[271] The north coast of America still forms the haunt of a not inconsiderable Eskimo population which, for a couple of centuries, has extended to the 80th degree of latitude. As the climate in the north part of the Old World differs little from that which prevails in corresponding regions of the New, as at both places there is an abundant supply of fish, and as the seal and walrus hunting—at least between the Yenisej and the Chatanga—ought to be as productive as on the north coast of America, this difference, which has arisen only recently, is very striking. It appears to me to be capable of explanation in the following way. Down to our days a large number of small savage tribes in America have carried on war with each other, the weaker, to escape extermination by the more powerful races, being compelled to flee to the ice deserts of the north, deeming themselves fortunate if they could there, in peace from their enemies, earn a living by adopting the mode of life of the Polar races, suitable as it is to the climate and resources of the land. The case was once the same in Siberia, and there are many indications that fragments of conquered tribes have been in former times driven up from the south, not only to the north coast of the mainland, but also beyond it to the islands lying off it. In Siberia, however, for the last 250 years, the case has been completely changed by the Russian conquest of the country. The pressure of the new government has, notwithstanding many single acts of violence, been on the whole less destructive to the original population than the influence which the Europeans have exerted in America. The Russian power has at least held a wholly beneficial influence, inasmuch as it has prevented the continual feuds between the native races. The tribes driven to the inhospitable North have been enabled to return to milder regions, and where this has not taken place they have, in the absence of new migrations from the South, succumbed in the fight with cold, hunger, and small-pox, or other diseases introduced by their new masters.
[272] Cornelis de Bruin, Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie, &c., Amsterdam, 1711, p. 12. The author's name is also written De Bruyn and Le Brun.
[273] Herodotus already states in book iv. chapter 196, that the Carthagenians bartered goods in the same way with a tribe living on the coast of Africa beyond the Gates of Hercules. The same mode of barter was still in use nearly two thousand years later, when the west coast of Africa was visited by the Venetian Cadamosto, in 1454 (Ramusio, i., 1588, leaf 100).
[274] As security for the subjection of the conquered races, the Russians were accustomed to take a number of men and women from their principal families as hostages. These persons were called amanates, and were kept in a sort of slavery at the fixed winter dwellings of the Russians.
[275] The work is a translation made at Tobolsk by Swedish officers, prisoners of war from the battle of Pultava, from a Tartan manuscript by Abulgasi Bayadur Chan. The original manuscript (?) is in the library at Upsala, to which it was presented in 1722 by Lieutenant-Colonel Schönström. The translation has notes by Bentinck, a Dutchman by birth, who was also taken prisoner in the Swedish service at Pultava.
[276] Lütké says (Erman's Archiv, iii. p. 464) that the peaceful relations with the Chukches begin after the conclusion of a peace which was brought about ten years after the abandonment of Anadyrsk, where for thirty-six years there had been a garrison of 600 men, costing over a million roubles. This peace this formerly so quarrelsome people has kept conscientiously down to our days with the exception of some market brawls, which induced Treskin, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, to conclude with them, in 1817, a commercial treaty which appears to have been faithfully adhered to, to the satisfaction and advantage of both parties (Dittmar, p. 128).
[277] Müller has likewise saved from oblivion some other accounts regarding the Chukches, collected soon after at Anadyrsk. When we now read these accounts, we find not only that the Chukches knew the Eskimo on the American side, but also stories regarding the Indians of Western America penetrated to them, and further, through the authorities in Siberia, came to Europe, a circumstance which deserves to be kept in mind in judging of the writings of Herodotus and Marco Polo.
[278] Sauer, An Account, &c., pp. 255 and 319. Sarytschev, Reise, übersetzt von Busse, ii. p. 102.
[279] Über die Koriäken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten Tschuktschen (Bulletin historico-philologique de l'Académie de St. Pétersbourg, t. xiii., 1856, p. 126.)
[280] That the Chukches burn their dead with various ceremonies is stated by Sarytschev on the ground of communications by the interpreter Daurkin, who lived among the reindeer-Chukches from 1787 to 1791, in order to learn their language and customs, and to announce the arrival of Billings' expedition (Sarytschev's Reise, ii. p. 108). The statement is thus certainly quite trustworthy. The coast population with whom Hooper came in contact, on the other hand, laid out their dead on special stages, where the corpses were allowed to be eaten up by ravens or to decay (loc. cit.
p. 88).