THE SKOPTSI 287 



poverty. We met no one who could speak English, 

 French, or German, and we probably saw most of the 

 inhabitants. The Zessedatel gave back to Captain 

 Wiggins possession of his goods, and placed at his dis- 

 posal an empty house, where the Captain displayed them 

 and kept open shop for a couple of days. Glinski and 

 I helped him, to the best of our ability, to measure 

 ribbons, printed calicoes, and silks, and though more 

 people came to see th^^ goods than to buy, we neverthe- 

 less all had to work hard. Captain Wiggins was, I am 

 sure, heartily sick of his job, and many times, I have no 

 doubt, devoutly wished his wares were in Kamtschatka. 

 They were mostly consignments from Sunderland shop- 

 keepers, which the Captain, in a rash moment, induced 

 these tradesmen to entrust to his care. Most of the 

 goods were utterly unsuited to the market, and many of 

 them seemed to me to be priced at more than double 

 their value in England. In spite of this we sold some 

 hundred roubles' worth at prices yielding a profit of ten 

 to fifty per cent. 



Among the people who came to inspect the goods 

 was a smooth-chinned, pale-faced man, who we found on 

 inquiry was one of the Skoptsi, a strange sect of fanatics 

 who have made themselves impotent "for the kingdom 

 of heaven's sake." They live in a village sixteen versts 

 from Turukansk in four houses, and are now reduced to 

 ten men and five women. They were exiled to this 

 remote district as a punishment for having performed 

 their criminal religious rite. Most of them come from 

 the Perm government. They occupy themselves in 

 agriculture, and in curing a small species of fish like a 

 herring, which they export in casks of their own manu- 

 facture. 



We saw very few birds in Turukansk ; two or three 



