Across Arctic America/Chapter 27
Chapter XXVII
The Bolshevik Contrast
While flying before the gale on board the Silver Wave, just off Cape Prince of Wales, we sighted a little flotilla of quaint looking skin boats that came dancing over the choppy waters of the Bering Strait. The sails were so close-reefed that the wind had but the merest rags to catch hold of, but the boats were heavy laden, and tore through the waves like so many flapping seabirds.
It was a party of Siberian Eskimos from East Cape, on their way home from Teller, where they had been to trade. It was a hurried meeting, but thrilling in its way, and left me more than ever keen to visit these people on their own ground. In the extreme eastern corner of Siberia live the most westerly of all the Eskimos, and here surely was the most fitting point at which to end the Expedition.
Before landing anywhere in Siberia, it was necessary, I knew, to have a passport issued by the Central Office of the Soviet Government in Moscow. I had no such pass, for reasons which will appear later on. I was therefore prepared to meet with some difficulty, but my own keen interest in the task led me to imagine that my reasons must appear sound enough to anyone. The obstacles to be reckoned with arose from causes which had nothing whatever to do with my own work and aims. In the first place, relations between the Soviet Republic and America were generally strained, and secondly there was a particular cause of dispute just now in the matter of certain small schooners which had for generations past traded with Siberia under the United States flag, and now wished to continue without paying for the license which the new government not unreasonably demanded.
There were two ways of crossing Bering Strait. I could go in an Eskimo boat. This would be, to me, the easiest and simplest way of accomplishing my errand; but there was this disadvantage attached to it, that the native skin boats can only cross with a certain wind, and I might have to wait some time for it. And I had no time to spare. Also, in the event of any collision with the authorities on the other side, I should be alone, and at the mercy of any arbitrary official.
The other way was to charter a schooner. I should then have the advantage of being in company with other white men; on the other hand, it might prejudice my case if I were to arrive in one of those very vessels which were the subject of dispute.
Anyhow, the crossing must be made somehow. Ultimately, I chartered a small schooner, the Teddy Bear, captain and owner Joe Bernard, a well known and respected personality in these waters. I had at once, on getting into touch with the wireless at Kotzebue, sent off a message asking for permission to land from the Soviet Government, but after waiting three weeks I was forced to start without it, as otherwise the season would have been too far advanced to cross at all.
Bering Strait is one of the most treacherous waters in the world, gale follows gale almost incessantly, and in this part of Alaska there are practically no harbors in which one can seek refuge. We started on the 8th of September, and had a stormy week to start with, which forced us to seek the shelter of small islands and headlands here and there, shifting our refuges from time to time as the wind changed about, and in daily peril of being carried out into the still more dreaded Bering Sea. At last, on the 16th, about noon, the weather began to clear, and that evening, in the dark, we passed Cape Prince of Wales. From here, our course lay past Diomede Island over to East Cape itself. We came from Teller, and rounded the steep black cliffs in fine weather; the summits stood right up among the clouds, and there was a mighty wash of breakers at the foot. At the extreme limit of the land, on a piece of level ground, was an Eskimo encampment. We heard women laughing, dogs barking, and children at play, but saw only a cluster of lighted gutskin windows, the only visible sign of human habitation.
I was tired out after the restless threshing about of those stormy days, and turned in early that night, but next morning at dawn, Captain Bernard came in and roused me; we were nearing Diomede Island. I turned out at once; it was still barely light and I could just make out a great dark mass rising sheer and inhospitable from the sea, with thousands of seabirds wheeling and screaming over the cliffs, while the water broke in a scurry of foam on the rocks below. And this was fair weather—what would it look like in a storm? Yet the place was inhabited, though it looked like a bird cliff and nothing more. We made in towards the headland, intending to anchor, but just then a mass of fog came up, and the island vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. We gave up the idea of a visit for the time being, and made straight for East Cape.
