510	ADJACENT TERRITORIES.
There are traditions among the Chukchees of implements of wood and bone washed ashore on the northern coast, of a fashion differing from those of Chukchee manufacture, and from those made by the Innuit to the eastward, with whom they are well acquainted.
There are also stories told how years ago, yet in the memory of Chukchees now living, one very cold winter, strange men, speaking a different language from Chukchee, Innuit, or Russian, came from the north over the ice, landed on the Siberian shore, took many of the Chukchee reindeer, and went back, no one knew whither. A few years later the incursion was repeated, the Chukchees rallied to protect their property, a bloody fight ensued, many Chukchees were killed, and the strangers retreated to the northward, and have never since been seen.
This legend may be due to the aboriginal imagination, or it may be founded on a fact ; I give it as it was told ; future explorers may find confirmation, or determine its mythical nature.
The Chukchee Peninsula. — That portion of Eastern Siberia which is known under this name is situated east of the valley of the Anadyr River, Chaun Bay, and Anadyr Bay. It has never been thoroughly explored, and is a desolate waste of tundra and low mountains, with small trees along the Anadyr River, and elsewhere only the moss and grass on which the reindeer feed. The argali, or mountain sheep, is said to exist in the mountains, while immense herds of wild reindeer roam over the tundri.
This peninsula, forming the western boundary of Bering Strait, and part of Bering Sea, is of interest from its near approach to our territory.
The coast, from Cape Serdze Kamen (Heart of Stone) to East Cape, and thence to Cape Bering in Anadyr Gulf, is generally high and rocky. Granitic hills rise sharply from the water, covered with keen-edged fragments detached by the frost, and broken by the same agency to the size of a man's fist and up-wards. Snow may always be found somewhere on them, if not on the summits, at least in some of the sheltered fissures of the mountain-sides.
There are no watercourses, as water filters through the immense masses of broken stone, far below the surface ; and is only to be obtained near the base of the hills.