[52] Cossack whip.
We had lost three dogs during the blizzard on Tchaun Bay, and the rest were so weary and footsore that it seemed little short of brutal to drive them on. But to stop here meant starvation, so we struggled painfully onwards to the eastward, growing weaker and weaker every hour. At times I felt as if I must lie down in the snow and give way to an overpowering feeling of drowsiness, and Harding and De Clinchamp afterwards confessed that they frequently experienced the same feeling. But Stepan, perhaps more inured to hardships than ourselves, was the life and soul of our party during that long, miserable day, and it was chiefly due to his dogged determination (combined with a small slice of luck) that on that very night, when things seemed to be on the very verge of a fatal termination, we came upon signs of human life in the shape of a kayak with a paddle propped against it on the snowy beach. An hour later we sighted our goal—the first Tchuktchi settlement! And the relief with which I beheld those grimy, walrus-hide huts can never be described, for even this foul haven meant salvation from the horrors of a lingering death.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE ARCTIC
Our reception by the Tchuktchis at Cape Shelagskoi[53] was so surly that I began to think there might be some reason for the repeated warnings of our friends on the Kolyma. Two or three woebegone creatures in ragged deerskins, crawled out of the huts and surveyed us with such suspicion and distrust that I verily believe they took us for visitors from the spirit world. As a rule the Tchuktchi costume is becoming, but these people wore shapeless rags, matted with dirt, and their appearance suggested years of inactivity and bodily neglect. I noticed, however with satisfaction that their churlish greeting was not unmingled with fear, although they obstinately refused the food and shelter begged for by means of signs, pointing, at the same time, to a black banner flapping mournfully over the nearest hut. This I knew (from my experiences at Oumwaidjik in 1896) to be the Tchuktchi emblem of death. Our sulky hosts then indicated a dark object some distance away upon the snow, which I sent Stepan to investigate, and the Cossack quickly returned, having found the corpses of several men and women in an advanced stage of decomposition. An infectious disease was apparently raging, for several sufferers lay helpless on the ground of the first hut we entered. I imagine the malady was smallpox, for a lengthened experience of Siberian prisons has made me familiar with the characteristic smell which accompanies the confluent form of this disease. On the other hand, it may have been kor, the mysterious epidemic which had lately desolated the Kolyma district, and of which we had heard even as far south as Yakutsk.
[53] Von Wrangell writes that during his coast journey an old Tchuktchi near here told him that he was descended from the Chelagi, or, as they are usually called by the Tchuktchi, the Tchewany, who many years since migrated towards the west and have not since been seen. He adds: "The first of these names has been preserved in Cape Shelagskoi, and the second in that of Tchewan or Tchaun Bay."
But food must be obtained at any cost. To leave this place without an adequate supply would have been sheer madness, especially as we had ascertained from the natives that the next settlement was at least nine "sleeps" (or, in Tchuktchi dialect, days) away. Our own stores had now dwindled down to a few frozen fish, but here, for the first (and by no means the last) time, vodka came in useful, for there lives no Tchuktchi who will not sell his soul for alcohol. The fiery spirit procured seal-meat sufficient to last us, with care, for ten days. I can safely say that this is the most disgusting diet in creation, but we devoured it greedily, with keen appetites sharpened by the knowledge that twenty-four hours more would have seen us starving.
There were about thirty people in this place who had escaped the prevailing pestilence, but all showed such a marked aversion to our presence that I sparingly dispensed our vodka. A drunken Tchuktchi is a murderous devil, and I had no desire to repeat my experiences amongst these people of 1896, when my life was more than once in jeopardy during their orgies. However, the natives of Erktrik (as this place is called), were so openly hostile that even the usually truculent Mikouline, who once, under the influence of his favourite beverage, had offered to accompany me to a much warmer and remoter place than this, was paralysed with fear. I therefore resolved to push on early the following day (April 22), but that night we were all too exhausted to keep the usual watch, and when we awoke late the next morning our three Kolyma friends had bolted, taking some of our seal-meat with them. There can be no doubt that the fugitives perished trying to reach their home, for panic had deprived them of the reasoning power to steal a sled and dogs, or even a compass, which they might easily have done. The food the poor fellows took was perhaps sufficient for a week's consumption, certainly not for a journey of at least a couple of months on foot. A more vicious and unprincipled scoundrel than Mikouline probably never existed, and yet I missed him sorely afterwards, and would give a good deal, notwithstanding all the trouble he gave me, to know that the little ruffian had reached the Kolyma in safety. But this is, I fear, outside the bounds of possibility. We did not leave the next day, for Erktrik, or rather Cape Shelagskoi, proved a Pandora's box of unpleasant surprises, including another tempest, which, though not so severe as the poorga which preceded it, detained us here for forty-eight hours. These were passed in scouring the coast in search of the drivers, but although their footsteps were visible for a couple of miles they ceased abruptly where the runaways had taken to the ice in order to recross Tchaun Bay.