Towards noon the fog lifted, and we sighted a forbidding rocky coast with snowclad hills rising from the sea. There was a desperate loneliness in the bare look of that land; a fitting aspect for the utmost verge of a continent. Masses of drift ice lay spread along the shore; the place looked desolate and far from any recognized route to anywhere. It was almost a shock to perceive a big steamer making straight towards us. The vessel was a patrol boat, and we were soon aware that the Soviet was keeping guard over its farthest frontiers. We hoisted the Danish flag, and the big boat seemed to peer inquisitively, only to turn its back on us next moment as if disdaining to approach anything so insignificant.
The ice almost hides the Eskimo village from view, and we can barely make it out. Anyhow, there is no shelter here, so we shape our course for Emmatown, some miles farther south. Captain Bernard, an experienced navigator, knows that the coast there will be clear of ice with this wind, and give us anchorage under shelter of a spit of land. There is a small township there consisting of a few Tchukchi families, 
We came sailing in with the Danish flag flying, and at once the red flags of the Republic were hoisted on shore. I am not sure that they had seen the white cross in ours. Captain Bernard and I were both pretty certain we were in for a trying day, and accordingly, had a good meal before going on shore. At last we got the dinghy out, and rowed to land, where we were met by a well known trader named Charley Carpendale, who has lived here for a generation. He at once introduced us to a giant of a man, whose height was further accentuated by a tall fur cap; this is the frontier guard, Allayeff. We shook hands, and I found myself looking into a pair of very friendly eyes; but there was a hint of obstinacy about the mouth that I feared might mean trouble. We found here also a Russian-English interpreter named Leo, and some traders from the recently established Soviet store.
We had hardly got our boat hauled up on shore before Allayeff requested us to accompany him to the police station. Here, with the energetic assistance of Bernard, I endeavored to explain my errand, and the reason for my having no passport, at the same time requesting permission to stay for a month among the Eskimos of East Cape. I promised, of course, that no trading should take place with the natives.
Allayeff declared that he had no authority to give me any such permission, and that if we did not put to sea again at once he would be obliged to send me under escort to the Governor at Wahlen. I recognized that this would at least prolong my stay in the country, and add to my chance of obtaining what I wanted; accordingly, I declared my willingness to make the journey.
I was then led over to the Tchukchi village, where a team of twelve dogs was in readiness. I had barely time to glance at the place. It was at once evident that these were people of a different type from the cheery, noisy Eskimos. These men looked serious, and from their expression, appeared to regard me as some dangerous criminal. Curious types there were among them, but all looked poor and ill cared for. Women came out from the big dome-shaped walrus hide tents and stared curiously at our party; they were not unaccustomed to seeing people carried off never to return. A few dirty children clustered round the sledge.
All my papers had been taken from me and handed to the Tchukchi who is to take me to the Governor. The dogs are started—a miserable team—and we move slowly over the sodden, melancholy tundra. Not a trace of snow here, only swamp and watercourse and marsh. The only enlivening feature of the landscape is the neck of East Cape rising strongly in the east; there, the first snow has already fallen on the heights, and gleams encouragingly; but for the rest there is nothing but flat marshland, mud and mire and wet; and as if this were not enough, the sky sends down a steady soaking drizzle.
My driver had his own way of urging on his team. He carried a special kind of harpoon, with a sharp-pointed nail at one end, which he threw from time to time out among the dogs. At first they stopped dead; then, with howls of pain, they put on the pace for a few minutes. It was a pitiful proceeding for an experienced driver to watch; but the man was my jailer at present, and all my papers were in his charge, so it would hardly be wise to interfere. Moreover, there was no means of making oneself understood.
The dog-harpoon, or flying whip, is furnished at the kindlier end with a bunch of steel rings that rattle when shaken, and the sound also serves to urge on the team to fresh effort; evidently, the poor beasts have learned by experience what to expect if they fail to answer this hint. The dogs were harnessed in pairs, and I will in justice admit that despite their slowness, doubtless due to a summer on short commons, they were most obedient. After a couple of hours' energetic persuasion, they seemed to think it as well to make an end of the business, and went on at such a pace that we had to take it in turns to sit on the sledge.
