OUR STEAMER'S FUEL 455 



found on the mountains of the tundra towards the 

 Katanga river. The latter is much larger, has also long 

 hair, but has heavy horns. 



The next day we did not get a chance of going on 

 shore until nearly midnight, when it was too dark to 

 shoot. The last few days had been oppressively hot, 

 and we had all found it difficult to sleep. Our food was 

 ill adapted to the weather. Beef, fish, and bread, with 

 no vegetables, are at best a somewhat heating diet, and 

 when the fish is sturgeon and sterlet, delicate as salmon 

 and rich as eel, melting in the mouth, the heating 

 properties of the regimen are increased. There scarcely 

 stirred a breath of air, the thermometer must have been 

 between 80 and 90 in the shade, and we continually 

 felt a stray mosquito busily employed injecting poison 

 into our veins. No wonder the blood gets hot and 



o 



feverish under such conditions, and that we tossed upon 

 our hard bunks and wooed the fickle goddess of sleep in 

 vain. As the result of these circumstances, Boiling and 

 I went on shore at midnight, the anchor having been 

 dropped to allow a boatload of firewood to be stored in 

 the barge. Our engine fires burnt a great quantity of 

 wood, twelve sazhins a day, costing a rouble and a half 

 each. A sazhin is a stack three arshins high and as 

 many long, the width of the length of each log, say one 

 to one and a half arshins ; each arshin measures twenty- 

 eight English inches. We had to stop once or twice 

 every four-and-twenty hours to get the requisite supply 

 of firewood on board, and with the occasional additional 

 delays in getting casks of salt fish, we lost nearly a third 

 of our time. I always took advantage of these stoppages 

 to go ashore and pick up a few birds, but upon this 

 occasion it was dark, and I did not take my gun. Boiling 

 and I went out in the village to forage. We hoped to 



