70 A SLOW COACH. 



for the Russian word Toroina, meaning, I believe, 

 welcome, and this he brought in on all occasions, not 

 always suitably, but it was of little consequence ; he 

 had not, I venture to conclude, many ideas in play at 

 one period, and as they circulated but slowly in the 

 caverns of his brain, Toroma came in, I fancy, very 

 conveniently as a stop-gap to conversation while he 

 had time to replace one thought by the next ; occa- 

 sionally, however, Metra displayed latent powers of 

 mind scarcely to be expected ; dry, quaint, and often 

 even caustic humour, showed that there was still 

 something better than dross beneath the surface ; and 

 as he was a very shrewd old gentleman at a bargain, 

 I do not think we ought to dismiss him from our 

 sketch as altogether a simpleton, but rather afford him 

 the designation of sloio. 



All these visitors had arrived in their sledges, drawn 

 by dogs, of which Metra and Belconta possessed the 

 finest teams in the country ; but a new and delightful 

 spectacle was afforded us later in the afternoon, by the 

 arrival of Mooldooyah, his wife, son, and friend, each 

 driving two reindeer harnessed to his sledge. I cannot 

 describe the emotions we experienced at this sight, 

 so novel and so interesting ; no other incident, since 

 the first view of the natives in their atwoits in the 

 buy, produced so vivid a remembrance of the distance 



