MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTR^K 



173 



was kept waiting for several hours on the tundra, without knowing where my 

 guides had gone to. 



" At first I did not even know that they had left me, and when I became 

 aware of the fact, I thought that they had abandoned me to my fate. I will 

 not attempt to describe my sensations ; but my bodily condition was such, that 

 when the cold increased with the approach of night, I was seized with a violent 

 fever. I thought my last hour was come, and prepared for my journey to an- 

 other world." 



The re-appearance of the guides relieved Castren of his anxiety, and when the 

 little party reached some Samoiede huts, the eldest of the guides knelt down at 

 the side of our traveller's sledge and expressed his joy in a prayer to God, beg- 

 ging Castren to join him in his thanksgivings, " for He, and not I, has this night 

 saved thee." 



The next morning,, as the weather seemed to improve, and the road (along 

 the Indiga River) to the next Russian settlement was easy to find, Castren re- 

 solved to pursue his journey. " But the storm once more arose, and became so 

 dreadfully violent that I could neither breathe nor keep my eyes open against 

 the wind. The roaring of the gale stupefied my senses. The moist snow 

 wetted me during the day, and the night converted it into ice. Half frozen, I 

 arrived after midnight at the settlement. The fatigues of the journey had been 

 such that I could scarcely stand ; I had almost lost my consciousness, and my 

 sight had suffered so much from the wind that I repeatedly ran with my fore- 

 head against the wall. The roaring of the storm continually resounded in my 

 ears for many hours after." 



A few days later Castren arrived at Pustosersk, undoubtedly one of the 

 dreariest places in the world. With scarcely a trace of arboreal vegetation, the 

 eye, during the greater part of the year, rests on an interminable waste of snow, 

 where the cold winds are almost perpetually raging. The storms are so violent 

 as not seldom to carry away the roofs of the huts, and to prevent the wretched 

 inhabitants from fetching water and fuel. In this Northern Eden our inde- 

 fatigable ethnologist tarried several months, as it afforded him an excellent op- 

 portunity for continuing his studies of the language, manners, and religion of the 

 Samoiedes, who come to the fair of Pustosersk during the winter, to barter their 

 reindeer skins for flour and other commodities, and at the same time to indulge 

 in their favorite beverage — brandy. At length the Samoiedes retired, the busy 

 season of the place was evidently at an end, and Castren, havmg no further in- 

 ducement to remain at Pustosersk, left it for the village of Ustsylmsk, situated 

 150 versts higher up the Petschora, where he hoped still to find some straggling 

 Samoiedes. The road to Ustsylmsk leads through so desolate a region, that, 

 according to the priests of the neighborhood, it can not have been originally 

 created by God with the rest of the world, but must have been formed after 

 the Deluge. Near Ustsylmsk (65° 30' K lat.) the country improves, as most of 

 the northern trees grow about the place ; but, unfortimately, a similar praise 

 can not be awarded to its inhabitants, whom Castren found to be the most 

 brutal and obstinate Raskolniks (or sectarians) he had ever seen. Without in 

 the least caring for the Ten Commandments, and indulging in every vice, these 



