of
intellectual cultivation. They pass much of their super-abundant leisure
in somewhat noisy assemblages where eating and drinking play a principal
part. After dinner, which is a very substantial meal, and at which
_nalivka_, a liquor made of brandy, berries, and sugar, is not spared,
the gentlemen pass the afternoon with cards and punch, and the ladies
gather round the tea-table."]

As sometimes happens in this world men here are far better off than
women, for the former are occupied during the day with their
professional duties, and, if so inclined, they can obtain excellent
fishing and shooting within a day's journey. The Verkhoyansk mountains
can be reached in under a week, and here there are elk, wild sheep, and
other big game, but for the unfortunate fair sex life is one eternal
round of hopeless monotony. There is not even a regiment to enliven the
dreariness of existence, for the garrison consists of about one hundred
and fifty Cossacks, with only a couple of officers in command. Nor is
there a newspaper; only a dry official journal printed once a month,
while the telegrams received by the Governor are sent round to
subscribers of one rouble per month. In summer it is possible to walk or
drive about, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, but in spring or
winter-time the women here are often kept indoors for days together by
the floods or piercing cold. No wonder that physical strength is soon
impaired by an idle life, stimulants, and the eternal cigarette, or that
moral laxity should follow the daily contamination of spicy scandal and
pernicious French literature. I have heard Siberians assert that Yakutsk
is the most immoral city in the world, and (with a mental reservation
regarding Bucharest) I felt bound to agree with them. For if only
one-half of the tales which I heard concerning the gay doings of the
_elite_ here were true, then must the wicked little Roumanian capital
"take" (to use a slang expression) "a back seat." Apparently this state
of affairs has existed for some time, for when Admiral Melville, of the
_Jeannette_, was here twenty years ago, searching the coast for his
unfortunate shipmates, he attended a reception given on New Year's Eve
by the Lieutenant-Governor, and was told by the latter that, "on that
night, as on no other, every man had his own wife at his side instead of
some other man's."[20]

[Footnote 20: "In the Lena Delta," by G. W. Melville.]

At the time of our visit Yakutsk containe