288 TURUKANSK AND THE WAY THITHER 



pairs of carrion crows seemed to be the only winter 

 residents. I saw no other birds, except a flock of snow- 

 buntings, which, we were informed, had not long arrived. 

 House-martins come in summer, as their nests bore ample 

 evidence. We were told that these birds arrive in 

 Turukansk during the last week in May, old style — that 

 is, the first week in June of our style. 



We left Turukansk at five o'clock on the afternoon of 

 Sunday the 22nd of April. We were not sorry to escape 

 from the clutches of our host, A man with such a faculty 

 for annexing adjacent property I never met with before. 

 He was interesting as a type of the old-fashioned Russian 

 official, ill-paid, and sent by the Government to an out- 

 of the-way place to pay himself — a wretched system. A 

 more shameless beggar never asked alms. Old von 

 Gazenkampf — for this was his name — might have been 

 sixty-five years of age. He had imposed himself and 

 his Cossack servant on a well-to-do widow, who boarded 

 and lodged the pair gratis, but sorely against her will. 

 She dared not refuse them anything, and was afraid to 

 ask for payment. I asked our host to choose a knife or 

 two out of the stock I brought with me for presents ; he 

 immediately took six of the best I had, and the day 

 following asked me for a couple more to send to a friend 

 of his at Omsk. He offered me a pair of embroidered 

 boots for six roubles. 1 accepted the offer. He then 

 said that he had made a mistake, and that he could not 

 sell them, because he had promised to send them to his 

 friend in Omsk. Half an hour afterwards he offered me 

 the same pair for twelve roubles ; I gave him the money, 

 and packed them up for fear his friend in Omsk should 

 turn up again, and I might have to buy them the next day 

 for twenty roubles. From Captain Wiggins he begged all 

 sorts of things, annexed many more without asking, and 



