TO THE HOLY HILLS 345 
and then, turning round, looked me straight in the face 
for quite a while, and then in a hoarse cracked voice, 
like some old crow, said twice over and very slowly, 
‘England, impossible! England far away ; far, far away.’ 
(Ahnglia narlzah ! ne mozhnah. Ahnglia dalyoko, otchen, 
otchen dalyoko), and then relapsed into silence. 
There was some touch in this man’s face that told one 
at once that he was not all there. He was, in fact, a bit 
soft. An excellent workman, a recognised authority on 
many matters (they all accepted him as the weather- 
prophet), he was one of those curious twisted phenomena 
one sometimes comes across, where cunning is combined 
with warped wits. He wasa natural, and a very uncanny 
one at that, with a curious influence over all the Samoyeds. 
I think even the Russians in their hearts feared this 
strange creature, for they were always most careful not 
to round counter to him in any way. 
September 4th.—‘NE. Bitter cold. Snow. Gale 
again. Young Uano—‘ Uano droogoy,” as he calls him- 
self, who sat long in tears in my hut yesterday saying his 
Russian was dead, drowned, and he himself was broken 
—rushed in this morning in great excitement, seized my 
hand and cried, “ My Russian here, my Russian! my 
Russian!’ as if he could not say it often enough. So 
that, what between his tears and laughter, for he was 
quite hysterical, I had all my work cut out to humour 
him and get him gone. But his Russian, Alexis, did not 
