In Search of a Siberian KlondikeVanderlip, Washington Baker
History
In Search of a Siberian Klondike
Vanderlip, Washington Baker
Gold mines and mining -- Russia (Federation) -- Siberia; Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
to let these natives club his dogs and perhaps injure the valuable
animals, so he resorted to the last expedient. Giving a shout of
warning to me he suddenly, by a deft motion, turned our sledge
completely over, landing me in a snow-drift on my head. In this
position the sledge was all brake and the dogs were forced to stop,
leaping in their harness and yelling like fiends incarnate. I sat up
in the snow-bank and laughed. The other drivers had followed our
example, and the struggling tangle of sledges, harness, dogs and men
formed a scene that to the novice at least was highly ludicrous. The
drivers and the village people were belaboring the dogs, and the
entire herd of reindeer belonging to the village were escaping in all
directions up the hills.
When order was at last restored, which was not accomplished till every
deer was out of sight, we made our way to the yourta, which was large
and comfortable, and, as usual, the women set about making tea. The
reader may well ask how the natives can use both dogs and reindeer if
the very sight of a deer has such a maddening effect on the dogs. The
explanation is simple. The two never go together. There is the dog
country and the deer country, and the two do not impinge upon each
other. Even among the same tribe there may be a clear division. For
instance, there are the "Deer Koraks" and the "Dog Koraks." In some of
the villages of the former there may occasionally be seen a few
low-bred curs which are not used for sledging and have been trained
not to worry deer. Confusion is often unavoidably caused by traveling
with dogs through a deer country, but the natives do not take it in
ill part, knowing that if they themselves have to travel with deer
through a dog country they will cause quite as much inconvenience.
While we were drinking tea and eating hard bread I noted that the
settlement contained some thirty men, with their wives and children.
The women hastened to prepare a dinner of unborn-deer's flesh and deer
tongues. Frozen marrow bones, uncooked, were broken and the marrow, in
the shape of sticks or candles, was passed around as a great delicacy.
These dishes, together with frozen cranberries, formed our repast, and
a very good one we voted it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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