PETCHORA 511 



the same number, in the other, meeting at the top and 

 crossing in sets of three or four, the ends well blackened 

 by the smoke. Keindeer skins sewn together with sinew, 

 and showing signs of long use by their tarnished appear- 

 ance and multitude of patches, were wound in one or two 

 large sheets round the poles, and kept in their place by a 

 thin strong cord of twisted sinews, which also lashed the 

 poles together at the top. 



Sometimes the covering of the chooms is made of 

 squares or oblong pieces of birch-bark sewn together with 

 sinew, and one which Alston and I examined near Arch- 

 angel in 1872, belonging to a poor family of Samoyedes 

 who remain there winter and summer, was so covered. 



The space left for entrance has a folding flap of the 

 same material as the rest of the covering (which was also 

 lined with coarse sackcloth, probably old bags, or old 

 coarse sailcloth), and was of triangular shape and about 

 two feet wide at the bottom. 



Lifting this off we entered the first choom, and found 

 it occupied by an old Samoyede, doubtless the father of 

 the family, and a young girl who was tending the fire. 



We found the inside comfortably warm, with a hole 

 underneath the edge of the covering, causing a gentle 

 draught which lifted the smoke above the immediate 

 level of the floor of the choom, and assisted the free 

 upward progress of the smoke, which, as already stated, 

 found egress at an opening left at the top, which was 

 about one and a half feet in diameter. No other air got in 

 elsewhere, save when the covering of the entrance was 

 raised, as snow is heaped up outside to the height of a 

 foot or so against the sides. 



There is a fringing piece of reindeer skin all round 

 which in severe weather may be tucked in underneath, or 

 may simply have been added to increase the height of the 

 choom. It was, however, present in the other choom 

 also. 



