sh, frozen tallow, and venison
out of a dirty wooden trough, with an ill-conditioned dog standing at
each elbow and disputing one's right to every mouthful, is to enjoy
an experience which only Korak life can afford, and which only Korak
insensibility can long endure. A very sanguine temperament may find
in its novelty some compensation for its discomfort, but the novelty
rarely outlasts the second day, while the discomfort seems to increase
in a direct ratio with the length of the experience. Philosophers
may assert that a rightly constituted mind will rise superior to all
outward circumstances; but two weeks in a Korak tent would do more to
disabuse their minds of such an erroneous impression than any amount
of logical argument. I do not myself profess to be preternaturally
cheerful, and the dismal aspect of things when I crawled out of my
fur sleeping-bag, on the morning after our arrival at the first
encampment, made me feel anything but amiable. The first beams of
daylight were just struggling in misty blue lines through the smoky
atmosphere of the tent. The recently kindled fire would not burn but
would smoke; the air was cold and cheerless; two babies were crying
in a neighbouring _polog_; the breakfast was not ready, everybody was
cross, and rather than break the harmonious impression of general
misery, I became cross also. Three or four cups of hot tea, however,
which were soon forthcoming, exerted their usual inspiriting
influence, and we began gradually to take a more cheerful view of
the situation. Summoning the _taiyon,_ and quickening his dull
apprehension with a preliminary pipe of strong Circassian tobacco, we
succeeded in making arrangements for our transportation to the next
Korak encampment in the north, a distance of about forty miles.
Orders were at once given for the capture of twenty reindeer and the
preparation of sledges. Snatching hurriedly a few bites of hardbread
and bacon by way of breakfast, I donned fur hood and mittens, and
crawled out through the low doorway to see how twenty trained deer
were to be separated from a herd of four thousand wild ones.

[Illustration: TENTS AND REINDEER OF THE WANDERING KORAKS]

Surrounding the tent in every direction were the deer belonging to
the band, some pawing up the snow with their sharp hoofs in search of
moss, others clashing their antlers together and barking hoarsely in
fight, or chasing one another in a mad gallop over the steppe. Near
the tent