206 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



had seen some Dolgans. These men were three brothers, 

 and during the summer, Prokopchuk employed them as 

 his shepherds to take his reindeer out into the tundra. 

 A few days after the events related in the last chapter, 

 two of the brothers came to buy food at Golchika, and 

 Prokopchuk arranged that we should accompany them 

 back to their choom, which was pitched at a place called 

 Sloika, about forty versts east of Golchika, They were 

 to start on the following day, and of course we gladly 

 consented to go back with them. 



A reindeer sledge is not a very roomy conveyance. 

 All luo;o[ao;e has to be cut down to the minimum, and 

 therefore, besides a gun and a camera, my personal 

 baggage for the trip consisted of a pair of dry socks to 

 sleep in. We strapped our sheepskins down upon the 

 sledges, and the rest of the space was given up to the 

 kettle, cooking-pot, and food. Each traveller had a 

 sledge to himself, and these sledges, each drawn by 

 four deer, were tied one behind the other to the sledges 

 of the Dolgans. Vassilli, the eldest of the two brothers, 

 led the procession, and after a few false starts we 

 moved off at a smart trot. 



As the punt is on the river, so is the reindeer sledge 

 on the tundra. You may do what you will with it — 

 turn it this way and that, let it slide down an eight-foot 

 drop, ride in it up a slope of forty-five degrees, or drive 

 it full tilt at a four-foot dyke, and it will never overturn, 

 but glide easily and safely from one bank to the other. 

 Before we had gone half a verst, we had a practical 

 illustration of this, for just where we were to leave the 

 fiat bank of the river to turn up into the tundra, there 



