his native town. Acting on the
pressing advice of his friends, he gave up his wanderings, and went
to reside in the house of his fathers, piled up his skins and ivory,
bought new ones, and prepared for the annual fair. The merchants from
Irkoutsk, the capital, came, and Ivan, who was sharp and clever,
did a good trade. But when his furs and teeth were changed into
tea, tobacco, brandy, cloth, &c., he did not feel a whit happier.
Ivan longed for the arid hills, and lofty mountains, and pellucid
lakes--for the exciting hunt and the night bivouac, when gray-headed
Yakoutas would, with their _ganzis_--the Irish duddeen--in their
mouths, tell terrible and wonderful stories of ancient days. When
eating town fare, his stomach yearned after frozen Yakouta butter,
cut up with axes, and for _strouganina_ or frozen fish, with reindeer
brains, and other northern delicacies. And then his kind friends told
him that he wanted a wife--a possession without which, they assured
him, life was dull, adding that in her society he would cease to long
for communion with bears and savages.

Ivan believed them, and, following their advice, launched into
society--that is, he went more than usual to the noisy festivities
of the town, which form the occupation of the dull season. The good
people of Yakoutsk--like all people approaching to a savage state,
especially in northern climes--consider eating the great business of
life. Fabulous legends are told of the enormous capacity for food,
approaching that of the Esquimaux; but however this may be, certain it
is that a Yakoutsk festival was always commenced by several hours of
laborious eating and drinking of fat and oily food and strong brandy.
When the utmost limits of repletion were reached, the patriarchs
usually took to pipes, cards, and punch, while the ladies prepared
tea, and ate roasted nuts, probably to facilitate digestion. The young
men conversed with them, or roasted their nuts for them, while perhaps
a dandy would perform a Siberian dance to the music of the violin
or _gousli_, a kind of guitar. Ivan joined heartily in all this
dissipation: he smoked with the old men; he drank their punch; he
roasted nuts for the ladies, and told them wonderful stories which
were always readily listened to, except when some new fashion, which
for several years before had been forgotten in Paris--found its way
via St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Irkoutsk, to the deserts of Siberia.
Then he was silent; for