Besides the drum the Chukches also use as a musical instrument a piece of wood, cloven into two halves, and again united after the crack has been somewhat widened in the middle, with a piece of whalebone inserted between the two halves. They also during the course of the winter made several attempts to make violins after patterns seen on board, and actually succeeded in making a better sounding-box than could have been expected beforehand. On the draught-strap of the dog sledge there was often a small bell bought from the Russians, and the reindeer-Chukches are said sometimes to wear bells in the belt.
The dance I saw consisted in two women or children taking each other by the shoulders, and then hopping now on the one foot now on the other. When many took part in the dance, they placed themselves in rows, sang a monotonous, meaningless song, hopped in time, turned the eyes out and in, and threw themselves with spasmodic movements, clearly denoting pleasure and pain, now to the right, now to the left "La saison" for dance and song, the time of slaughtering reindeer, however, did not happen during our stay, on which account our experience of the Chukches' abilities in this way is exceedingly limited.
All sport they entered into with special delight, for instance, some trial shooting which Palander set on foot on New Year's Day afternoon, with a small rifled cannon on the Vega. At first the women sat aft with the children, far from the dreadful shooting weapon, and indicated their feelings by almost the same gestures as on such occasions are wont to distinguish the weaker and fairer sex of European race. But soon curiosity took the upper hand. They pressed forward where they could see best, and broke out in a loud "Ho, ho, ho!" when the shot was fired and the shells exploded in the air.
Of what sort is the art-sense of the Chukches? As they still almost belong to the Stone Age, and as their contact with Europeans has been so limited that it has not perhaps conduced to alter their taste and skill in art, this question appears to me to have a great interest both for the historian of art, who here obtains information as to the nature of the seed from which at last the skill of the master has been developed in the course of ages and millenniums, and for the archæologist, who finds here a starting