I had always wanted to visit Russia, but the atmosphere of this monotonous tundra, the endless unchanging expanse of cheerless waste, was hardly what I had looked forward to. Moreover, I was not altogether free from anxiety as to the outcome of the interview awaiting me. Nevertheless, I was convinced that I had done the right thing so far.
Some distance out we encountered another sledge coming from the opposite direction; it proved to be a Tchukchi, who spoke a few words of English, and we halted for a few minutes' talk. It was an awkward sort of conversation, standing there in the drizzling rain, shifting our feet continually to keep from sinking into the mud. I could not make out my fellow-traveller's name; it sounded rather like the chatter of a seagull as he pronounced it. He was very interested in my doings. Was I a trader? Had we any sort of goods on board our ship, and would we trade with him, somewhere out of sight along the shore?
I explained that I wished to conform to the law of the land, at which he protested, urging that the shops were all empty, and one could not even purchase ammunition. To make my own position clearer, I told him a little story I had heard myself regarding one of the American traders a few weeks before our arrival at East Cape. He had been informed, through one of the Eskimos on Diomede Island, that the Russian authorities had no objection to his landing at East Cape and trading with the natives there. Trusting to this safe conduct, he went across, and started bartering, only to find himself immediately seized and accused of illicit trading. All the ready cash on board his vessel, some $2000, was confiscated; the trader himself got away, thankful that they had not taken his ship as well. But when the Eskimo intermediary on Diomede Island heard what had happened to his friend, he crossed to the mainland himself to complain of having been made the instrument of a plot in defiance of good faith. All he got for his pains was a fine of $25 for insulting the authorities, and the 
My Tchukchi friend nodded sadly, as one who understood only too well. And we agreed that it would not be wise to risk any cause of conflict under present conditions. We shook hands heartily, and parted. I could see his team winding through the long grass like a serpent till it dwindled and finally disappeared.
The mist gave place to a magnificent rainbow arched across the heights; the weather cleared, and we arrived at Wahlen in a golden sunset, we ourselves, however, covered in mud from head to foot.
Wahlen is prettily situated on a low spit of land with the native yarrangs strung out like beads on a string. In the midst of these primitive, but picturesque walrus hide dwellings stood a big brand-new building, the residence of the Governor, looking perhaps a trifle self-assertive against the rest. Out at sea, the ice was packed as close as in winter, but in shore was a broad lagoon with smooth water reflecting houses and hills. It was perfectly calm, and the smoke from the cooking fires hung over the place in a fluffy white cloud.
As we drove up, a crowd of loose dogs came running out and entered into a lively battle with our team. At the same time, the men of the place crowded in from all sides and surrounded us; heedless of the dogs which tore at their skin clothing, they plied my companion with questions in a tongue of which I could not understand a word.
In front of the yarrangs stood women in their curious combination garments of reindeer skin, worn as a rule with one arm out of the sleeve, leaving half the body naked. They were not without a certain simple grace, rather reserved, and trying not to appear inquisitive. I had not time to study them closely, however; an elderly man, broad-shouldered and of stern countenance, stepped forward and I braced myself to meet the Governor. As it turned out, however, this was only a bankrupt trader-one of the victims of the new monopoly. A moment later another Russian appeared, dressed from head to foot in sealskin; he introduced himself in excellent English as Peter Cossigan, trader and interpreter.
Authoritatively he waved the crowd aside, got my papers from the driver, and led the way up to Government House, where my fate was to be decided. On the way, I managed hurriedly to explain who I was and what I wanted. As a sufferer under the present régime, he seemed inclined to sympathize with my position.
Despite the commotion occasioned by our arrival among the natives, none of the Government officials appeared, and we made our way in to the office. Here all was wild disorder, with papers and documents strewn about everywhere, and a medley of people dodging about and getting in one another's way.
