302 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



common speech, has as little reality to most people as 

 Timbuctoo or Jericho. 



I remember that on the same evening, the laughing 

 suggestion was made that as Mr. Lied was a Russian 

 subject, and Miss Curtis and I were Englishwomen, 

 that we should therefore go to the Austrian territory 

 of Franz-Josef Land, which lay about five hundred miles 

 to the north, and take possession of it in the name of 

 the Allies ! Miss Curtis and I were in love with the 

 North : I believe that if the Pole itself had been 

 proposed, we should have been all the better pleased. 



