The Ostiaks generally make a great many visits to a girl’s father, before her price is settled; and each time a strong effort is made to abate the sum, so as to get as cheap a bargain as possible. The price varies from ten to one hundred reindeer; but the bride usually brings some dowry to her husband. As soon as the young man has paid half the price they have agreed upon, he comes to the hut and takes up his abode there. If he likes the girl, who without further ceremony is considered his wife, he is bound to give her mother a reindeer; but if he has cause for dissatisfaction, she is obliged to give him one. The husband cannot take his wife to his own hut, or beat her without her father’s permission, until the whole of her price is paid. On payment of the second installment, a wedding feast is given, and the company divert themselves with singing, dancing, and stories of love or war. The men and women dance together, in couples, with a variety of amorous gestures. The Tungusians are the prettiest women in Siberia, and the men are the best archers. Some of them tattoo lines, curves, and figures on various parts of the face. It is done by drawing threads, blackened with soot, under the skin. The threads are soon withdrawn, but when the violent inflammation subsides, dark blue marks appear, which are never afterward erased. This painful operation is performed on children from six to ten years old. A wife is bought for a few reindeer, but not even the simple and universal ceremony of a feast takes place in commemoration of the event. The Samoyedes have such squat figures, large heads, small eyes, flat noses, and wide mouths, that some old travellers described them as human beings with dogs’ heads. The women are said to be somewhat less ugly than the men. A Samoyede has as many wives as he can furnish reindeer to pay for; but no ceremonies of any kind consecrate their marriages. The Tchuktchi are among the wildest of the Siberians. They consider it wrong and disgraceful to rob or murder one of their own tribe; but such actions are regarded as honorable, and even glorious, when committed upon the members of any other tribe. This is a good commentary on Christian and enlightened nations, who consider it a great sin to make slaves of their own people, but regard the self-same action as perfectly justifiable toward persons of different complexion. If savage nations could write _our_ history, how ridiculous they might make us appear by stating simple facts, without the varnish of sophistry with which we are accustomed to conceal them!