MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.1. Whistle-pipe, natural size. 2. Whistle-instrument, one-eighth of natural size;amouth-hole.
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 tomake 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 theVega. 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
DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES.DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES.
DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES.DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES.
point for forming a judgment both of the Scandinavian rock-etchings and the palæolithic drawings, which in recent times have played so great a part in enabling us to understand the oldest history of the human race. We have therefore zealously collected all that we could of Chukch carvings, drawings, and patterns. The most remarkable of these in one respect or another are to be found delineated in the woodcuts on the preceding pages.[288]
Many of the ivory carvings are old and worn, showing that they have been long in use, probably as amulets. Various of the animal images are the fruit of the imagination, and as such may be instructive. In general the carvings are clumsy, though showing a distinctive style. If we compare them with the Samoyed images we brought home with us, it appears that the genius of the Chukches for art has reached an incomparably higher development than that of the Polar race which inhabits the western portion of the north coast of Asia, on the other hand, they are in this respect evidently inferior to the Eskimo at Port Clarence. The Chukch drawings too are roughly and clumsily executed, but many of them exhibit a certain power of hitting off the object. These figures appear to me to show that the objections which have been raised to the genuineness of various palæolithic etchings, just on the ground of the artist's comparatively sure hand, are not justified. Even patterns and ivory buckles show a certain taste. Embroidery is done commonly onred-coloured strips of skin partly with white reindeer hair, partly with red and black wool, obtained in small quantity by barter from Behring's Straits. The supply of colouring material is not particularly abundant. It is obtained partly from the mineral kingdom (limonite of different colours, and graphite), partly from the vegetable kingdom (bark of various trees). The mineral colours are ground with water between flat stones. Bark is probably treated with urine. Red is the Chukches' favourite colour.
In order to make a contribution towards an answer to the disputed question, in what degree is the colour-sense developed among savages, Dr. Almquist during the course of the winter instituted comprehensive researches according to the method worked out by Professor FR. HOLMGREN. A detailed account of these is to be found inThe Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition, and in various scientific journals. Here I shall only state that Dr. Almquist gives the following as the final result of his investigation. "That the Chukches in general possess as good an organ for distinguishing colours as we Swedes. On the other hand, they appear not to be accustomed to observe colours, and to distinguish sharply any other colour than red. They bring together all reds as something special, but consider that green of a moderate brightness corresponds less with a green of less brightness than with a blue of the same brightness. In order to bring all greens together the Chukches thus require to learn a new abstraction". Of 300 persons who were examined, 273 had a fully developed colour-sense, nine were completely colour-blind, and eighteen incompletely colour-blind, or gave uncertain indications.
From what has been stated above it appears that the coast Chukches are without noteworthy religion, social organisation, or government. Had not experience from the Polar races of America taught us differently we should have believed that withsuch a literally anarchic and godless crew there would be no security for life and property, immorality would be boundless, and the weaker without any protection from the violence of the stronger sex. This, however, is so far from being the case that criminal statistics have been rendered impossible for want of crimes, if we except acts of violence committed under the influence of liquor.
CHUKCH BUCKLES AND HOOKS OF IVORY.CHUKCH BUCKLES AND HOOKS OF IVORY.Half the natural size.
During the winter theVegawas visited daily, as has been stated in the account of the wintering, by the people from the neighbouring villages, while our vessel at the same time formed a resting-place for all the equipages which travelled from the western tent-villages to the islands in Behring's Straits, andvice versâ. Not only our neighbours, but people from a distance whom we had never seen before, and probably would not seeagain, came and went without hindrance among a great number of objects which in their hands would have been precious indeed. We had never any cause to regret the confidence we placed in them. Even during the very hard time, when hunting completely failed, and when most of them lived on the food which was served out on board, the largedepôtof provisions, which we had placed on land without special watch, in case any misfortune should befall our vessel, was untouched. On the other hand, there were two instances in which they secretly repossessed themselves of fish they had already sold, and which were kept in a place on deck accessible to them. And with the most innocent countenance in the world they then sold them over again. This sort of dishonesty they evidently did not regard as theft but as a permissible commercial trick.
