PETCHORA 279 



willows, or darting np some small kouria (creek) or branch 

 of the river, and crossing over the mainland. Twenty 

 versts from Ust Zylma is a half-way house, where we 

 stopped to rest om- horses, and then proceeded, reaching 

 Habarika at one o'clock. We were cordially received by 

 the Captain and his Eussian wife, by the engineer of the 

 steamer, and by the German captain of the cutter. 



Both the steamer and the cutter were lying in winter 

 quarters in the kouria, or offshoot of the river, and 50 feet 

 below the level of the hamlet of Habarika. We were 

 told that when the floods come the water rises almost to 

 the level of the houses, and that at Kuja, or lower down 

 the river, great blocks of ice, at times, crush through the 

 walls of the houses, but Habarika is exceptionally well 

 protected by this kouria and a point of land stretching 

 down to the river opposite. 



Near Habarika are some fine larch-trees, and the island 

 and shore seem to be well wooded. Far away across the 

 frozen plain (the ice of the Petchora) and a great breadth 

 of forest, we could see the low wavy line marking the sky- 

 line of the Timan range of mountains, beyond which com- 

 mences the Timanski Tundra, inhabited by Samoyedes, 

 who do not cross the Petchora with their Keindeer at Ust 

 Zylma at all, but winter at Pustozersk. 



At 3.30 p.m. we accompanied Captain Engel and the 

 engineer to visit some Samoyedes — an account of which 

 I give in the Appendix on that subject. 



We stayed more than an hour at the chooms, and after- 

 wards joined our sledges and drove back to Habarika. 



Standing beside our sledges were two long narrow 

 hand-sledges, like the ' toboggan ' (?) of North America, 

 belonging to two Russians who had come all the way 

 from Pischma, and were en route for a place called Yorsa 

 Biver, where great numbers of geese and ducks, etc., come 

 after the thaw begins. 