"Datskaya Ekspeditiya" is all that I could make out of what is said in the course of an eloquent speech introducing me to the Governor, one Nikolaus Losseff. He wore a ragged old sweater, and his manners were as informal as his dress. Losseff appeared to be a kindly soul, personally most willing to oblige, and was deeply distressed on hearing what is the matter. I was introduced to the other officials present: Vassili Dimitrievitch Kouslmin, Chief of Police, newly arrived from Leningrad; Peter Bodroff, Inspector of Finances for the Chukotsk Peninsula, and Police-Constable Maxim Penkin, a giant of a man, who smiled with the simple kindliness of giants as a race.
The Chief of Police at once took over all my papers, including a passport issued from Montreal, a letter of recommendation from the Danish Legation at Washington, a letter from the Danish Consul at Seattle, and one from the American Minister of the Interior, strongly emphasizing the purely scientific aims of the Expedition. Unfortunately, it soon appeared that the Chief of Police could not read our alphabet, and the Governor, who is in no better case, strides up and down the office, to all appearance much perturbed. All these people have treated me with the greatest courtesy, altogether different from what I had expected of the new Soviet type; and after the exaggerated informality of Canadian and American manners, it was quite refreshing to see a man bow, actually bow politely, when one is introduced. A chair was placed for me, and Russian cigarettes were offered. Then the negotiations commenced. I was no longer conscious of my wet clothes; my one thought now was for the Expedition. With the aid of an excellent interpreter, I endeavored to make clear to them that my object in visiting East Cape was strictly and exclusively scientific, and that this was abundantly evident from the papers I had shown them. With all the energy at my command I urged that my having no passport was due to the fact that there was no Government of Siberia in existence at the time when I started from Denmark, and that the Governorship of Wahlen was not established until a year after. Also that I had endeavored, through the nearest Danish consulate, to get into communication with Moscow, but in vain. And finally, that after three years of travelling from one Eskimo settlement to another, I had arrived at East Cape in order to study the Eskimos there, and begged the Soviet authorities to accord me the same facilities as I had received in Canada and America, where an Expedition coming from the Arctic regions is regarded as exempt from passport formalities.
In vain the Governor tugged at his hair, went out and came in and went out of the room again, all the time hugging the one solid fact which he seemed unable to get over, namely, that I had no passport from the Supreme Government in Moscow, and that his instructions left no margin for acting at his own discretion. I was further informed that the great concentration of officials was due to the strained relations existing between the Soviet and the rest of the world, and not least the formal conflict regarding the possession of Wrangel Island, to which place a warship had been despatched that summer.
Scientists do not appear to be popular after Vilhjalmur Stefansson's exploit in planting the British flag on Wrangel Island, which the Russians regard as Russian territory. England refused to recognize the annexation, and Stefansson established a trading concern on the island by himself, but later ceded the rights to a syndicate at Nome, which brought over Alaskan Eskimos to the disputed colony.
All unsuspecting, I had tumbled innocently into a political wasps' nest, and made the best use of such arguments as I could find, pointing out, for instance, that it would hardly be wise to turn away a scientific expedition from Russian territory after it has been received with interest and encouragement everywhere else—especially just now, when the Soviet should be keen on showing the world that Russia under the new régime appreciates the value of culture and science generally. All, however, apparently to no purpose.
All at once the Governor seemed to recollect that I had been travelling for some time; and appeared also to notice that I was covered with mud.
"Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.
I admitted the fact. Whereupon he dashed out into the kitchen, to return a moment later and drag me through with him. Two smiling Russian girls were busy preparing a meal, and I passed them with a bow, finding time to notice their peculiar beauty, the dazzling white skin, and their eyes with long dark lashes that seemed like an expression of all unspoken melancholy in the world. We entered the dining room, the Governor sat down at table with me, and the women followed. One of them was his wife, the other a young schoolmistress from Irkutsk. I made an attempt at conversation, trying three languages, but in vain. We turned energetically to the dishes before us; oversweetened cocoa and some hot, sweet preserve eaten with bread; famished as I was, it went down as meat with a hungry Eskimo.