This was not the only proof that the Chukches consider deception in trade not only quite justifiable, but almost creditable. While their own things were always made with the greatest care, all that they did specially for us was done with extreme carelessness, and they were seldom pleased with the price that was offered, until they became convinced that they could not get more. When they saw that we were anxious to get ptarmigan, they offered us from their winter stock under this name the young ofLarus eburneus, which is marked in the same way, but of little use as food. When I with delight purchased this bird, which in its youthful dress is rare, and therefore valuable to the ornithologist, a self-satisfied smile passed over the countenance of the seller. He was evidently proud of his successful trick. Some prejudice, as has been already stated, prevented the Chukches from parting with the heads of the seal, though, in order to ascertain the species existing here, we offered a high price for them "Irgatti" (to-morrow), or "Isgatti," if the promise was given by a woman, was the usual answer. But the promise was never kept. At last a boy came and gave us a skull, which he said belonged to a seal. On a more minuteexamination, however, it was found not to have belonged to a seal, but to an old dog, whose head it was evidently thought might, without any damage to the hunting, be handed over to the white magicians. This time it went worse with the counterfeitor than in the case of the ptarmigan bargain. For a couple of my comrades undertook to make the boy ashamed in the presence of the other Chukches, saying with a laugh "that he, a Chukch, must have been very stupid to commit such a mistake," and it actually appeared as if the scoff had in this case fallen into good ground. Another time, while I was in my watch in the ice-house, there came a native to me and informed me that he had driven a man from Irgunnuk to the vessel, but that the man had not paid him, and asked me on that account to give him a box of matches. When I replied that he must have been already well paid on the vessel for his drive, he said in a whining tone, "only a very little piece of bread." He was not the least embarrassed when I only laughed at the, as I well knew, untruthful statement, and did not give him what he asked.
The Chukches commonly live in monogamy; it is only exceptionally that they have two wives, as was the case with Chepurin, who has been already mentioned. It appeared as if the wives were faithful to their husbands. It was only seldom that cases occurred in which women, either in jest or earnest, gave out that they wished a white man as a lover. A woman not exactly eminent for beauty or cleanliness said, for instance, on one occasion, that she had had two children by Chukches, and now she wished to have a third by one of the ship's folk. The young women were modest, often very pretty, and evidently felt the same necessity of attracting attention by small coquettish artifices as Eve's daughters of European race. We may also understand their peculiar pronunciation of the language as an expression of feminine coquetry. For when they wish to be attractive they replace the man'sr-sound with a soft
CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.1. Dog, natural size. 2, 3. Hares, natural size. 4. Woman carrying her child on her shoulders, two-thirds. 5. Mollusc from the inland lakes (Branchypus?) natural size. 6. Monster, natural size. 7. Fox, natural size. 8. Animal with three heads, two-thirds. 9. Asterid, natural size, 10. Fish, natural size.
s; thus,kórang(reindeer) is pronounced by the womenkosang, tirkir(the sun)tiskis, and so on.
The women work very hard. Not only the management of the children, the cooking, the melting of the ice, the putting the tent in order, the sewing, and other "woman's work," lie to their hand, but they receive the catch, in winter in the tent, in summer at the beach, cut it in pieces, help with the fishing, at least when it is in the neighbourhood of the tent, and carry out the exceedingly laborious tanning of the hides, and prepare thread from sinews. In summer they collect green plants in the meadows and hill-slopes in the neighbourhood of the tents. They are therefore generally at home, and always busy. The men have it for their share to procure for their family food from the animal kingdom by hunting and fishing. With this purpose in view they are often out on long excursions. In the tent the man is for the most part without occupation, sleeps, eats, gossips, chats with his children, and so on, if he does not pass the time in putting his hunting implements in order in a quite leisurely manner.
Within the family the most remarkable unanimity prevails, so that we never heard a hard word exchanged, either between man and wife, parents and children, or between the married pair who own the tent and the unmarried who occasionally live in it. The power of the woman appears to be very great. In making the more important bargains, even about weapons and hunting implements, she is, as a rule, consulted, and her advice is taken. A number of things which form women's tools she can barter away on her own responsibility, or in any other way employ as she pleases. When the man has by barter procured a piece of cloth, tobacco, sugar, or such like, he generally hands it over to his wife to keep.
