To leave nothing undone which could possibly be effected, Wrangell advanced to the eastward along the coast, past Cape North, seen in Cook’s last voyage, and proceeded as far as Koliutschin Island, where he found some Tchuktchi, who had come over from Bering’s Straits to trade. With this journey terminated Wrangell’s labors on the coasts, or on the surface of the Polar Sea, and, at the beginning of the following winter, we find him taking a final leave of Nishne-Kolymsk. On January 10, 1824, he arrived at Jakutsk, and a few months later at Petersburg. If we consider the difficulties he had to encounter, and his untiring zeal and courage in the midst of privations and dangers, it is only fair to admit that his name deserves to be ranked among the most distinguished explorers of the Arctic world. CHAPTER XXI. THE TUNGUSI. Their Relationship to the Mantchou.--Dreadful Condition of the outcast Nomads.--Character of the Tungusi.--Their Outfit for the Chase.--Bear-hunting.--Dwellings.--Diet.--A Night’s Halt with Tungusi in the Forest.--Ochotsk. Though both belonging to the same stock, the fate of the Tungusi and Mantchou has been very different; for at the same time when the latter conquered the vast Chinese Empire, the former, after having spread over the greatest part of East Siberia, and driven before them the Jakuts, the Jukahiri, the Tchuktchi, and many other aboriginal tribes, were in their turn subjugated by the mightier Russians. In the year 1640 the Cossacks first encountered the Tungusi, and in 1644 the first Mantchou emperor mounted the Chinese throne. The same race which here imposes its yoke upon millions of subjects, there falls a prey to a small number of adventurers. However strange the fact, it is, however, easily explained, for the Chinese were worse armed and less disciplined than the Mantchou, while the Tungusi had nothing but bows and arrows to oppose to the Cossack fire-arms; and history (from Alexander the Great to Sadowa) teaches us that victory constantly sides with the best weapons. In their intellectual development we find the same difference as in their fortunes between the Mantchou and the Siberian Tungusi. Two hundred and fifty years ago the former were still nomads, like their northern kinsfolk, and could neither read nor write, and already they have a rich literature, and their language is spoken at the court of Peking; while the Tungusi, oppressed and sunk in poverty, are still as ignorant as when they first encountered the Cossacks.