106 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEl 



to purchase them at wholesale rates. Meanwhile another 

 merchant in a smaller way of business fell ill of pneu- 

 monia. Whereupon Prokopchuk gave out that this 

 was another case of measles. The terrified natives 

 immediately boycotted the unfortunate man, with the 

 result that he was ruined. Unable to sell his goods, 

 and in urgent need of cash, he begged Prokopchuk to 

 take over his stores at a reduced price, and needless to 

 say, Gerasim Androvitch was only too pleased to do so. 

 The first that the AntonofF family heard of this piece 

 of treachery was when Madame Antonoff herself passed 

 through Dudinka and learned of her father's death ; but 

 it was not until she reached home that she and her 

 husband realised the cruel trick that had been played 

 upon them. 



This story shows something of the difficulties under 

 which the Yenesei merchant works, owing to the lack 

 of communication with the south. Michael Petrovitch 

 in particular used to lament grievously about the im- 

 possibility of learning the rise and fall of prices in 

 Krasnoyarsk. This inconvenience hampered Prokop- 

 chuk less because he was a])le to travel up the river in 

 winter, and learned what Dudinka could tell him of the 

 outside world, but he also used to look forward to the 

 time when wireless telegraphy would link remote 

 Golchika with the south. The telegraph wire now 

 extends as far as Turukhansk, and it should not in the 

 future prove such a difficult business to supplement it 

 with a wireless station having a transmission area of a 

 thousand versts. 



Although the natives are gradually coming more and 



