230 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



possibly be reached, if only the river was fordable, in 

 a couple of days. I naturally juniped at the proposal, 

 and clun^ to it as a wrecked sailor clines to a floatinof 

 spar. There still remained more than a week before 

 our collier would start, and such a providential chance 

 might involve a turn of the tide. 



Nikolai Podprougine was a Siberian by birth, a native 

 of Irkutsk, which he had left thirty years previously 

 with a small party of colonists to seek his fortune in 

 Kamchatka, where the Government had granted to 

 the new-comers special privileges, with a view of cul- 

 tivating kind and growing corn on that inhospitable 

 peninsula. Owing to the severe climate, ploughing 

 implements had to be abandoned for more lucrative 

 occupation, such as hunting and fishing, and my new 

 companion had in former days frequently pursued 

 sable and bear. He specially boasted of his close 

 relationship with the late Archbishop Innocent of 

 Irkutsk, who had since been canonised, and whose 

 reputation as a saint was in his lifetime universally 

 recognised through the whole of Siberia. Nikolai 

 had none of his uncle's vocation ; after settling down at 

 Petropavlovsk he started fur-trading on a small scale, 

 acquiring in this manner comparative ease. Besides 

 owning one of the best houses in the " town," he was 

 the proprietor of a " villa " in the country (he called 