The children are neither chastised nor scolded, they are, however, the best behaved I have ever seen. Their behaviour in the tent is equal to that of the best-brought-up Europeanchildren in the parlour. They are not, perhaps, so wild as ours, but are addicted to games which closely resemble those common among us in the country. Playthings are also in use, for instance, dolls, bows, windmills with two sails, &c. If the parents get any delicacy they always give each of their children a bit, and there is never any quarrel as to the size of each child's portion. If a piece of sugar is given to one of the children in a crowd it goes from mouth to mouth round the whole company. In the same way the child offers its father and mother a taste of the bit of sugar or piece of bread it has got. Even in childhood the Chukches are exceedingly patient. A girl who fell down from the ship's stair, head foremost, and thus got so violent a blow that she was almost deprived of hearing, scarcely uttered a cry. A boy, three or four years of age, much rolled up in furs, who fell down into a ditch cut in the ice on the ship's deck, and in consequence of his inconvenient dress could not get up, lay quietly still until he was observed and helped up by one of the crew.
CHUKCH DOLL.CHUKCH DOLL.One-eighth of the natural size.
The Chukches' most troublesome fault is a disposition to begging that is limited by no feeling of self-respect. This is probably counterbalanced by their unbounded hospitality and great kindness to each other, and is, perhaps, often caused by actual necessity. But they thus became veritable torments, putting to a hard test the patience, not only of the scientific men and officers, but also of the crew. The good nature with which our sailors met their demands was above all praise.
There was never any trace of disagreement between the natives and us, and I have every reason to suppose that our
CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.Seals, walrusses, a sea-bear (the lowest figure to the left). The four lowest are of the natural size, the others two-thirds of the natural size.
CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.Fishes, larvæ of flies (gorm), molluscs and whales. Nos. 1 to 9 and 14, natural size. Nos. 10 to 13, two-thirds of the natural size.
wintering will long be held in grateful remembrance by them, especially as, in order not to spoil their seal-hunting, I strictly forbade all unnecessary interference with it.
It is probably impossible for a Chukch to take the place of a European workman. It has, however, happened that Chukches have gone with whalers to the Sandwich Islands, and have become serviceable seamen. During our wintering two young men got accustomed to come on board and there to take a hand, in quite a leisurely way, at work of various kinds, as sawing wood, shovelling snow, getting ice on board, &c. In return they got food that had been left over, and thus, for the most part, maintained not only themselves, but also their families, during the time we remained in their neighbourhood.
If what I have here stated be compared with Sir EDWARD PARRY'S masterly sketches of the Eskimo at Winter Island and Iglolik, and Dr. SIMPSON'S of the Eskimo in North-western America, or with the numerous accounts we possess of the Eskimo in Danish Greenland, a great resemblance will be found to exist between the natural disposition, mode of life, failings and good qualities of the Chukches, the savage Eskimo, and the Greenlanders. This resemblance is so much more striking, as the Chukch and the Eskimo belong to different races, and speak quite different languages, and, as the former, to judge by old accounts of this people, did not, until the most recent generations, sink to the unwarlike, peace-loving, harmless, anarchic, and non-religious standpoint which they have now reached. It ought to be observed, however, that in the Eskimo of Danish Greenland no considerable alteration has been brought about by them all having learned to read and write and profess the Christian religion—although with an indifference to the consequences of original sin, the mysteries of redemption, and the punishments of hell, which all imaginable missionary zeal has not succeeded in overcoming. Their innocent natural state has not been altered in any considerable degree by beingsubjected to these conditions of culture. It is certain besides, that the blood which flows in the veins of the Greenlander is not pure Eskimo blood, but is mingled with the blood of some of the proudest martial races in the world. When we consider how rapidly, even now, when Greenland is in constant communication with the European mother-country, all descendants of mixed blood become complete Eskimo in language and mode of life, how difficult it often is, even for parents of pure European
CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS OF BIRDS.CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS OF BIRDS.Size of the originals.
descent, to get their children to speak any other language than that of the natives, and how they, on their part, seldom borrow a word from the Europeans, how common mixed marriages and natives of mixed blood are even now—in view of all this it appears to me much more probable that Erik the Red's colonists were quietly and peacefully converted into Eskimo, than that they were killed by the Eskimo. A single century's complete separation from Europe would be sufficient to carry out thoroughly this alteration of the present European population of Greenland, and by the end of that period the traditions of Danish rule would be very obscure in that land. Perhaps some trifling quarrel between a ruler of the colony and a native would take the foremost place among the surviving traditions, and be interpreted as a reminiscence from a war of extermination.
Even the present Chukches form, without doubt, a mixture of several races, formerly savage and warlike, who have been driven by foreign invaders from south to north, where they have adopted a common language, and on whom the food-conditions of the shore of the Polar Sea, the cold, snow, and darkness of the Arctic night, the pure, light atmosphere of the Polar summer, have impressed their ineffaceable stamp, a stamp which meets us with little variation, not only among the people now in question, but also—with the necessary allowance for the changes, not always favourable, caused by constant intercourse with Europeans—among the Lapps of Scandinavia and the Samoyeds of Russia.
