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Updated: June 18, 2025
These the Ostjaks had in abundance, as they kept their frozen piles for food when the keenness of the wind rendered the cold so bitter that they were forced to remain in their huts. At other times they fished by torch-light at holes that they kept broken in the ice, spearing the fish, which were attracted by the light.
Luka and Godfrey also dipped in their cups as an act of civility, but the latter made a wry face when it approached his lips, for the odour of the blubber was very strong, and he took an opportunity, when none of the Ostjaks were looking, to pour the contents of the tin upon the ground beside him; but to the Ostjaks the smell and flavour of blubber was no drawback, and men and women sat round the fire drinking the sweet liquor with great enjoyment, and evidently highly contented at the coming of this stranger among them.
As they went along they passed several fishing-boats, but as they were keeping in the middle of the stream, while the boats lay in the slacker water near the shore, there was no conversation. Twice the Ostjaks shouted to know where they were going, but Luka only replied by pointing down the stream. The journey was singularly uneventful.
Luka sat on the floorboards at the bottom of the boat, and set himself to work to manufacture from the squirrels' skins two fur caps of the same pattern as those worn by the Ostjaks. Godfrey had asked him to do so in order that they might be taken for members of that tribe by anyone looking at them from the villages on the banks.
We will land at the next Ostjak huts we come to, and see if they are disposed to be friendly with us." "They will be friendly," Luka said confidently. "Why not? They are peaceable people, and they know that did they touch strangers they would be punished. There are Russian soldiers at Turukhansk. The Ostjaks are very poor. You have things to give them, and you want nothing of them."
The Ostjaks ordered the women to set about it at once, and leaving the matter in their hands went off to their fishing. Godfrey asked them to take him with them, leaving Luka to see to the repairs of the boat. The fishing implements were of the roughest kind.
"We will get one," Luka said confidently. "We shall find Ostjaks' huts all along the banks, and at any of these, if they have not a boat that will suit us, they will make us one in two or three days." Avoiding the town, and passing through the villages at night, they kept along down the river bank for four days. The river was as wide as the Thames at Greenwich, with a very rapid current.
If they slay him, they formally beg his pardon, as do also the Ostjaks, a tribe akin to the Lapps, and bring him to their huts with great formalities and mystic songs. To the Wolf, whose nickname is 'Graylegs', these tales are more complimentary. He is not the spiteful, stupid, greedy Isengrim of Germany and France.
The ermine is but little larger than the English ferret, while the sable and marten are the size of large polecats. When the Ostjaks came up with them they either knocked them on the head with a club or shot them through the head. They were then carefully skinned, the bodies being thrown to the dogs for food.
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