AN EXILE SERVANT 273 



attention in Yeneseisk was the selection of a servant. 

 On the whole I was most fortunate. All to whom 1 

 mentioned my requirements shook their heads and told 

 me it was a hopeless case. Of course I wanted as good 

 a servant as I could get, honest, industrious, and so forth. 

 Two qualifications were a sine qua non. He must be 



FISHING STATION ON THE OB 



able to skin birds, and speak either French or German. 

 I soon learned that there was not a single person in 

 Yeneseisk who had ever seen a bird skinned for scientific 

 purposes. After many fruitless inquiries, I at last suc- 

 ceeded in finding a young Jew of the name of Glinski, 

 about four and twenty years of age, who three months 

 before had married the daughter of the Israelitish butcher 

 in Yeneseisk. Glinski spoke bad German and bad 

 Russian, and had an inconvenient habit of mixing up 



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