A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 31 



evening. It was bitterly cold, and there was scarcely 

 a living thing to be seen except a few dogs who w^ere 

 prowling over the mixens by the landing-stage. The 

 main street was like an open sewer-ditch, spanned by 

 a broken plank ; and as we balanced ourselves pre- 

 cariously above the mud, it began to sleet heavily 

 enough to make us look for winter gloves — a woeful 

 change from the heat at Yenesiesk, where we had sat 

 about in cotton shirts and talked of bathing. 



Monastir is now the capital of the Turukhansk 

 district. Until a few years ago, Turukhansk, on the 

 little river Turukhan, held that position ; but recently 

 the Government buildings were burnt down by a raid 

 of criminal exiles, and it was decided to move the seat 

 of officialdom to Monastir. Turukhansk was founded 

 in 1662, when Mangaseya, the great trading town on 

 the Taz, was burnt down by the Yuraks ; and until 

 1822, when its importance declined, it was the largest 

 town in this part of the north. Each year a great fair 

 was held there, and was visited by numbers of people 

 who came partly to buy and sell, and partly to worship 

 in the church of the Monastery of Svyato-Troitskiy 

 (i.e. the Holy Trinity), which contains the sarcophagus 

 of St. Vassilli of Mangaseya, which, so the legend 

 says, was brought there by miraculous aid from the 

 Taz in the seventeenth century. Now it is nothing 

 but a miserable hamlet ; for what little prosperity 

 official peculation has left to this part of the country 

 has been transferred to the neighbouring village of 

 Monastir. 



We went to the little post-office at the top of the 



