A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 25 



long a stop was expected in a given place, but tlie answer 

 was generally an hour beside the truth. It was annoy- 

 ing to hurry back to the steamer from some promising 

 place only to find that her departure had been delayed 

 for some reason, and that I might have put in an hour 

 of extra work. 



During the afternoon we passed the post boat from 

 Turukhansk to Yenesiesk. In the summer, the mails 

 are sent by the river and forwarded from village to 

 village. The little boat was scudding along at a fine 

 pace, with her square sail set to the southerly breeze, 

 and we were told that letters sent in this way reach 

 headquarters more quickly than if they were carried by 

 the steamers. We also saw a small boat towed along 

 the shore by dogs. A man and woman sat in it at 

 their ease, while the dog-s ran along; the bank. The 

 latter were harnessed very clumsily, as it seemed to me, 

 by a trace fastened to a girth round the middle of the 

 body, so that all the strain came upon the animal's 

 loins. The sledge dogs of the Yenesei are fine 

 fellows, something like a Scotch collie, only more 

 stoutly built, with prick ears and tremendous furry 

 coats. The native dogs, on the other hand, are much 

 smaller, and are not used for haulage but only for 

 hunting and for herding the reindeer. 



In the evening, we reached Verkne Imbatskaya, but 

 the steamer did not stop long enough to allow me to 

 do any bird's-nesting there. Here for the first time we 

 saw some Ostiaks by the waterside. Half a dozen of 

 their boats, clumsy but ingenious contrivances, built 

 like a punt with a barrel on the top, were moored in a 



