A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 169 



clock in Golchika. Of course our watches had been 

 set right when we left the Oryol, but in a week or two 

 they began to vary. One gained five minutes, another 

 lost ten, and so on. One morning we visited the 

 Antonoffs at an hour which we supposed to be eleven 

 o'clock, but which they declared to be only eight. In 

 proof of this they showed us a home-made sundial, 

 devised by Alexis Petrovitch, the Lettish workman. 

 It consisted of a nail driven into a block of wood, and 

 the noontide shadow had been checked by the compass. 

 Accordingly we all readjusted our watches, and for 

 several days tried to live by the new ruling. But we 

 soon discovered that something was wrong, for the sun, 

 instead of reaching the zenith at noon, arrived there at 

 ten o'clock. We therefore went to look at the sundial 

 again, and found that when Alexis had placed the 

 compass beside the indicator, the magnetism of the 

 latter had deflected the needle. When a ivooden peg 

 was substituted for the iron one, the reading was quite 

 difi'erent. 



On 18th July, Kutcherenkoff, who had been trading 

 at the Sopochnaya, called at Golchika on his way south- 

 wards. He had been very kind to us, and it was 

 mainly to him that we owed our comfortable quarters 

 in the hut, for his letter of recommendation had made 

 a great impression in our favour on Prokopchuk. I 

 had been working on the island all day, and on my 

 way home I called upon him in his steamer, which was 

 moored beside the fishing station. He invited me to 

 take tcliai in his cabin, and we mutually praised the 

 weather, but that was as far as our conversation could 