The dining room was an apartment with bare walls devoid of ornament, perhaps in order to focus attention the more directly upon the Constitution of the Soviet Republic, a copy of which covered the whole of one wall. And also—I had almost forgotten it—in one corner a picture of Lenin, dressed as a simple street scavenger. I gazed at him, not without bitter reproach at the thought of his having given this otherwise amiable Governor instructions leaving no room for the slightest deviation: the letter of the law, or off with his head!
A moment later the Chief of Police came in and informed me that I might stay the night in the Governor's house, but must return to my ship the following day and leave Siberia at once. Very sorry, but . . .
It was goodbye to East Cape.
I had thus one evening and part of the following day to work in, and hoped that after all I might be able to make some use of my time. East Cape was out of reach, but there were a few old Eskimos at Wahlen and at Emmatown whom I could talk to. There were also the Tchukchis; and I had here an excellent interpreter in the person of Peter Cossigan, who spoke their language and English with equal fluency. The police imposed no further restrictions on my liberty; I was free to go where I pleased and speak with whom I pleased during the eighteen hours or so that I was still suffered to remain in Soviet territory.
I began by calling on the traders, who were assembled in a small house, and discussed with them the situation generally. They were all Russians, but in spite of this, their position was worse than my own. The Soviet monopoly forbade them to trade on their own account, while at the same time, the government offered them no other means of making a living, and no opportunity of getting out of the country. One of these unfortunates, whose name I will not mention, fumbled in an old chest full of oddments, and pulled out a huge bundle of notes—paper roubles from the time of the Czars. These were his savings; rouble on rouble hoarded up by years of economy; and now, he declared, worth less than so much cigarette paper.
I asked how many there were.
"What does it matter?" he answered. "I used to know the whole sum to a kopek, but now, I cannot say. Thirty thousand, a hundred thousand roubles, it makes no difference either way."
One old trader named Gobrinoff, who had suffered the same fate, burst out suddenly into a foolish mirthless laugh, and the rest of us fell silent.
These bankrupt traders speak no ill of the Soviet, in spite of the fact that they, like everyone else in the district, have to look forward to a winter without tea or coffee, perhaps without tobacco, though, as they explain almost apologetically, there will be plenty of walrus meat and blubber. It is something of a degradation in their old age; they were wealthy merchants once, men of distinction in the place, and are now reduced to eating the blubber of charity and seeking the warmth of the native yarrangs as soon as the winter drives them from their own wooden huts, which they have no fuel to make habitable.
It was not a cheerful party, and I was glad to take my leave and go visiting with Peter Cossigan among the natives. The information I acquired in the course of these visits, and subsequently, may be summarized as follows:
Save for the Governor's residence and a couple of stores, Wahlen consists exclusively of yarrangs—huts of the Tchukchi type—inhabited by a couple of hundred people, who get their living solely from the sea. The Tchukchis, and also the Eskimos of East Cape, still live exactly in the same fashion as before any white men came to their country. No attempt at spiritual influence has ever been made. It was thus a magnificent field for ethnographical research, and one in which I might well have spent some months. As it was, I had only a few hours, and can only give one or two of the main features.
