a Shaman which, judging by its
appearance, had been there about a century, and the shell with the
remains had long since disappeared.

The deer were a long time coming at Tostach; one of our drivers
accounted for the delay by the fact that wolves had been unusually
troublesome this year, and when Stepan suggested that the wolves were
two-legged ones, did not appear to relish the joke. For the man was a
Tunguse, a race noted for its predatory instincts and partiality for
deer-meat. Reindeer in these parts cost only from twelve to fifteen
roubles apiece, but farther north they fetch forty to fifty roubles
each, and the loss of many is a serious one.

We managed to get away from Tostach that afternoon (March 5) in a dense
snowstorm, although on the preceding day the sun had blazed so fiercely
into the sleds that we could almost have dispensed with furs. The
weather, however, was mostly bright and clear all the way from the Lena
to the coast, which was fortunate, for with sunshine and blue sky we
could generally afford to laugh at cold and hunger, while on dull, grey
days the spirits sank to zero, crushed by a sense of intolerable
loneliness, engendered by our dismal surroundings and the daily
increasing distance from home. The stage from Tostach was perhaps the
hardest one south of the Arctic, for we travelled steadily for twelve
hours with a head-wind and driving snow which rendered progress slow and
laborious. Finally, reaching the _povarnia_ of Kurtas[37] in a miserable
condition, with frost-bitten faces and soaking furs, we scraped away
the snow inside the crazy shelter and kindled a fire, for no food had
passed our lips for sixteen hours. But time progressed, and there were
no signs of the provision-sled which, as usual, brought up the rear of
the caravan. Ignorance was bliss on this occasion, for the knowledge
that the vehicle in question was at that moment firmly fixed in a drift
ten miles away, with one of its team lying dead from exhaustion, would
not have improved matters. When our provisions reached Kurtas, we had
fasted for twenty-four hours, which, in North-Eastern Siberia, becomes
an inconvenience less cheerfully endured than in a temperate climate.
Beyond Kurtas the track was almost overgrown, and our _narta_ covers
were almost torn to pieces by branches on either side of it. There were
places where we had literally to force our way through the woods, and
how the drivers held their course remains a mystery