The Tchuktchis are a strongly-built race, although the inhabitants of this particular village, from intercourse with whaling vessels, have been much demoralised. One of these natives was seen carrying the awkward burden of a carpenter’s chest weighing two hundred pounds without apparently considering it a great exertion. They are a good-humoured people, and not greedier than the average of natives; they are very generally honest. They were of much service to a large party of men who wintered there in 1866-7, at the period when it was proposed to cross Behring Straits with a submarine cable in connection with the land lines then partly under construction by the Western Union Telegraph Company of America. “The children are so tightly sewn up in reindeer-skin clothing that they look like walking bags, and tumble about with the greatest impunity. All of these people wear skin coats, pantaloons, and boots, excepting only on high days in summer, when you may see a few old garments of more civilised appearance that have seen better days, and have been traded off by the sailors of vessels calling there. “The true Tchuktchi method of smoking is to swallow all the fumes of the tobacco; and I have seen them after six or eight pulls at a pipe fall back, completely intoxicated for the time being. Their pipes are infinitely larger in the stem than in the bowl; the latter, indeed, holds an infinitesimally small amount of tobacco. “It is said that the Tchuktchis murder the old and feeble, but only with the victim’s consent! They do not appear to indulge in any unnecessary cruelty, but endeavour to stupify the aged sacrifice before letting a vein. This is said to be done by putting some substance up the nostrils; but the whole statement must be received with caution, although we derived it from a shrewd native who had been much employed by the captains of vessels in the capacity of interpreter, and who could speak in broken English.