32 SLEDGING TO UST-ZYLMA 



and things unprotected, sometimes for an hour, at the 

 stations where we stopped for a meal, and on no occasion 

 had anything been stolen. In the villages on this part of 

 the journey we noticed a number of crosses, generally one 

 or two at the entrance, and one near the centre of the 

 village. They were made of wood, and were about ten 

 feet high, the ordinary Greek double cross, with an 

 oblique foot-bar, and most of them were protected by a 

 wooden roof to keep off the snow. Both the roof and 

 the cross itself were, as a rule, elaborately carved, and the 

 whole face of the cross was covered with inscriptions (no 

 doubt Slavonic) in about three-inch letters. Sometimes 

 in the poorer villages the crosses were not carved, and 

 the inscription and ornamentation were simply painted 

 upon the wood, generally in various colours. The Russian 

 peasantry in European Siberia seem to be fond of orna- 

 ment. The majority of the houses are built with the 

 gable end to the street, and in the centre of the gable is 

 a window, opening on to a balcony. This balcony, the 

 framework of the windows, the ends of the rain-gutters, 

 and the ends of the ridge of the roof, were often elabo- 

 rately carved and fretted, and sometimes painted in gay 

 colours. In nearly all the villages we noticed a con- 

 spicuous arrangement of railings for the drying of flax, 

 hay, or corn. In the station-houses we found the men, 

 and sometimes the women, engaged in spinning flax, 

 making nets, or weaving coarse linen. In the stations, 

 however, where there was no village, a draught-board of 

 very rude construction evidently served to while away the 

 long winter evenings. Several times during the journey 

 we saw Samoyedes, or Syriani, sledging along with their 

 reindeer, and in many places the snow was ploughed up 

 some distance from the road, showing that the reindeer 

 had been seeking for food. As we neared Ust-Zylma we 



