Chapter V

Red snow, what is it?--First forms of vegetable life--The
lichens, their variety--Reindeer moss--Rock-hair--Rock tripe,
or _tripe de roche_--Used as food--Iceland moss and its
properties--The mosses of the Arctic Regions--Scurvy-grass--The
fly-agaric--Microscopic vegetation--A memorial of
Franklin--Phænogamous plants of the North--Cryptogamous
plants--Vegetation in Novaia Zemlaia--In Spitzbergen--In
Kamtschatka--The _Fritallaria sarrana_--The wooded and desert
zones--Forms of animal life--Natural history of the
reindeer--His usefulness--His food--Reindeer and
wolves--Cunning of the Arctic wolf--Domesticity of the
wolf--The musk-ox described--Captain M’Clintock quoted--The
Arctic fox--His wariness--A fox-trap--The bear and the
fox--The Arctic hare--The Alpine hare--The Hudson Bay
lemming--The Mustelidæ family--The marten--The sable--The
polecat--About the glutton, or wolverine--anecdotes of his
extraordinary sagacity--A great enemy to the trapper--The biter
bit--Arctic birds--The falcons--The crows--Distribution of
animals 135–161

CHAPTER VI.

Iceland, its extent--Its history--Its volcanoes--Hekla and
its eruptions--Eruption of the Skaptá Jokul--The geysers,
or boiling springs--Their phenomena described--Account of the
Strokr--Coasts and valleys of Iceland--The
Thingvalla--Description of Reikiavik, the capital--Character
of the Icelander--His haymaking operations--His dwelling
described--An Icelandic church--Icelandic clergy--Travelling
in Iceland--Its inconveniences--Fording the streams--Fishing
in Iceland 162–174

CHAPTER VII.

The land of the Eskimos--Range of the so-called Arctic
Highlanders--Danish settlements in Greenland--Upernavik
described--Jacobshav’n--Godhav’n--Their Eskimo
inhabitants--The Moravian Missions--Characteristics of the
nomadic Eskimos--Their physical qualities--Their mode of
dress--An Eskimo hut--The Eskimo kayak, or canoe--Their
weapons and implements--Hostility between the Eskimos and
Red Indians--Eskimo settlement at Anatoak--Eskimo
singing--Food of the Eskimos--Dr. Hayes’ intercourse with
the Eskimos--The story of Hans the Hunter--The Eskimo
dogs--Anecdote of Toodla--The Eskimo sledge--Equipment
of the sledge--Equipment of an Eskimo hunter--General
character of the Eskimos 175–196

CHAPTER VIII.

Lapland, its divisions, extent, and boundaries--Its
climate--Its inhabitants--Their physical
characteristics--Dress of the Lapps--Their
superstitions--The Mountain Lapps--Their migratory
habits--Their _tuguria_, or huts, described--Milking the
reindeer--Sledging and skating--A Lapp’s skates--A Lapp’s
sledge--The Lapp hunters--Encounter with a bear--Intemperance
of the Mountain Lapps--The Forest Lapps--Interior economy of
a Lapland hut--Lapps at Bjorkholm--Racial characteristics of
the Lapps--Habits and manners of the Lapps--The Lapp
dialect--The Lapps and the Quénes--The stationary Lapps, and
their _gârds_ 197–207

CHAPTER IX.

The Samojedes--Their degrading superstitions--Samojede idol
at Waigatz--The _Tadebtsios_, or spirits--Influence of the
_Tadibe_, or sorcerer--His mode of incantation--Customs of
the Samojedes--The Ostiaks--Their _Schaïtans_ and
_Schamans_--Residence of the Ostiaks--Hunting the white
bear--Kamtschatka described--Its inhabitants--Their physical
peculiarities--The dog of Kamtschatka--His qualities--His
usefulness--How he is trained--Siberia and its tribes--The
Jakuts--Their _jarts_, or huts--Their hardy horses--The
character of the Jakuts--Jakut travellers--Jakut merchants
and their caravans--Dreariness of the country they
inhabit--Hunting the reindeer--At Kolymsk--The Tungusi--His
mode of travelling--His food--The Tchuktche, and their
land--Their activity as traders--Tobacco, a staple of
commerce--Visit to a Tchuktche family--The Tenngyk and the
Oukilon 208–221