252 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



result is that the women all suckle their babes until 

 they are two or three years old, and both mother and 

 child suffer in consequence. As soon as it was known 

 that we had some condensed milk among our stores at 

 Golchika, one woman after another came and asked to 

 buy some for her children. 



The girls and their squires still slept, and as the 

 rain had passed away and the sun was shining, I went 

 for a ramble up the valley, for there is a great fascina- 

 tion about those little lonely rivers of the tundra, up 

 which no boat ever sails. In this bay the river-bank 

 was more sheltered than at Golchika, and the flowers 

 were scarcely past their prime. The slopes were starry 

 with white saxifrage, lemon-coloured poppies, and for- 

 get-me-nots, and in the sunny corners blue larkspurs 

 grew knee high. Here was even that beautiful orange 

 ranunculus which grew so luxuriantly near Yenesiesk. 

 In Siberia, where the summer is so short, the flowers 

 run through a ridiculous season of six weeks — an 

 epitome of a cycle which, in England, requires a whole 

 year for its completion. In our country we begin 

 decorously with the sober butterbur in January, and 

 then follows a course of white and golden bulbous 

 things. These give place to buttercups and daisies, 

 forget-me-nots, iris, and rose, and these again to flaming 

 gold and purple flowers — ragweeds, thistles, and 

 marjoram. On the Yenesei it is true that a sort of 

 Eastern butterbur raises its pallid head before the snow 

 has gone, but in a day or two everything else crowds 

 on to the top of it. The changes are rung quite 

 correctly through white and yellow — cistus, garlic, and 



