On our second day there I was glad to see the dogs that had dropped behind dragging themselves in. They were tied up in their old places, and fed generously on seal blubber and hot fish-soup, which might be called a kind of fish and oil chowder. They were all suffering badly from the need of fatty foods, and it was interesting to see the avidity with which they would bolt huge pieces of clear blubber. At the end of our week of rest, they were all fat again, their feet were healed up, and they were eager for the road once more. Some of the dogs that had shown less endurance than the others were traded off and better ones secured. The best medium of exchange seemed to be the little skeins of sewing-silk which I had been careful to bring. Skeins that were bought in Vladivostok for two and a half cents apiece readily brought a dollar here. I would have sold it cheaper, but they pushed the price of the dogs up from five dollars to twenty, and I was obliged to follow suit. The silk was in all the colors of the rainbow; it was a study to see the faces of these natives as they devoured the gaudy stuff with their eyes, especially the women. They use the silk to embroider the bottoms of their fur cloaks, some of which are true works of art. Traders have been known to pay as high as two hundred dollars for a single coat. The amount of needlework on them is simply enormous. Sometimes they cut out little pieces of skin a quarter of an inch square, of all colors and shades, and make a genuine mosaic of them, and around the bottom of each garment is a wide fringe of silk. The natives laughed at the prices that I asked, and good-naturedly expostulated with me, saying that they could get the same thing in Ghijiga much cheaper; to which I laughingly answered that they were at liberty to go and get it. Whenever I left a house, I presented the women each with a few needles, which in that country is a very substantial tip. This village was not composed of pure Tchuktches, and these mongrel people are looked down upon by the clean Tchuktche stock, who frequently raid them and carry off their best-looking women. It was now my purpose to turn south along the coast, and examine the beach sands and the rivers running into Bering Sea, as far down as the neck of the Kamchatkan peninsula, or Baron Koff Bay. As I was still in a sandstone country, there seemed little likelihood of finding gold in the beach sands, and unless the geologic formation changed as I went south, I should push right on without stopping, except to rest.