8 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



Ivanovitch. A Sibcriak who is guaranteed neither to 

 steal nor drink is a precious possession, but as a matter 

 of fact his excellent recommendations were true of 

 Vassilli. He was wont to declare virtuously that the 

 mere sight of a drunken man made him feel quite ill ; 

 and although while he was in our service he had plenty 

 of ojDportunity of obtaining liquor, we never saw him 

 drunk, and as far as I know, he never stole anything. 

 His vices were laziness and conceit. Whenever he was 

 found fault with, he merely twisted his moustaches and 

 replied pityingly, " How could I know how you wished 

 it to be done ? I am not used to service. I have 

 always lived in my own house." 



However, like all Siberiaks, he was a hand)^ man 

 with tools, could row a boat, cook passably, and 

 described himself as an Okotnik — a hunter — which in 

 plain language meant that he could shoot ducks. The 

 only thing about which he was really energetic was 

 his desire to learn English. At all times of haste or 

 anxiety, we were driven sometimes to exasperation, and 

 sometimes to laughter, by his irrepressible, " Pa Russki 

 thus and thus : pa Angiiski . . . ? " And when the 

 answer was given, it was immediately written down as 

 he conceived that we pronounced it in Russian script 

 in a very ragged pocket-book. We never had the 

 opportunity of looking at this pocket-book, but it must 

 have been a curiosity in phonetics. 



It must be confessed that our prospects when we 

 embarked at Krasnoyarsk were not of the brightest. 

 We started down the river with literally nothing but 

 the clothes that we stood up in, and these were already 



