A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 105 



illustration of the intrigues by which business is 

 carried on by the Lower Yenesei, that I cannot resist 

 quoting her story. She told us that on account of her 

 health, she herself had spent the previous winter at 

 Tomsk ; and that during her absence, her old father, 

 with her two young sisters, had lived at Golchika. In 

 the course of the winter, the old man died of heart- 

 disease ; and as Prokopchuk and Anastasia Ivanowna 

 were just at that time starting for Dudinka, whither 

 they went each year on business, Michael Petrovitch 

 wrote a letter to his wife telling her of her loss, and 

 gave it to Anastasia to deliver. But at Dudinka, the 

 couple met most of the natives who were accustomed 

 to spend the summer at Golchika. Thereupon they 

 carefully spread the report that the death in Antonoff's 

 family had been due to measles, and that the house 

 was consequently infected. 



The natives have great fear of measles, which are 

 almost as fatal to them as smallpox is to Europeans ; 

 and such was their alarm, that more than half of them 

 would not settle at Golchika during the following 

 summer. Their absence made no difference to Prokop- 

 chuk, who had several agencies at different places along 

 the river, and who, if he could not trade at one point, 

 did better business at another ; but it was a serious 

 blow to Antonoff. On his return, Prokopchuk, having 

 the monopoly of the trade, soon sold out of goods, and 

 then had the cool impudence to offer to buy more from 

 Michael Petrovitch. Antonoff, quite unwitting of the 

 wrong that had been done him, not only agreed to do 

 so, but as a mark of neighbourly feeling allowed him 



