They would hang a bundle of furs or a choice walrus tooth upon the sharp polished blade of a long Chukchi lance, and if a Russian trader chose to take it off and suspend in its place a fair equivalent in the shape of tobacco, well and good; if not, there was no trade. This plan guaranteed absolute security against fraud, for there was not a Russian in all Siberia who dared to cheat one of these fierce savages, with the blade of a long lance ten inches from his breast bone. Honesty was emphatically the best policy, and the moral suasion of a Chukchi spear developed the most disinterested benevolence in the breast of the man who stood at the sharp end. The trade which was thus established still continues to be a source of considerable profit to the inhabitants of Anadyrsk, and to the Russian merchants who come there every year from Gizhiga. [Illustration: CHUKCHIS ASSEMBLING AT ANADYRSK FOR THE WINTER FAIR] The four small villages which compose the settlement, and which are distinctively known as "Pokorukof," "Osolkin," "Markova," and "The Crepast," have altogether a population of perhaps two hundred souls. The central village, called Markova, is the residence of the priest and boasts a small rudely built church, but in winter it is a dreary place. Its small log houses have no windows other than thick slabs of ice cut from the river; many of them are sunken in the ground for the sake of greater warmth, and all are more or less buried in snow. A dense forest of larch, poplar, and aspen surrounds the town, so that the traveller coming from Gizhiga sometimes has to hunt for it a whole day, and if he be not familiar with the net-work of channels into which the Anadyr River is here divided, he may not find it at all. The inhabitants of all four settlements divide their time in summer between fishing, and hunting the wild reindeer which make annual migrations across the river in immense herds. In winter they are generally absent with their sledges, visiting and trading with bands of Wandering Chukchis, going with merchandise to the great annual fair at Kolyma, and hiring their services to the Russian traders from Gizhiga. The Anadyr River, in the vicinity of the village and for a distance of seventy-five miles above, is densely wooded with trees from eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, although the latitude of the upper portion of it is 66° N. The climate is very severe; meteorological observations which we made at Markova in February, 1867, showed that on sixteen days in that month the thermometer went to -40°, on eight days it went below -50°, five days below -60°, and once to -68°. This was the lowest temperature we ever experienced in Siberia. The changes from intense cold to comparative warmth are sometimes very rapid. On February 18th, at 9 A.M., the thermometer stood at -52°, but in twenty-seven hours it had risen seventy-three degrees and stood at +21°. On the 21st it marked +3° and on the 22d