grubs had developed into blue and golden butterflies! We found the
ispravnik waiting for us in a pleasant, spacious room furnished with,
all the luxuries of a civilised home. The walls were papered and
ornamented with costly pictures and engravings, the windows were hung
with curtains, the floor was covered with a soft, bright-coloured
carpet, a large walnut writing-desk occupied one corner of the room, a
rosewood melodeon the other, and in the centre stood the dining-table,
covered with a fresh cloth, polished china, and glittering silver. We
were fairly dazzled at the sight of so much unusual and unexpected
magnificence. After the inevitable "fifteen drops" of brandy, and the
lunch of smoked fish, rye bread, and caviar, which always precedes a
Russian dinner, we took seats at the table and spent an hour and a
half in getting through the numerous courses of cabbage soup, salmon
pie, venison cutlets, game, small meat pies, pudding, and pastry,
which were successively set before us, and in discussing the news of
all the world, from the log villages of Kamchatka to the imperial
palaces of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Our hospitable host then ordered
champagne, and over tall, slender glasses of cool beaded Cliquot we
meditated upon the vicissitudes of Siberian life. Yesterday we sat
on the ground in a Korak tent and ate reindeer meat out of a wooden
trough with our fingers, and today we dined with the Russian governor,
in a luxurious house, upon venison cutlets, plum pudding, and
champagne. With the exception of a noticeable but restrained
inclination on the part of Dodd and myself to curl up our legs and sit
on the floor, there was nothing I believe in our behaviour to betray
the barbarous freedom of the life which we had so recently lived, and
the demoralising character of the influences to which we had been
subjected. We handled our knives and forks, and leisurely sipped our
champagne with a grace which would have excited the envy of Lord
Chesterfield himself. But it was hard work. No sooner did we return to
our quarters than we threw off our uniform coats, spread our bearskins
on the floor and sat down upon them with crossed legs, to enjoy a
comfortable smoke in the good old free-and-easy style. If our faces
had only been just a little dirty we should have been perfectly happy!

The next ten days of our life at Gizhiga were passed in comparative
idleness. We walked out a little when the weather was not too cold,
received