this kind would be managed upon
Siberian principles of etiquette, I sat quietly in a sheltered corner
and watched the proceedings. The ladies, as fast as they arrived,
seated themselves in a solemn row along a wooden bench at one end
of the room, and the men stood up in a dense throng at the other.
Everybody was preternaturally sober. No one smiled, no one said
anything; and the silence was unbroken save by an occasional rasping
sound from an asthmatic fiddle in the orchestra, or a melancholy toot,
toot, as one of the musicians tuned his comb. If this was to be the
nature of the entertainment, I could not see any impropriety in having
it on Sunday. It was as mournfully suggestive as a funeral. Little did
I know, however, the capabilities of excitement which were concealed
under the sober exteriors of those natives. In a few moments a little
stir around the door announced refreshments, and a young Chuancee
brought round and handed to me a huge wooden bowl, holding about four
quarts of raw frozen cranberries. I thought it could not be possible
that I was expected to eat four quarts of frozen cranberries! but
I took a spoonful or two, and looked to Dodd for instructions. He
motioned to me to pass them along, and as they tasted like acidulated
hailstones, and gave me a toothache, I was very glad to do so.

The next course consisted of another wooden bowl, filled with what
seemed to be white pine shavings, and I looked at it in perfect
astonishment. Frozen cranberries and pine shavings were the most
extraordinary refreshments that I had ever seen--even in Siberia; but
I prided myself upon my ability to eat almost anything, and if the
natives could stand cranberries and shavings I knew I could. What
seemed to be white pine shavings I found upon trial to be thin
shavings of raw frozen fish--a great delicacy among the Siberians, and
one with which, under the name of "struganini" (stroo-gan-nee'-nee),
I afterward became very familiar. I succeeded in disposing of these
fish-shavings without any more serious result than an aggravation of
my toothache. They were followed by white bread and butter, cranberry
tarts, and cups of boiling hot tea, with which the supper finally
ended. We were then supposed to be prepared for the labours of the
evening; and after a good deal of preliminary scraping and tuning the
orchestra struck up a lively Russian dance called "kapalooshka." The
heads and right legs of the musicians all beat time emphat