ensured them a sufficiency of meat throughout the winter, in
addition to their own stock of fish, the work was well done. For each a
closely-fitting shirt had been made of the squirrel skins they had
brought down with them, with the fur inside. The trousers were of red
fox-skin, with the hair outside. The upper garment was a long capote of
the same fur, reaching down to the ankles, and furnished with a hood
covering the head and face, with the exception of an opening from the
eyes down to the mouth. In addition to these, was given to each as a
present a pair of Ostjak boots. These were large and loose. They were
made of goat-skins, rendered perfectly supple by grease and rubbing, and
with the hair inside. They came up to the thighs, and had a thick sole
made of layers of elk-hide. There was also for each a pair of socks of
squirrel's skin, with the hair inside, and a pair of fingerless gloves
of double skin, the fur being both inside and out, except in the palm,
which was of single skin, with the fur inside.

"Well, if it is cold enough to require all that," Godfrey said, "it will
be cold indeed; but it will be awful walking about with it. Surely one
can never want all those furs!"

But in time Godfrey found that they were none too many, for at
Turukhansk the thermometer in winter sometimes sinks to 60 degrees below
zero. For a time, however, he found no occasion to use the capote, the
fur shirt trousers and boots being amply sufficient, while the fur cap
with the hanging tails kept his neck and ears perfectly warm. Already
the ice was thick on the still reach of the river beside which the huts
stood, although, beyond the shelter of the point, the Yenesei still
swept along. The lagoon had been frozen over for some days, in spite of
the water being kept almost perpetually in motion by the flocks of
water-fowl, and the ground was as hard as iron. The Ostjaks were now for
some days employed in patching up their huts and preparing them to
withstand the cold of winter.

An immense pile of firewood had been collected on the shore, for boughs
of trees and drift-wood, brought down by the river, often came into the
backwater, and these were always drawn ashore, however busied the men
might be at the time in fishing. All through the summer every scrap of
wood that came within reach had been landed, and the result was a great
pile that would, they calculated, with the blubber they had stored, be
sufficient to last them through t