OUR RETURN 157 



so that I chafed much and frightened them unnecessarily ; 

 for you can no more change the nature of a Samoyed 

 than that of any other man, though you rave never so 

 much. To-day you may gain your point and will, but 

 to-morrow you shall have it all over again ; so that in 

 the end you are no better off, only more exhausted. 



This is the particular way of these people to which 

 I now refer. 



The reindeer are feeding, scattered far away ; but they 

 will not make a move to bring them in until the tent 

 or choom is struck, and every article packed on the 

 sleighs. This done, the whipper-in, who rides on the 

 adliurs, goes out for the deer. It sometimes takes an 

 hour — it took an hour this time — to find them and 

 brino- them in. 



Then they have to be corralled, sorted out and har- 

 nessed up, and then at last — no, even yet we do not 

 start. 



First of all they all sit down on the ground for twenty 

 minutes or so, and snuff. Snuff-taking is a considerable 

 feature in the life of a Samoyed. The snuff they buy 

 from the Russians, or sometimes the vile tobacco, called 

 ' mahorka,' which they pound up to that end. And their 

 snuff-boxes are very ingeniously made. Usually they 

 are of a cow's horn, the larger end filled with a plug, 

 and the tip bored for the exit of the snuff, which is 

 shaken out on to the thumb-nail. Sometimes they con- 

 trive a snuff-box out of wood or metal, but even then 



