At the same time the greatest unanimity reigned in the little headless community. Children, healthy and thriving, tenderly cared for by the inhabitants, were found in large numbers. A good word to them was sufficient to pave the way for a friendly reception in the tent. The women were treated as the equals of the men, and the wife was always consulted by the husband when a more important bargain than usual was to be made; many times it was carried through only after the giver of advice had been bribed with a neckerchief or a variegated handkerchief. The articles which the man purchased were immediately committed to the wife's keeping. One of the children had round his neck a band of pearls with a Chinese coin having a square hole in the middle, suspended from it; another bore a perforated American cent piece. None knew a word of Russian, but here too a youngster could count ten in English. They also knew the word "ship." In all the tents, reindeer stomachs were seen with their contents, or sacks stuffed full of other green herbs. Several times we were offered in return for the bits of sugar and pieces of tobacco which we distributed, wrinkled root-bulbs somewhat larger than a hazel nut, which had an exceedingly pleasant taste, resembling that of fresh nuts. A seal caught in a net among the ice during our visit was cut up in the tent by the women. On this occasion they were surrounded by a large number of children, who were now and then treated to bloody strips of flesh. The youngsters carried on the work of cutting up _con amore_, coquetting a little with their bloody arms and faces. The rock which prevails in this region consists mainly of gabbro, which in the interior forms several isolated, black, plateau-formed hills, 100 to 150 metres high, between which an even, grassy, but treeless plain extends. It probably rests on sedimentary strata. For on the western side of Irkaipij the plutonic rock is seen to rest on a black slate with traces of fossils, for the most part obscure vegetable impressions, probably belonging to the Permian Carboniferous formation. Uneasy at the protracted delay here I made an excursion to a hill in the neighbourhood of our anchorage, which, according to a barometrical measurement, was 129 metres high, in order, from a considerable height, to get a better view of the ice than was possible by a boat reconnaisance. The hill was called by the Chukches Hammong-Ommang. From it we had an extensive view of the sea. It was everywhere covered with closely packed drift-ice. Only next the land was seen an open channel, which, however, was interrupted in an ominous way by belts of ice.