48 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. v. 



English, French, or German, so that our communication with 

 them was necessarily very limited. Interpreting was certainly 

 not Piottuch's forte. Any information we got through him 

 was so largely mixed with his own ideas and opinions, that 

 we soon ceased to attach much value to it, besides which his 

 bad French was often as difficult to understand as the original 

 Euss. 



We got a great deal of information respecting the country 

 and its inhabitants from two gentlemen in the employ of 

 tbe Petchora Timber-trading Company, Captain Arendt, the 

 manager or " Provalychik " in the Petchora, residing pro 

 tern, at Ust-Zylma, and Captain Engel, the commander of 

 the steamer belonging to the company, which was then lying 

 in winter quarters at Habariki, about twenty-seven miles 

 down the river. These gentlemen called upon us the day 

 after our arrival, and we were indebted to both of them for 

 innumerable acts of kindness. 



One of our first purchases on our arrival at Ust-Zylma was 

 a couple of pairs of snow-shoes, without which it is impossible 

 to travel on the snow. No one can form the slightest idea 

 how utterly helpless one is without snow-shoes when there is 

 scarcely three feet of snow on the ground. To travel a mile 

 would probably be a hard day's work, completely knocking 

 one up. On snow-shoes we got along comfortably, at the 

 rate of three miles an hour, and we soon became tolerably 

 at home on them. They were about seven feet long and six 

 inches wide, made of birch wood, and covered underneath 

 with reindeer skin, with the hair pointing behind. This is 

 absolutely necessary to enable one to ascend a hill, the hair 