Peter Cossigan, who had himself married a Tchukchi woman, led me first of all into one of the largest yarrangs. It was a curious structure, half hut, half tent, consisting of a heavy wooden framework built to the shape of a dome, and covered with walrus hide. We found ourselves at first in a sort of front room which occupied about half the entire space, with a fireplace in the middle of the floor, on which some walrus meat was cooking at the time. Despite a couple of ventilation holes in the roof, the place was so full of smoke that it was some little time before I made out the figure of a woman kneeling by the fire and tending her pot. She rose to her feet with a little laugh, and invited us to enter. I now perceived that there was a small tent of reindeer skin hung up in the interior of the hut, being fastened by thongs to the wooden framework, but without tent holes of its own; this was just large enough to enclose what would have been the raised sleeping place in an Eskimo hut. There was no particular entrance to this tent; we simply crawled in anywhere under the sides, which were made of heavy, thick-haired winter skins. In this inner apartment sat a young woman perfectly naked, busy preparing some sealskin. The temperature indeed did not call for any excess of clothing, for though the sun was blazing down outside on the walrus hide, and making the place intolerably hot already, there were two blubber lamps burning in addition. There was no raised platform or couch to serve as a bed-place, but the floor itself in this apartment was made of wood covered with layers of walrus hide. The place served as a workroom for the women during the day, and a bedroom for the whole family at night. Looking about me, I realized that all the implements in sight, knives and other tools, even the drums, were of exactly the same type as those I had found among the Eskimos. It was therefore the more remarkable to find that I understood not a single word of the language. The young woman greeted us with a friendly smile, and went on with her work, and my companion now informed me that only women were generally to be found in the houses during the daytime; they did their cooking and needlework here, while the men were out in the open air practically all day long. When not actually out hunting, they would be outside somewhere, whatever the weather was like. We should therefore find no men anywhere indoors at this time of the day, and therefore found it best to invite a couple of Cossigan's Tchukchi friends in to the little hut, where his native wife, a gentle and kindly soul, at once made tea for us.
The one thing most prominent in my mind at the moment was to find out what the Tchukchis and the East Cape Eskimos respectively thought of each other, and get their views as to relations generally between the races. One old man whom we questioned was well up in this subject, and began by pointing out emphatically that his people were the original inhabitants of the country, and nothing to do with the Eskimos. In which connection he gave us the following story:
"In a strange land, among a strange people, there lived a little girl whose mother was always displeased whatever she did. No matter what trouble she took with the tasks assigned to her, she was continually being scolded. At last she could bear it no longer, and ran away from home, taking with her all her dolls. She walked and walked for ever so far, till she came to a land she did not know. And here she built herself a shelter from the wind, and decided to live there. But one night she woke up and found that all her dolls had come alive; had turned into real men and women. And from these, it is said, sprang the race of the Tchukchis."
Originally, all the Tchukchis were hunters, but some learned in course of time to tame the wild reindeer, and grew rich; others, who could not attain to the ownership of a herd, moved down to the coast. in the hope of finding better fortune there. When the Tchukchis first came down to the coast, there were no Eskimos there. They found all manner of beasts in the sea; seal, whale and walrus, but it was long before they learned how to hunt them; they tried to make boats so as to follow them out at sea, but their hunting implements were poor, and they were often hungry, despite the wealth offered them by the sea. At last they took to making long sea voyages, along the coast and far out to sea, where they could perceive land in the farthest distance. This was Diomede Island. Here they met a strange people whose tongue they could not understand; a people who called themselves Eskimos, and lived likewise on the beasts of the sea. But they had fine weapons for their hunting, and many curious ways of killing seal and whale and walrus; they had harpoons furnished with lines and bladders; they had big skin boats for long voyages and little swift kayaks. But they were a hostile people, with whom it was not wise to live for any length of time, and there was often war between the two peoples. Once a whole boatload of Tchukchis was attacked and slain to the last man. This was too much. All the men from many villages assembled and sailed across the sea; and when the Eskimos saw this great number approaching, they made ready for a battle. But the Tchukchis had not come to fight; they only proposed that an agreement should be made between them, so that they could live in peace and trade with one another thereafter. They then laid out all the trade goods they had brought with them; skins of the caribou, and handsome white spotted skins of the tame reindeer; skins of wolf and wolverine they laid out on the rocks by the strangers' village, and the Eskimos saw all these skins, which they themselves needed but could not get, because they lived on a little island in the midst of the sea. Thus the Tchukchis offered to make peace, and peace was made between them, and has never since been broken. And it was not long before the Eskimos in turn began to make trading voyages to the coast of the mainland, and finding excellent hunting in the neighborhood of East Cape, they determined to build a great village of their own there. Thus the two peoples became neighbors, and the Tchukchis learned all the Eskimo methods of hunting; they built skin boats and made lances, harpoons and bird arrows, and lived as the Eskimos did. The Eskimos in their turn wished to dress as the Tchukchis did, and copied also the manner of their houses, which are built of wood and walrus hide. They also learned to cut their hair in the same way. So the one people learned of the other, but each retained its own language, and only very rarely did those of one race intermarry with the other.
