A SUMMER ON THE YENESEl 187 



brood, or a flight of waders passed overhead. A holy 

 peace seemed to brood over the whole vast land from 

 Yenesei to the Taimyr. 



Then just as the calm was deepest, the tired Samo- 

 yedes rowed home from the day's fishing. Their 

 subdued voices broke the silence, just as the passing 

 of the boats dappled the surface of the river with 

 ripples. Sometimes they sang — a low, monotonous 

 chant with a little catch in it — music at its baldest — 

 harmony as crude as the lip-lap of the laz)'' water 

 under the boat, or the footfall of the reindeer on the 

 tundra moss. Grade, mystic, and melancholy, their 

 song sounded the day's " Last Post," and the night 

 breeze, bearing it over the tundra, found an echo 

 there. 



