Their energetic Nationality.—Their Descent.—Their gloomy Character.—Summer and Winter Dwellings.—The Jakut Horse.—Incredible Powers of Endurance of the Jakuts.—Their Sharpness of Vision.—Surprising local Memory.—Their manual Dexterity.—Leather, Poniards, Carpets.—Jakut Gluttons.—Superstitious Fear of the Mountain-spirit Ljeschei.—Offerings of Horse-hair.—Improvised Songs.—The River Jakut.

The Jakuts are a remarkably energetic race, for though subject to the Muscovite yoke, they not only successfully maintain their language and manners, but even impose their own tongue and customs upon the Russians who have settled in their country. Thus in Jakutsk, or the “capital of the Jakuts,” as with not a little of national pride and self-complacency they style that dreary city, their language is much more frequently spoken than the Russian, for almost all the artisans are Jakuts, and even the rich fur-merchant has not seldom a Jakut wife, as no Russian now disdains an alliance with one of that nation.

At Amginskoie, an originally Russian settlement, Middendorff found the greatest difficulty in procuring a guide able to speak the Russian language, and all the Tunguse whom he met with between Jakutsk and Ochotsk understood and spoke Jakut, which is thus the dominant language from the basin of the Lena to the extreme eastern confines of Siberia. In truth, no Russian workman can compete with the Jakuts, whose cunning and effrontery would make it difficult even for a Jew to prosper among them.

Though of a Mongolian physiognomy, their language, which is said to be intelligible at Constantinople, distinctly points to a Turk extraction, and their traditions speak of their original seats as situated on the Baikal and Angora, whence, retreating before more powerful hordes, they advanced to the Lena, where in their turn they dispossessed the weaker tribes which they found in possession of the country. At present their chief abode is along the banks of that immense river, which they occupy at least as far southward as the Aldan. Eastward they are found on the Kolyma, and westward as far as the Jenissei. Their total number amounts to about 200,000, and they form the chief part of the population of the vast but almost desert province of Jakutsk.

They are essentially a pastoral people, and their chief wealth consists in horses and cattle, though the northern portion of their nation is reduced to the reindeer and the dog. Besides the breeding of horses, the Russian fur-trade has developed an industrial form of the hunter’s state, so that among the Jakuts property accumulates, and we have a higher civilization than will be found elsewhere in the same latitude, Iceland, Finland, and Norway alone excepted. Of an unsocial and reserved disposition, they prefer a solitary settlement, but at the same time they are very hospitable, and give the stranger who229 claims their assistance a friendly welcome. Villages consisting of several huts, or yourts, are rare, and found only between Jakutsk and the Aldan, where the population is somewhat denser. Beyond the Werchojansk ridge the solitary huts are frequently several hundred versts apart, so that the nearest neighbors sometimes do not see each other for years.

In summer the Jakut herdsmen live in urossy, light conical tents fixed on poles and covered with birch rind, and during the whole season they are perpetually employed in making hay for the long winter.

In 62° N. lat., and in a climate of an almost unparalleled severity, the rearing of their cattle causes them far more trouble than is the case with any other pastoral people. Their supply of hay is frequently exhausted before the end of the winter, and from March to May their oxen must generally be content with willow and birch twigs or saplings.
88. A JAKUT VILLAGE.

At the beginning of the cold season the Jackut exchanges his summer tent for his warm winter residence, or yourt, a hut built of beams or logs, in the form of a truncated pyramid, and thickly covered with turf and clay. Plates of ice serve as windows, and are replaced by fish-bladders or paper steeped in oil, as soon as the thaw begins. The earthen floor, for it is but rarely boarded, is generally sunk two or three feet below the surface of the ground. The seats and sleeping berths are ranged along the sides, and the centre is occupied by the tschuwal, or hearth, the smoke of which finds its exit through an aperture in the roof. Clothes and arms are suspended from the walls, and the whole premises230 exhibit a sad picture of disorder and filth. Near the yourt are stables for the cows, but when the cold is very severe, these useful animals are received into the family room. As for the horses, they remain night and day without a shelter, at a temperature when mercury freezes, and are obliged to feed on the withered autumnal grass which they find under the snow. These creatures, whose powers of endurance are almost incredible, change their hair in summer like the other quadrupeds of the Arctic regions. They keep their strength, though travelling perhaps for months through the wilderness without any other food than the parched, half-rotten grass met with on the way. They retain their teeth to old age, and remain young much longer than our horses. “He who thinks of improving the Jakut horse,” says Von Middendorff, “aims at something like perfection. Fancy the worst conceivable roads, and for nourishment the bark of the larch and willow, with hard grass-stalks instead of oats; or merely travel on the post-road to Jakutsk, and see the horses that have just run forty versts without stopping, and are covered with perspiration and foam, eating their hay in the open air without the slightest covering, at a temperature of -40°.”

But the Jakut himself is no less hardened against the cold than his faithful horse. “On December 9,” says Wrangell, “we bivouacked round a fire, at a temperature of -28°, on an open pasture-ground, which afforded no shelter against the northern blast. Here I had an excellent opportunity for admiring the unparalleled powers of endurance of our Jakut attendants. On the longest winter journey they take neither tents nor extra covering along with them, not even one of the larger fur-dresses. While travelling, the Jakut contents himself with his usual dress; in this he generally sleeps in the open air; a horse rug stretched out upon the snow is his bed, a wooden saddle his pillow. With the same fur jacket, which serves him by daytime as a dress, and which he pulls off when he lies down for the night, he decks his back and shoulders, while the front part of his body is turned towards the fire almost without any covering. He then stops his nose and ears with small pieces of skin, and covers his face so as to leave but a small opening for breathing—these are all the precautions he takes against the severest cold. Even in Siberia the Jakuts are called ............