It would be of great psychological interest to ascertain whether the change which has taken place in a peaceful direction is progress or decadence. Notwithstanding all the interest which the honesty, peaceableness, and innocent friendliness of the Polar tribes have for us, it is my belief that the answer must be—decadence. For it strikes us as if we witness here the conversion of a savage, coarse, and cruel man into abeing, nobler, indeed, but one in whom just those qualities which distinguish man from the animals, and to which at once the great deeds and the crimes of humanity have been due, have been more and more effaced, and who, if special protection or specially favourable circumstances be absent, will not be able to maintain the struggle for existence with new races that may seek to force their way into the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[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 calledamanates, 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'sArchiv, 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'sReise, 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).
[281]If the runners are not shod with ice in this way the friction between them and the hard snow is very great during severe cold, and the draught accordingly exceedingly heavy.
[282]Nearly all the travellers from a great distance who passed theVegahad their dogs harnessed in this way. On the other hand, Sarytschev says that at St. Lawrence Bay all the dogs were harnessed abreast, and that this was the practice at Moore's winter quarters at Chukotskojnos is shown by the drawing at p. 71 of Hooper's work, already quoted. We ought to remember that at both these places the population were Eskimos who had adopted the Chukch language. The Greenland Eskimo have their dogs harnessed abreast, the Kamchadales in a long row. Naturally dogs harnessed abreast are unsuitable for wooded regions. The different methods of harnessing dogs mentioned here, therefore, indicate that the Eskimo have lived longer than the Chukches north of the limit of trees.
[283]An exhaustive treatise on the food-substances which the Chukches gather from the vegetable kingdom, written by Dr. Kjellman, is to be found inThe Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition. Popov already states that the Chukches eat many berries, roots, and herbs (Müller, iii. p. 59).
[284]Already, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, all the Siberian tribes, men and women, old and young, smoked passionately (Hist. Généalog. des Tartares, p. 66).
[285]Dr. John Simpson gives good information regarding the American markets in hisObservations on the Western Esquimaux. He enumerates three market places in America besides that at Behring's Straits. At the markets people are occupied also with dancing and games, which are carried on in such a lively manner that the market people scarcely sleep during the whole time. Matiuschin gives a very lively sketch of the market at Anjui, to which, in 1821, the Chukches still went fully armed with spears, bows, and arrows (Wrangel'sReise, i. p. 270), and a visit to it in 1868 is described by C. von Neumann, who took part as Astronomer in von Maydell's expedition to Chukch Land (Eine Messe im Hochnorden; Das Ausland1880, p. 861).
[286]I have seen such pins, also oblong stones, sooty at one end, which, after having been dipped in train-oil, have been used as torches, laid by the side of corpses in old Eskimo graves in north-western Greenland.
[287]In the accounts which were collected regarding the Chukches at Anadyrsk in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is also stated that they lived without any government On the contrary, in M. von Krusenstern'sVoyage autour du monde, 1803-1806(Paris, 1821, ii. p. 151), a report of Governor Koscheleff is given on some negotiations which he had with a "chief of the whole Chukch nation". I take it for granted that the chiefship was of little account, and Koscheleff's whole sketch of his meeting with the supposed chief bears an altogether too lively European romantic stamp to be in any degree true to nature. At the same place it is also said that a brother of Governor Koscheleff, in the winter of 1805-1806, made a journey among the Chukches, on which, after his return, he sent a report, accompanied by a Chukch vocabulary, to von Krusenstern
[288]The originals of the drawings reproduced in the woodcuts are made on paper, part with the lead pencil, part with red ochre. The different groups representon the first page—1, a dog-team; 2, 3, whales; 4, hunting the Polar bear and the walrus; 5, bullhead and cod; 6, man fishing; 7, hare-hunting; 8, birds; 9, wood-chopper; 10, man leading a reindeer; 11, walrus hunt—7 and 9 represent Europeans.On the second page—1, a reindeer train; 2, a reindeer taken with a lasso by two men; 3, a man throwing a harpoon; 4, seal hunt from boat; 5, bear hunt; 6, the man in the moon; 7, man leading a reindeer; 8, reindeer; 9, Chukch with staff and an archer; 10, reindeer with herd; 11, reindeer; 12, two tents, man riding on a dog sledge, &c.
