The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . in their wanderings, however circuitous,they not seldom pass through regions so stony and desert as not even to affordthese frugal animals the slightest repast. Thus regulating their movementsby the wants of their herds, they require five or six months for a journeywhich, in a direct line, would not be much longer than a thousand versts, andare almost constantly wandering from place to place, though, as they alwayscarry their dwellings along with them, they at the same time never
The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . in their wanderings, however circuitous,they not seldom pass through regions so stony and desert as not even to affordthese frugal animals the slightest repast. Thus regulating their movementsby the wants of their herds, they require five or six months for a journeywhich, in a direct line, would not be much longer than a thousand versts, andare almost constantly wandering from place to place, though, as they alwayscarry their dwellings along with them, they at the same time never leave of these snail-like caravans generally consists of fifty or sixty families, andone fair is scarcely at an end when they set off to make their arrangements forthe next. Tobacco is the primum mobile of the trade w^hich centres in pipes are of a peculiar character, larger at the stem than the bowl, v/hicliholds a very small quantity of tobacco. In smoking, they swallow the fumesof the tobacco, and often, after six or eight whiffs, fall back completely intoxi- 264 THE POLAR TCnUKTCHI PIPE. cated for the time. The desire to j^rocure a few of its narcotic leaves inducesthe American Esquimaux, from the Icy Cape to Bristol Bay, to send their prod-uce from hand to hand as far as the Gwosdew Islands in Berings Straits,where it is bartered for the tobacco of the Tchuktchi, and these again princi-pally resort to the fair of Ostrownoje to j^urchase tobacco from the the Tchuktchi receive from the Americans as many skins for half apoud, or eighteen pounds, of tobacco-leaves as they afterwards sell to tlie Rus-sians for two pouds of tobacco of the same quality. These cost the Russianmerchant about 160 roubles at the very utmost, while the skins which he obtainsin barter are worth at least 260 at Jakutsk, and are more than double that sumat St. Petersburg. The furs of the Tchuktchi principally consist of black and silver-gray foxes,sto
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, books, booksubjectnaturalhistory
