chap, xviii. OUR SERVANTS. 219 



the eggs it is difficult to say ; but the fact is that these eggs 

 are quite brown in ground-colour. 



It was very late, or rather very early morning, when we 

 returned to our quarters, and had to spend an hour slaughter- 

 ing mosquitoes before we could make the room habitable ; then 

 we had our dinners to cook and our pipes to smoke before 

 we could retire to rest. At noon I turned out of my hammock 

 and spent the day indoors. The wind was north-west, and 

 there were continual hints of rain. Our men were tired after 

 the long row the day before. They were not in good condi- 

 tion, nor could it be expected they should be. They had 

 now reached the last day of a four weeks' fast, during which 

 they were supposed to eat nothing but bread and water, with 

 fish if they could get it. During the period of probation it 

 was intensely ludicrous to watch the expression on our steers- 

 man's face when he held up as many fingers as there still 

 remained days of fasting to be gone through, opening his 

 mouth wide the while, then grinning all over as he said, 

 "Moi skaffum." "Skaffum" is pigeon-English for "eat," 

 derived, we were told, from the Swedish (skaffa, to provide). 

 This fellow's name was Feodor ; he was a good-natured 

 simpleton, indescribably lazy and always thinking of his 

 stomach — we had nicknamed him " Moi skaffum." Gavriel, 

 our other Russian, was not very much sharper, but was by 

 no means lazy when directed in his work, but he had not 

 the sense to discover for himself what wanted doing. Our 

 half-bred Samoyede, also called Feodor, — Malenki Feodor 

 we dubbed him — was a sharp, active lad, always finding out 

 something to do ; with a little training Malenki Feodor 

 would have made an excellent servant. He learnt, when 