The development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia—Herodotus—Strabo—Pliny—Marco Polo—Herberstein's map—The conquest of Siberia by the Russians—Deschnev's voyages—Coast navigation between the Lena and the Kolyma—Accounts of islands in the Polar Sea and old voyages to them—The discovery of Kamchatka—The navigation of the Sea of Okotsk is opened by Swedish prisoners-of-war—The Great Northern Expedition—Behring—Schalaurov—Andrejev's Land—The New Siberian islands—Hedenström's expeditions—Anjou and Wrangel—Voyages from Behring's Straits westward—Fictitious Polar voyages.
Now that the north-eastern promontory of Asia has been at last circumnavigated, and vessels have thus sailed along all the coasts of the old world, I shall, before proceeding farther in my sketch of the voyage of theVega, give a short account of the development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia.
Already in primitive times the Greeks assumed that all the countries of the earth were surrounded by the ocean. STRABO, in the first century before Christ, after having shown that HOMER favoured this view, brings together in the first chapter of the First Book of his geography reasons in support of it in the following terms:—
"In all directions in which man has penetrated to the uttermost boundary of the earth, he has met the sea, that is, the ocean. He has sailed round the east coast towards India, the west coast towards Iberia and Mauritia, and a great part of the south and north coast. The remaining portion which has not yet been sailed round in consequence of the voyages which have been undertaken from both sides not having been connected, is inconsiderable. For those who have attempted to circumnavigatethe earth and have turned, declare that their undertaking did not fail in consequence of their having met with land, but in consequence of want of provisions and of complete timidity.
At sea they could always have gone further. This view (that the earth is surrounded by water) also accords better with the phenomena of the tides, for as the ebb and flow are everywhere the same, or at least do not vary much, the cause of this motion is to be sought for in a single ocean."[289]
But if men were thus agreed that the north coast of Asia and Europe was bounded by the sea, there was for sixteen hundred years after the birth of Christ no actual knowledge of the nature of the Asiatic portion of this line of coast. Obscure statements regarding it, however, were current at an early period.
While HERODOTUS, in the forty-fifth chapter of his Fourth Book, expressly says that no man, so far as was then known, had discovered whether the eastern and northern countries of Europe are surrounded by the sea, he gives in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of the same book the following account of the countries lying to the north-east:—
"As far as the territory of the Scythians all the land which we have described is an uninterrupted plain, with cultivable soil, but beyond that the ground is stony and rugged. And on the other side of this extensive stone-bound tract there live at the foot of a high mountain-chain men who are bald from their birth, both men and women, they are also flat-nosed and have large chins. They speak a peculiar language, wear the Scythian dress and live on the fruit of a tree. The tree on which they live is calledPonticon, is about as large as the wild fig-tree, and bears fruit which resembles a bean, but has a kernel. When this fruit is ripe, they strain it through a cloth, and the juice which flows from it is thick and black and calledaschy. This juice they suck or drink mixed with milk, and of the pressed fruits they make cakes which they eat, for they have not many cattle because the pasture is poor. As far as to these bald people the land is now sufficiently well known, also theraces on this side of them, because they are visited by Scythians. From them it is not difficult to collect information, which is also to be had from the Greeks at the port of the Borysthenes and other ports in Pontus. The Scythians who travel thither do business with the assistance of seven interpreters in seven languages. So far our knowledge extends. But of the land on the other side of the bald men none can give any trustworthy account because it is shut off by a separating wall of lofty trackless mountains, which no man can cross. But these bald men say—which, however, I do not believe—that men with goat's feet live on the mountains, and on the other side of them other men who sleep six months at a time. The latter statement, however, I cannot at all admit. On the other hand, the land east of the bald men, in which the Issedones live, is well known, but what is farther to the north, both on the other side of the bald men and of the Issedones, is only known by the statements of these tribes. Above the Issedones live the one-eyed men, and the gold-guarding griffins. This information the Scythians have got from the Issedones and we from the Scythians, and we call the one-eyed race by the Scythian name Arimaspi, for in the Scythian languagearimasignifies one andspouthe eye. The whole of the country which I have been speaking of has so hard and severe a winter, that there prevails there for eight months an altogether insupportable cold, so that if you pour water on the ground you will not make mud, but if you light a fire you will make mud. Even the sea freezes, and the whole Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Scythians who live within the trench travel on the ice and drive over it in waggons. . . . Again, with reference to the feathers with which the Scythians say the air is filled, and which prevent the whole land lying beyond from being seen or travelled through, I entertain the following opinion. In the upper parts of this country it snows continually, but, as is natural, less in summer than in winter. And whoever has seen snow falling thick near him will know what I mean. For snow resembles feathers, and on account of the winter being so severe the northern parts of this continent cannot be inhabited. I believe then that the Scythians and their neighbours called snow feathers, on account of the resemblance between them. This is what is stated regarding the most remote regions."
