As soon as the deer had been gathered together again and a guard placed over them, the Koraks crowded curiously around the visitors who had entered so unceremoniously their quiet camp, and inquired through Meranef, our interpreter, who we were and what we wanted. A wild, picturesque group they made, as the moonlight streamed white and clear into their swarthy faces, and glittered upon the metallic ornaments about their persons and the polished blades of their long spears. Their high cheek-bones, bold, alert eyes, and straight, coal-black hair, suggested an intimate relationship with our own Indians; but the resemblance went no further. Most of their faces wore an expression of bold, frank honesty, which is not a characteristic of our western aborigines, and which we instinctively accepted as a sufficient guarantee of their friendliness and good faith. Contrary to our preconceived idea of northern savages, they were athletic, able-bodied men, fully up to the average height of Americans. Heavy _kukh-lánkas_ (kookh-lan'-kas), or hunting-shirts of spotted deerskin, confined about the waist with a belt, and fringed round the bottom with the long black hair of the wolverine, covered their bodies from the neck to the knee, ornamented here and there with strings of small coloured beads, tassels of scarlet leather, and bits of polished metal. Fur trousers, long boots of sealskin coming up to the thigh, and wolfskin hoods, with the ears of the animal standing erect on each side of the head, completed the costume which, notwithstanding its _bizarre_ effect, had yet a certain picturesque adaptation to the equally strange features of the moonlight scene. Leaving our Cossack Meranef, seconded by the Major, to explain our business and wants, Dodd and I strolled away to make a critical inspection of the encampment. It consisted of four large conical tents, built apparently of a framework of poles and covered with loose reindeerskins, confined in their places by long thongs of seal or walrus hide, which were stretched tightly over them from the apex of the cone to the ground. They seemed at first sight to be illy calculated to withstand the storms which in winter sweep down across this steppe from the Arctic Ocean; but subsequent experience proved that the severest gales cannot tear them from their fastenings. Neatly constructed sledges of various shapes and sizes were scattered here and there upon the snow, and two or three hundred pack-saddles for the reindeer were piled up in a symmetrical wall near the largest tent. Finishing our examination, and feeling somewhat bored by the society of fifteen or twenty Koraks who had constituted themselves a sort of supervisory committee to watch our motions, we returned to the spot where the representatives of civilisation and barbarism were conducting their negotiations. They had apparently come to an amicable understanding; for, upon our approach, a tall native with shaven head stepped out from the throng,