A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 73 



service to his owner, if the latter loses his bearings on 

 the open tundra, the Siberiaks seldom buy a new dog 

 unless for breeding purposes. Michael Petrovitch had 

 bought the parents of his team from a merchant of 

 Turukhansk who was leaving the country. Although 

 one or two had been crossed with a hound strain, they 

 were a magnificent pack. Each sledge with eight dogs 

 could carry a weight of forty pouds of goods and two 

 men, and Mars, the gigantic leader, could by himself 

 draw five pouds, i.e. two hundred pounds' weight, on the 

 sledge. Michael Petrovitch used his dogs in the winter 

 time when he went down the river to visit his white- 

 fox traps. He told us that on a good surface they 

 could travel as much as a hundred versts in three hours. 

 He gave us a ride down to the river bank and back, 

 and I must say that it was great fun. The dogs ap- 

 peared to enjoy it as much as we did, and seemed as 

 delighted to show off as dogs generally are. They were 

 guided entirely by the driver's voice as he shouted : 

 ''Port;' i.e. "right," or " Majieh"—" Mt," as the case 

 might be ; and " touss-touss " (go on) was obeyed by these 

 zealous servants as readily as the " ta-ta" which meant 

 " stop." Autonoff's dogs lived in a lean-to shed behind 

 the bakehouse. Some dog owners do not feed their dogs 

 iu the summer, and allow them to roam about and pick 

 up what they can find, but Michael Petrovitch wisely 

 held that to keep his team in health it was worth while 

 to spend a little trouble on them all the year round. 

 He said, however, that the dogs ate more in the summer 

 when they were idle than in the winter when they were 

 in full work. Our " Sabaka," who at first had been 



