KEEPING OUT THE COLD 301 



thought was the handsomest tit, and had the pleasure of 

 picking up a nuthatch. Half an hour afterwards I came 

 upon the same or another party. I watched eaih bird 

 very closely, and soon found there was a nuthatch among 

 them. The note was different from that of the tits, a 

 sort of st, something like the note of our tree-creeper, 

 and an occasional whil, or very liquid whit. The two 

 birds proved to be male and female. On the same 

 excursion I heard a redpoll or two, the first trace of 

 these birds I had seen since leaving Yeneseisk. I also 

 saw a flock of snow-buntings, and shot a second three- 

 toed woodpecker. 



The same evening the Blagachina and the postmaster 

 came to visit Captain Wiggins. They had sledged over 

 from Turukansk. I had hoped, with the assistance of 

 Glinski as interpreter, to get some interesting informa- 

 tion from these gentlemen, but they seemed to have 

 found it necessary to fortify themselves against the cold 

 during the journey, and when the sledge arrived the 

 Blagachina was so fast asleep that we had the greatest 

 difficulty in waking him. He slept most of the following 

 day, apparently waking just to eat and refresh himself with 

 the vodka of the Russian merchant, so we saw little or 

 nothing of our visitors, and got no information from them. 



On Sunday the wind shifted from north-east to 

 north-west, but produced no change in the weather. The 

 sun was burning hot all day, and on any steep bank 

 exposed to its rays it made a slight impression, but not a 

 drop of water survived the night's frosts, and to all 

 intents and purposes we were still in mid-winter. We 

 used occasionally to see a cloud in the evenings, but 

 generally the sky was brilliantly clear. As I could make 

 nothing out of our guests, I left them to drink and sleep 

 and turned into the forest. To my surprise, I found 



