might have been
any age, certainly an octogenarian in such primitive vices as were
feasible within the restricted area of his Arctic home. Mikouline had
once travelled some distance down the coast, and was therefore installed
as guide. He and the other drivers agreed to accompany us as far as the
first Tchuktchi settlement, where I hoped to procure assistance and
transport from the natives. And at first I believed in my driver, for he
was a cheery, genial little fellow, so invariably facetious that I often
suspected his concealment of a reserve stock of _vodka_. And although
Mikouline's casual methods concerning time and distance were
occasionally disquieting, he was a past master in the art of driving
dogs, which is not always an easy one. The rudiments of the craft are
soon picked up, but, as I afterwards found to my cost, a team will
discover a change of driver the moment the latter opens his mouth, and
become accordingly unmanageable. Illustrations of dog-sleds in the
Arctic generally depict the animals as bounding merrily away at full
speed, to be restrained or urged on at the will of their driver, but
this is a pure fallacy, for a sled-dog's gallop is like a donkey's,
short and sweet. The average gait is a shuffling trot, covering from
five to seven miles an hour over easy ground; and even then desperate
fights frequently necessitate a stoppage and readjustment of the traces.
There are no reins, the dogs being fastened two abreast on either side
of a long rope. To start off you seize the sled with both hands, give it
a violent wrench to one side, and cry "Petak!" when the team starts off
(or should start off) at full gallop, and you jump up and gain your seat
as best you may. To stop, you jab an iron brake into the snow or ice and
call out "Tar!" But the management of this brake needs some skill, and
with unruly dogs an inexperienced driver is often landed on his back in
the snow, while the sled proceeds alone upon its wild career.
Laplanders and the Eskimo have each their method of dog driving, but the
above was that practised by ourselves and by the Tchuktchis on the
Siberian coast.

The journey of three hundred miles to Nijni-Kolymsk was accomplished in
five days, and it was pleasant enough, for every night was passed in the
hut of some fisherman or trapper who regaled us with tea and frozen
fish. The Kolyma settler is generally a half-breed; an uncouth but
hospitable being who leads a queer existence. During t