r, which had to be
brought in from a considerable distance. Deer generally take some
finding, as they stray sometimes fifteen or twenty miles from a
_stancia_ in search of moss, but, in our case, long delays had been
avoided by the Cossack who preceded us. The _stancia_ at Bete-Kul was
kept by a more prosperous-looking Yakute than usual, and his wife was
attired in bright silks and wore a profusion of massive gold jewellery.
The Yakutes are expert goldsmiths, but chiefly excel in the manufacture
of arms, especially a kind of _yataghan_, or huge dagger, which is stuck
into the waistband. Yakute steel is much more flexible than Russian,
although I have seen a knife made out of the former sever a copper coin
as neatly as though it were a meat-lozenge.

We shared the postmaster's meal at Bete-Kul, and were introduced to a
peculiar dish, which deserves mention as showing the extraordinary
digestive powers of these people. It was a kind of jelly extracted from
reindeer-horns and flavoured with the bark of the pine tree, which is
scraped into a fine powder for the purpose. I was fated to subsist in
after days on disgusting diet of the most varied description, but to
this day the recollection of that Bete-Kul jelly produces a faint
feeling of nausea, although I can recall other ghoulish repasts of raw
seal-meat with comparative equanimity. Pure melted butter formed the
second course of this Yakute _dejeuner_, each guest being expected to
finish a large bowl. Stepan, however, alone partook of this tempting
dish, but he merely sipped it, while our host and his wife drained the
hot, oily mess as though it had been cold water. But Yakutes will
consume any quantity of butter in this condition. Dobell, the explorer,
says that a moderate Yakute butter-drinker will consume from twenty to
thirty pounds at a sitting. The same traveller adds that "at other times
these natives drink butter as a medicine, and declare it excellent for
carrying away the bile." This was written nearly one hundred years ago,
and it is curious to note that the most modern European treatment for
gall-stones should now be olive oil, given in large quantities,
presumably to produce a similar effect to that obtained by the butter of
the Yakute. By the time this weird meal was over the deer had arrived,
and I declined our host's offer of a pipe of Circassian tobacco, which
would probably have finished me off completely. Both sexes here smoke a
tiny Chinese pipe, with