230 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



christened. Possibly his father's experience with the 

 ikons, which has been mentioned elsewhere, may have 

 had something to do with his heathen state. At any 

 rate, when Madame AntonofF tried to persuade him 

 that if he would go to the pope he would receive " a 

 nice Russian name and a nice new Russian shirt," 

 he only glowered defiantly, and, retorting, " I want 

 neither your nice Russian name nor your nice Russian 

 shirt," he remained a pagan. 



Madame Antonoff, who, naturally, had seen much 

 of the natives and their ways, also told us another 

 story, which, although irrelevant here, I cannot help 

 repeating. A Samoyede came to her one day and, 

 laying his hand upon his heart, declared that he had 

 a worm inside him which would not lie still ! She tried 

 in vain to reason him out of this delusion, and at last, 

 to humour him, she gave him some simple draught and 

 sent him away. Half an hour later he came back 

 and complained that her prescription had done him no 

 good at all — he had drunk the medicine and laid the 

 empty bottle inside his shirt, but the worm was still 

 there ! 



It was a distance of only ten versts to Swerifskye, 

 but before we arrived the wind began to rise ominously. 

 By the time that we beached the boat before the 

 balagans, we saw that it would be impossible to go on 

 to Och Marino that night, as had been our previous 

 intention. As the boat approached, excited figures 

 reeled out of both huts and chooms, very much as 

 tipsy wasps tumble out of an apple core, and we guessed 

 that there was what Sylkin called mnogie vino {i.e. 



