336 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘ Bolvana gorah. What about 
ie 
Then it turned out they had remembered how old 
Marrk had taken me to Sieycherhur, and that they 
thought I might like to go to see Bolvana mountain. 
To this I agreed. We would go to-morrow. I would 
sleep in their choom, and the following day we should 
go on to see the bolvans. 
I was very much astonished at this, but it seemed 
clearer when Alexander looked in for a moment and 
explained that these Bulchikoff were exceedingly poor, 
that they had looked to do a little trading with his 
cousin Alexis, who now, it seemed, must have been lost 
in the ice; that they hoped, by taking me to their 
choom, to catch me for a bit of trading. So I made it 
clear that I should not trade, but that, if that was it, we 
had better make a bargain at once. I would go, I said, 
on one condition, and I would pay them five roubles (for 
it was a very long journey, and it did not seem fair to do 
less). My condition was, that they should give me, or 
sell me, a little bolvan, one of those they wore under 
their clothes. Now, at this juncture old Bulchikoff, the 
father, came in. 
‘Bolvan,’ said he, ‘my son no bolvan. My son 
Christian.’ 
They were always suspicious of me, because of the 
Governor's letter; they connected me somehow with the 
ruling powers, and feared I would report them for idolatry. 