These and other similar statements, nowithstanding the absurdities mixed up with them, are founded in the first instance on the accounts of eye-witnesses, which have passedfrom mouth to mouth, from tribe to tribe, before they were noted down. Still several centuries after the time of Herodotus, when the Roman power had reached its highest point, little more was known of the more remote parts of north Asia. While Herodotus, in the two hundred and third chapter of his First Book, says that "the Caspian is a sea by itself having no communication with any other sea," Strabo, induced by evidence
MAP OF THE WORLD, SAID TO BE OF THE TENTH CENTURY.MAP OF THE WORLD, SAID TO BE OF THE TENTH CENTURY.
Found in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Library at Turin. (From Santarem's Atlas.)
MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING ASIA TO BE CONTINUOUS WITH AFRICA.MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING ASIA TO BE CONTINUOUS WITH AFRICA.
(From Nicolai Doni's edition ofPtolemæi Cosmographia, Ulm. 1482)
furnished by the commander of a Greek fleet in that sea, states (Book II. chapters i. and iv.) that the Caspian is a gulf of the Northern Ocean, from which it is possible to sail to India PLINY THE ELDER (Historia Naturalis, Book VI. chapters xiii. and xvii.) states that the north part of Asia is occupied by extensive deserts bounded on the north by the Scythian Sea, that these deserts run out to a headland,Promontorium Scythicum, which is uninhabitable on account of snow. Then there is a land inhabited by man-eating Scythians, then deserts, then Scythians again, then deserts with wild animals to a mountain ridge rising out of the sea, which is calledTabin. The first people that are known beyond this are the Seri. PTOLEMY and his successors again supposed, though perhaps not ignorant of the old statement that Africa had been circumnavigated under Pharaoh Necho, that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea, everywhere surrounded by land, which united southern Africa with the eastern part of Asia, an idea which was first completely abandoned by the chartographers of the fifteenth century after the circumnavigation of Africa by VASCO DA GAMA.
The knowledge of the geography of north Asia remained at this point until MARCO POLO,[290]in the narrative of his remarkablejourneys among the peoples of Middle Asia, gave some information regarding the most northerly lands of this quarter of the world also. The chapters which treat of this subject bear the distinctive titles: "On the land of the Tartars living in the north," "On another region to which merchants only travel in waggons drawn by dogs," and "On the region where darkness prevails" (De regione tenebrarum). From the statements in these chapters it follows that hunters and traders already inhabited or wandered about in the present Siberia, and brought thence valuable furs of the black fox, sable, beaver, &c. The northernmost living men were said to be handsome, tall and stout, but very pale for want of the sun. They obeyed no king or chief, but were coarse and uncivilised and lived as beasts[291]. Among the products of the northern countries white bears are mentioned, from which it appears that at that time the hunters had already reached the coast of the Polar Sea. But Marco Polo nowhere says expressly that Asia is bounded on the north by the sea.
All the maps of North Asia which have been published down to the middle of the sixteenth century, are based to a greater or less extent on interpretations of the accounts of Herodotus, Pliny, and Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole Indian Ocean with land, they give to Asia a much less extentin the north and east than it actually possesses, make the land in this direction completely bounded by sea, and delineate two headlands projecting towards the north from the mainland. To these they give the namesPromontorium ScythicumandTabin, and they besides place in the neighbourhood of the north coast a large island to which they give the name that already occurs in Pliny,Insula Tazata, which reminds us, perhaps by an
MAP OF THE WORLD AFTER FRA MAURO FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURYMAP OF THE WORLD AFTER FRA MAURO FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
(From Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro Camaldolese descritto ed illustrato da D. Placido Zurla, Venezia, 1806.)accidental resemblance of sound, of the name of the river and bay, Tas, between the Ob and the Yenisej. Finally, the borders of the maps are often adorned with pictures of wonderfully formed men, whose dwellings the hunters placed in those regions, the names being at the same time given of a larger or smaller number of peoples and cities mentioned by Marco Polo.