Used as “a substitute for soap-lees, according to Langsdorff.”—(“Voyages,” London, 1814, vol. ii. p. 47.) “By night, the Master of the house, with all his family, his wife and children, lye in one room.... All of them make water in one chamber-pot, with which, in the morning, they wash their face, mouth, teeth, and hands. They allege many reasons thereof, to wit, that it makes a faire face, maintaineth the strength, confirmeth the sinewes in the hands, and preserveth the teeth from putrefaction.”—(“Dittmar Bleekens,” in Purchas, vol. i. p. 647.) After describing the double tent of skins used by the Tchuktchees, Mr. W. H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” says all food is served in the “yoronger,” or inner tent, in which men and women sit, in a state of nudity, wearing only a small loin-cloth of seal-skin. After finishing the meal, “a small, shallow pail or pan of wood is passed to any one who feels so inclined, to furnish the warm urine with which the board and knife are washed by the housewife. It is a matter of indifference who furnishes the fluid, whether the men, women, or children; and I have myself frequently supplied the landlady with the dish-water. In nearly every tent there is kept from the summer season a small supply of dried grass. A little bunch of this is dipped in the warm urine and serves as a dish-rag and a napkin. These people are generally kind and hospitable, and were very attentive to my wants as a stranger, and regarded by them as more helpless than a native. The women would, therefore, often turn to me after washing the board and knife, and wash my fingers and wipe the grease from my mouth with the moistened grass. Any of the men or women in the tent who desired it would also ask for the wet grass, and use it in the same way. “It was not done as a ceremony, but merely as a matter of course or of necessity. “I do not think they would use urine for such purposes if they could get all the water, and especially the warm water, they needed. But all the water they have in winter is obtained by melting snow or ice over an oil lamp,—a very slow process; and the supply is therefore very limited, being scarcely more than is required for drinking purposes, or to boil such fresh meat as they may have. “The urine, being warm and containing a small quantity of ammonia, is particularly well adapted for removing grease from the board and utensils, which would otherwise soon become foul, and to their taste much more disagreeable. “The bottom of the ‘yoronger’ is generally carpeted with tanned seal-skins, and they too are frequently washed with the same fluid. The consequence is that there is ever a mingled odor of ammonia and rotten walrus-meat pervading a well-supplied and thrifty Tchouktchi dwelling.”—(Personal letter to Captain Bourke, dated New York, October 15, 1889.)