, as perhaps follows from what I have pointed out in the
preceding chapter, with the accounts commonly found in books on the
ethnography of this region. While we steamed forward cautiously in a
dense fog in the neighbourhood of Cape Deschnev, twenty to thirty
natives came rowing in a large skin boat to the vessel. Eager to make
acquaintance with a tribe new to us, we received them with pleasure. But
when they climbed over the side we found that they were pure Chukches,
some of them old acquaintances, who during winter had been guests on
board the _Vega_. "Ankali" said they, with evident contempt, are first
met with farther beyond St. Lawrence Bay. When we anchored next day at
the mouth of this bay we were immediately, as usual, visited by a large
number of natives, and ourselves visited their tents on land. They still
talked Chukch with a limited mixture of foreign words, lived in tents
of a construction differing somewhat from the Chukches', and appeared to
have a somewhat different cast of countenance. They themselves would not
allow that there was any national difference between them and the old
warrior and conqueror tri