172 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



fore, when the steamer arrived, ten days overdue, and 

 there was no post-bag for us, we were all very 

 disappointed. 



The coming of the Lena was made the occasion for 

 an orgy, both in the chooms and in the balagans, and 

 as the revellers were sometimes wont to make a descent 

 upon our hut, we were glad when, in the evening, 

 Madame Antonoff invited us to go to her house for 

 supper. Owing to the building operations, one side of 

 the kitchen had been pulled down, and the fireplace 

 had been taken out. An English " general " would 

 have given a month's notice if she had been asked to 

 cook a meal for about twenty people under such 

 circumstances, but Anastasia stolidly baked her pirog 

 and prepared the samovai^ over a makeshift stove in the 

 bedroom. Several of the Lena's passengers were in the 

 parlour. Among them was a Polish lady, the wife of 

 a political exile at Turukhansk. Her husband, who, 

 though but thirty-nine years old, had already spent 

 more than sixteen years of his life either in prison or in 

 exile, had been sent to the Yenesei for three years. 

 His sentence would expire in the following spring, and 

 they were both looking forward eagerly to their release 

 from the mosquitoes and monotony of Monastir. This 

 lady very kindly undertook to post our letters for us 

 in Turukhansk, and at her invitation we went aboard 

 the steamer for an hour. The Lena compared very 

 unfavourably with the Oryol as far as passenger 

 accommodation was concerned, for the cabins were both 

 cramped and dingy. She was, however, the fastest boat 

 on the river, and although the people along the river- 



