CHAPTER JI 
THE GOOSING 
WeE now had thirty versts to travel if we were to make 
our old Pesanka camp. 
All went well till we reached the Baroshika, and here 
we came to an enforced delay. For the river had risen 
badly and was very deep. We tied the reindeer’s heads 
to the sleighs and tried the river with the ‘toorr.’ It was 
everywhere unpromising. At last we could delay no 
longer, but determined to cross at our old ford where 
the water would not be higher above the normal than 
two feet. 
So we slung our belongings round our necks, and 
standing on the sleighs, prepared to cross. I doubt not 
this sounds simple enough. It was not. It was easier 
for the Samoyed in his seal-skin boots. But to stand 
on a small, slippery, moving sleigh in nailed boots, with 
water rushing round your feet, is hard. The drop from 
the bank into the water is the first trial, and the 
bumpings, risings and sinkings of the sleigh over the 
sandy shallows are worse. However, we did get over 
with water up to our knees, and we crossed without 
other mishap than a broken sleigh. For somehow my 
212 
