82 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



grass tussock nor a tree-trunk. And why the dickens 

 is it pretending in that foolish way, keeping her off her 

 eggs like this ? she wails angrily from the vantage of 

 a hillock a hundred yards away. Neither is it a bit of 

 use to try and tire her out. The patient plover will 

 settle down to a day-long vigil, sooner than return to 

 her eggs if she thinks that all is not well. Consequently 

 at the end of an hour I had done nothing more than 

 locate the probable breeding-area. I tried to comfort 

 myself with the quite vain reflection that probably the 

 birds had not begun to lay yet, and then, as it was close 

 upon two hours since we had landed, and Antonoff was 

 anxious to start in good time for home, I turned back. 



On the way, on a mound in the middle of the 

 marsh, I came across a Yurak grave. The dead man 

 must have been buried in the summer, for he lay under 

 ground instead of in a wooden coffin. It is said in 

 Holy Writ that a man brings nothing into the world 

 and shall carry nothing out from thence, but evidently 

 this is not the Yurak belief. A few pitiful possessions 

 were lying round the grave — an old cooking-pot, a 

 rotting sledge, and the bleached bones of his reindeer 

 which had been slaughtered by the tomb. Surely it is 

 a profound and poetical idea, this of the Yuraks, that 

 even inanimate chattels, after they have long been in 

 use, acquire a soul, which, after death, can follow that 

 of their owner, and serve him once more in the spirit 

 world. A little wooden scaffold was built over the 

 grave, and from this hung a bell of cheap Russian 

 workmanship. It tinkled softly as the wind swung it 

 to and fro. It was placed there in order that the 



