None of the natives in the neighbourhood of the Vega's winter station professed the Christian religion. None of them spoke any European language, though one or two knew a couple of English words and a Russian word of salutation. This was a very unfortunate circumstance, which caused us much trouble. But it was soon remedied by Lieut. Nordquist specially devoting himself to the study of their language, and that with such zeal and success that in a fortnight he could make himself pretty well understood. The natives stated to DE LONG in the autumn of 1879 that a person on the "man of war" which wintered on the north coast, spoke Chukch exceedingly well. The difficulty of studying the language was increased, to a not inconsiderable degree, by the Chukches in their wish to co-operate with us in finding a common speech being so courteous as not to correct, but to adopt the mistakes, in the pronunciation or meaning of words that were made on the Vega. As a fruit of his studies Lieut. Nordquist has drawn up an extensive vocabulary of this little known language, and given a sketch of its grammatical structure.[255] The knowledge of the Chukch language, which the other members of the Expedition acquired, was confined to a larger or smaller number of words; the natives also learned a word or two of our language, so that a lingua franca somewhat intelligible to both parties gradually arose, in which several of the crew soon became very much at home, and with which in
case of necessity one could get along very well, although in this newly formed dialect all grammatical inflections were totally wanting. Besides, I set one of the crew, the walrus-hunter Johnsen, free for a consideral time from all work on board, in order that he might wander about the country daily, partly for hunting, partly for conversing with the natives. He succeeded in the beginning of winter in killing some ptarmigan and hares, got for me a great deal of important information regarding the mode of life of the Chukches, and procured several valuable ethnographical objects. But after a time, for what reason I could never make out, he took an invincible dislike to visit the Chukch tents more, without however having come to any disagreement with their inhabitants.
On the 5th October the openings between the drift-ice fields next the vessel were covered with splendid skating ice, of which we availed ourselves by celebrating a gay and joyous skating festival. The Chukch women and children were now seen fishing for winter roach along the shore. In this sort of fishing a man, who always accompanies the fishing women, with an iron-shod lance cuts a hole in the ice so near the shore that the distance between the under corner of the hole and the bottom is only half a metre. Each hole is used only by one woman, and that only for a short time. Stooping down at the hole, in which the surface of the water is kept quite clear of pieces of ice by means of an ice-sieve, she endeavours to attract the fish by means of a peculiar wonderfully clattering cry. First when a fish is seen in seen in the water an angling line, provided with a hook of bone, iron or copper, is thrown down, strips of the entrails of fish being employed as bait. A small metre-long staff with a single or double crook in the end was also used as a fishing implement. With this little leister the men cast up fish on the ice with incredible dexterity. When the ice became thicker, this fishing was entirely given up, while during the whole winter a species of cod and another of grayling were taken in great quantity in a lagoon situated nearer Behring's Straits. The coregonus is also caught in the inland lakes, although, at least at this season of the year, only in limited quantity.
On the morning of the 6th October, we saw from the vessel an extraordinary procession moving forward on the ice. A number of Chukches drew a dog-sledge on which lay a man. At first we supposed it was a man who was very ill, and who came to seek the help of the physician, but when the procession reached the vessel's side, the supposed invalid climbed very nimbly up the ice-covered rope-ladder (our ice-stair was not yet in order), stepped immediately with a confident air, giving evidence of high rank, upon the half-deck, crossed himself, saluted graciously, and gave us to know in broken Russian that he was a man of importance in that part of the country. It now appeared that we were honoured with a visit from the representative of the Russian empire, WASSILI MENKA, the starost among the reindeer-Chukches. He was a little dark man, with a pretty worn appearance, clad in a white variegated "pesk" of reindeer skin, under which a blue flannel shirt was visible. In order immediately on his arrival to inspire us with respect, and perhaps also in order not to expose his precious life to the false Ran's treachery, he came to the vessel over the yet not quite trustworthy ice, riding in a sledge that was drawn not by dogs but by his men. On his arrival he immediately showed us credentials of his rank, and various evidences of the payment of tribute (or market tolls), consisting of some few red and some white fox-skins, reckoning the former at 1 rouble 80 copecks, the latter at 40 copecks each.