The Eskimos, however, were from the first superior on the sea, and so they remained. The East Cape Eskimos, who hunted with the American whalers, became famous for their skill in managing a boat; and in a mixed crew of Eskimos and Tchukchis, it will always be the Eskimos who take command. When hunting on the ice in winter, if difficulties arise, it is invarably an Eskimo who is chosen to lead the way.
All this I had from the mouth of the old Tchukchi himself.
According to the Tchukchi tradition, then, the Eskimos are a new people who came into Asia from Alaska and the islands of the Bering Sea. This tradition accords entirely with the Eskimos' own recollections of the manner in which the islands in question, and East Cape itself, became inhabited.
All the old myths agree that the first men came to King Island, from the interior east of Tellar, while Diomede Island was inhabited by people coming from King Island and Schismareff; from here again they found their way to East Cape, and thence further along the coast of Siberia both north and southwest. Ruins of Eskimo houses are also found in both directions. I was naturally unable to make excavations here, but I did manage to examine a number of old houses at Wahlen, which were indubitably of Eskimo origin. The only island in the Bering Sea colonized by Eskimos from the Asiatic side is St. Lawrence Island, called by the Eskimos Sioraq; this, however, is due to the geographical situation, the island lying close to the Siberian shore, so that adventurers from East Cape would reach it by way of Indian Point.
I managed during my short stay to note down a list of native words showing that the East Cape dialect is very like the language spoken at St. Lawrence; and oddly enough, both resemble mostly that spoken south of Norton Sound and over the Yukon right down to Bristol Bay, differing considerably from the form current in the rest of Alaska.
Until the American Bureau of Education commenced work in Alaska, the Siberian Eskimos were greatly superior to the American, both in conditions of life and in general estimation; now, however, the reverse is the case, and those Siberian natives who have been to Nome for trading purposes marvel at the enormous progress made by their fellows on that side, while they themselves live in a country whose government seems to take no interest in them whatever beyond getting their furs at the lowest possible price.
This then was the result of my visit to Wahlen and my encounter with the Soviet.
On the following day I was taken back across the same dreary tundra, and escorted on board the Teddy Bear by the Chief of Police and the kindly giant of a constable, Penkin. I was shown out; requested to leave and that forthwith; but it was some consolation to reflect that my visit had not been altogether fruitless. The information I had gathered fitted in admirably with the previous results of the expedition, and confirmed the correctness of what we had already learned.
We hoisted sail and got under way. The ice lay close in to shore, and we were forced to lie for a little while off the Eskimo village at East Cape. It was 
Young men and children came running down, out on the ice itself, and right up to the ship. A few came on board and stayed with us for an hour; they knew I was not allowed to stay, and the situation called forth expressions of regret on both sides. Needless to say I should have been glad to see more of them, and I could see that they would have welcomed me among themselves.
However, there it was. A few days later we were back in Nome. And the Fifth Thule Expedition was at an end.
As I rowed on shore in the dinghy, I saw a man running backward and forward on the beach, waving something in his hand. It was a telegram, addressed to myself, and I opened it not without some excitement, as to its contents. It proved to be from the Danish Foreign Ministry, stating briefly that permission had been obtained from the Soviet Republic for me to land at East Cape.
Only, as fate would have it, the information arrived six weeks too late.