A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 9 



sufficiently travel-stained by ten days and nights spent 

 in the train. Miss Curtis and I could speak not a word 

 of Russian ; Miss Czaplicka had never visited Siberia 

 before. We left behind us a companion, who, in his 

 turn, could speak nothing but English, and were in con- 

 siderable uncertainty as to whether our luggage would 

 arrive in time to allow him to overtake us at Yenesiesk. 



On the quay we were introduced to a Mr. Peacock, 

 one of the merchants who trade on the Yenesei. This 

 man and his brother, although they were Siberian born 

 and had never been east of Moscow, were of English 

 descent, and were both exceedingly proud of their 

 British nationality. Mr. Peacock had only just reached 

 Krasnoyarsk from the north, and told us that below 

 the Kureika the ice had not yet broken up on the river. 



The journey from Krasnoyarsk to Yenesiesk 

 occupied thirty hours. For the greater part of the 

 way, the river ran between low banks clothed with 

 pine trees, and which here and there were honey- 

 combed by sand-martins' nesting-holes. Once or twice 

 we stopped for an hour or two at a riverside village, 

 and the peasants in their brightly coloured clothes 

 crowded down to the bank to look at the first north- 

 ward-bound steamer of the year, for it was Sunday, and 

 they had no work to do. Late in the evening, while 

 we were sitting alone at supper, we stopped at such a 

 village. Presently a half-drunken man lurched into 

 the saloon and began to shout to us, until the steward 

 who was passing turned him out. But for the most 

 part we had very little unpleasantness of this kind 

 during the whole trip. 



