BACK TO SCHAROK 301 
point of honour with the Samoyeds, and I could not get 
him to lend me a team of deer so that I might go right 
away. All the deer were wanted for the goose catching. 
August 13th.—At half-past one in the morning we 
came again in sight of the encampment, and we made a 
race of it as we drew near. My fine team seemed to be 
doing all they knew, but at any rate Uano’s team did 
more, and I was a bad second at the post. 
Then Uano invited me to drink tea—my tea—in his 
choom. 
I noticed that we sat down with rather more ceremony 
than usual, and Uano, who generally sits on the other 
side of the choom, made me take a place on the tub by 
him. And then I found the reason. As I had given 
them real tea, Mrs. Uano was giving us real tea-cups. 
Out they came, two Norwegian and three Russian cups 
and saucers. They had been a present from the wrecked 
Norwegians. 
Then Uano told me how every year he bought a 
hundred pud (a pud=36 lbs.) of flour from the Russians, 
and that for this he gave two roubles per pud, and that 
his Russian’s name was Alexander Samarokoff, merchant 
from Okshin on the Petchora; that this Russian and 
another came east in his boat every year, and that had it 
not been for the ice they would have been here ten days 
ago. And he brought me his wooden calendar on which 
the dates were ticked off. 
