170 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



go. He knew no English and I knew no Russian, so 

 that we could only look dumbly at each other and 

 laugh apologetically at ourselves. Then, luckily, my 

 host had an inspiration and called his boatswain into 

 the cabin. This man was a Greek, who spoke both 

 French and Russian, and who, consequently, could 

 interpret for us. After that we got on splendidly, for 

 what I said in French the Greek repeated in Russian 

 to Mr. Kutcherenkoff, and vice versa. The merchant 

 was very entertaining, for he had travelled up and 

 down the river for many years, and as the Yenesei, in 

 spite of its size, is like a village street — a street seven- 

 teen hundred miles long ! — where everybody knows 

 everything about everybody else's business, he had 

 many curious tales to relate. He himself, although one 

 of the richest merchants on the Yenesei, was the grand- 

 sou of a criminal of peasant extraction, a fact of which 

 he made no secret. One of the feats of his younger 

 days is still celebrated on the Yenesei. Many years before, 

 he and seven other men towed a load of a thousand 

 pouds up the river from Potapooskoye to Yenesiesk. 

 It took them a month to walk the distance, and they 

 wore no boots for the journey — " it was not worth 

 while," as he said with a smile. He had known Captain 

 Wiggins well, and also Schwanenburg, the Courlander, 

 who was associated with the efforts of Wiggins to open 

 up the commerce of the Yenesei. He told me that 

 Schwanenburg spent all his spare time in shooting small 

 birds {malenki pteetza) and never laid his gun aside, 

 even when at meals. He constantly left the cabin 

 and ran ashore to shoot some bird whose note he had 



