HUNTING THE SABLE 391 



o'clock in the morning, and went on shore to visit the 

 merchant Sotnikoff ; as we almost expected, however, we 

 found that he had gone down to Golchika in his steamer, 

 to superintend his fisheries. He had built himself a large 

 new residence, the only good house in the little village. 

 In the winter I had sent Sotnikoff a message, asking him 

 to secure for me complete costumes of the Dolgan men 

 and women who visited Dudinka in the spring to trade. 

 The costumes were waiting for me, and very handsome 

 they were : I paid for them one hundred and forty roubles. 

 I also bought some Yurak and Samoyede costumes. I 

 saw some fine mammoth-tusks and teeth, but the former 

 were too heavy and bulky to take home overland. 

 Sotnikoff's stores contained an almost endless number of 

 furs, but among them were no black fox or sable. The 

 latter animal is now very rare ; at one time it was hunted 

 in the forests in winter, the hunter following the tracks 

 in the snow, until he lost them at the foot of a tree ; he 

 then surrounded the tree with a net, whose meshes were 

 too small for the sable to pass through, and to which was 

 attached a number of little bells. Lying down within 

 sound of the bells the hunter waited one, two, or three 

 days, until the tinkling warned him that the sable had 

 come out and was entangled in the net. Another mode of 

 securing the animal was to smoke it out of its hole and 

 then to shoot it. 



At Dudinka we saw some excellent coal, which burnt 

 as well as any English fuel. It was brought by Sotnikoff 

 from a mine on the tundra, about eighty versts from 

 Dudinka. There was also a quantity of blue and green 

 copper ore from the same place. We understood that 

 this had been analysed, but had not turned out worth 

 working, only containing 5 to 10 per cent, of metal. 



Soon after leaving Dudinka the trees became more 



