38 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



faces turned to the spot whence the sound came, and 

 then in panic-stricken silence they slipped away into 

 the bushes. 



Presently we reached the junction of the Kureika 

 and the Yenesei, and I could scarcely believe that I 

 was actually standing beside the river of which Seebohm 

 wrote, and perhaps in the very spot where he went 

 bird's-nesting. With the recollection of the Birds of 

 Siberia in my mind, I was rather disappointed in the 

 Kureika, Perhaps, in a sort of subconscious way, one 

 expected to find ruby- throated warblers or red-tailed 

 fieldfares on every bush. As it was, I walked for two 

 miles up the tributary and saw nothing at all except 

 two wood sandpipers, scores of willow-warblers, and 

 some pintail duck. By and bye I thought of taking a 

 short-cut back to the ship, through the forest, and as 

 Vassilli took kindly to the idea, we turned ofi" among 

 the trees. I knew quite well that it was necessary to 

 be careful, and I generally wore a compass on my watch 

 chain, but that morning by some oversight it had been 

 left behind, and as we had only to cross the open angle 

 formed by the two rivers, it did not seem possible to 

 lose the way. The trees grew very close together, with 

 long tags of lichen-like sparse hair waving from their 

 twigs. The moss underfoot deadened the footfall like a 

 blanket, and every now and then the foot slipped down 

 into the heart of a tree that had been buried out of 

 sight under the rotting pine needles of hundreds of 

 summers. Here there were even fewer birds than by 

 the riverside. Once or twice I heard the harsh cliee of 

 a brambling, or a defiant spasm of song from a wandering 



