386 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
them. Alexander Samarokoff assured me of this, and he is a large 
employer. 
In view of the Trans-Siberian railway, the Russian Government has 
in the Samoyeds of its tundra an agency which, if allowed, will do no 
small part in developing the resources of Arctic and Northern Russia. 
As workmen they might be useful; as carriers they would be pre- 
eminently so. 
But one consideration demands imperative attention. The great fail- 
ing of the Samoyed—one which he shares with the peasants of Northern 
Russia—is a love of vodki. Unless the Russian Government will 
make it a criminal offence to give spirits to a Samoyed, the Samoyeds 
are doomed. 
At the present moment the Samoyeds are I believe responsible, for 
the purposes of taxation, to two overseers. Some extension of the 
system with a view to supervision might be well, By men who under- 
stood their characteristics, and who would treat them kindly, they could 
easily be managed and become willing workmen. Anyhow, it will be 
the wisdom of the Russians to nurse their Samoyeds and not to kill 
them. And as trade advances these most useful and interesting people, 
unprotected, will surely die. 
