A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 17 



down to the south. Behmcl the barge was tied a scow 

 loaded with barrels, and two or three boats. It needed 

 no little skill to manoeuvre all these clumsy craft inshore, 

 especially when the wind was at all strong or the river- 

 bed shallow. 



Captain Otto Ello of the Oryol was a Finn. He was 

 an exile from his own country, but his banishment was 

 self-imposed. In his youth he had shirked his term of 

 military service, and dared not now return lest he 

 should be arrested as a deserter. He had settled in 

 Siberia, and married a most kindly Russian wife, who 

 accompanied him on his voyages. He spoke excellent 

 English, and had accompanied Mr. H. L. Popham when 

 that distinguished ornithologist travelled down the 

 river in 1897. 



The OryoVs small saloon was almost as crowded as 

 the deck. Besides the four members of our own party, 

 there were two merchants who were travelling down 

 the river to inspect graphite mines on the Kureika, 

 and a Yenesiesk trader called Kitmanoff, one of the 

 owners of the steamer. There was also on board a 

 very influential person, an official of some kind in the 

 province of Yenesiesk. He was a morose, ugly little 

 man, with a goatee beard, who spent much of his time 

 in drinking tea and eating dutch cheese, which he kept 

 in a tin box in his cabin — a frugal custom that we, 

 after a perusal of the steward's tariff card, resolved to 

 imitate. Our attention was first called to him at 

 Yenesiesk, where a deputation of the officials of the town 

 waited to receive him at the gangway ; and when we 

 left the place two days later, the same deputation 



