ARCHANGEL 161 



just behind him said, ' a bear.' Piottuch was now 

 rapidly loading his rifle, but just as I was popping in 

 ball-cartridges Piottuch said, ' Nan, non, c'est un cheval,' 

 and we had a rare laugh over our first adventure with a 

 bear. The brown hide of the horse seen through the 

 bushes ahead in the uncertain midnight light might 

 certainly have been taken by any one for any large wild 

 animal ; but Alston and I confessed to a feeling of thank- 

 fulness that the mistake was made by an experienced 

 bear-hunter as Piottuch undoubtedly is and not by 

 either of ourselves. Otherwise we should never have 

 heard the last of it at the club during our stay in Arch- 

 angel. The dogs Plutka and Beilka, i.e., black and 

 white which were on ahead of us, were quite uncon- 

 cerned, and just as Carl said 'bear,' I certainly felt 

 doubtful when I saw the dogs so indifferent, as the night 

 breeze was blowing directly in our faces. 



Arriving at the village of the Old Believers, we gained 

 admission to the best-looking of the farmhouses, and after 

 a frugal meal retired to sleep on the floor opposite the oven. 



One of the blessings in the dwellings of the Old 

 Believers is that their religion requires them to be very 

 clean. We were requested not to smoke in the house, 

 or to drink spirits out of any of their vessels. Beyond 

 this we did not observe any peculiarities, except that they 

 had no samovar, or tea as tea-drinking, even, is not 

 permitted to them. 



A very little old woman was sole proprietress of the 

 house, and seemed well-to-do. She was also extremely 

 active on her pins (needles they looked more like), and 

 made her only eye do quite the duty of two. Piottuch 

 described her as ' tres petite, tres vieille, mais pas 

 tres belle.' We slept for about seven hours. Previous 

 to this we had only slept four hours out of forty. During 

 our walk it had rained, and it still rained heavily. 



VOL. I. 12 



