'Do you see, it was like this. My father was not yet born, my grandfather was a little fellow for whom they were still collecting the "Kalym"[1] when there came to this neighbourhood a Bilak with eyes of ice,[2] a long beard and long moustaches; he settled here, not in the valley but up on yonder mountainside in the taiga. That was not taiga, as you see it now, but thick and wild, untouched by any axe. There the Bilak found an empty yurta and settled in it.' [Footnote 1: The price for the future wife which is paid in cattle and horses; it is collected early in the boy's life.] [Footnote 2: The black-eyed Yakuts speak thus of the blue-eyed races.] 'But he had no sooner gone to live there than the taiga became impassable at a distance of ten versts round the cottage. The Bilak ran about with his gun in his hand, and when he caught sight of anyone he covered him with his gun, and unless the man ran away he would pop at him--but not for fun, he didn't mind whom he shot, even if it were a Cossack. What he lived on? The gods of the taiga know! Nobody else did. Every living thing shunned him like the plague. Those who caught sight of him in the forest when he ran about like a devil said that at first he wore clothes such as the Russian gentlemen wear who know how to write, but later on he was dressed in skins which he must have tanned himself. People said he got to look more and more terrible and wild. His beard grew down to his waist, his face got paler and paler and his eyes burnt like flames. Some years passed. Then one winter, at the time of the worst frosts, when a murderous "chijus" broke,[1] he was not seen for several days. As a rule he had been observed from a distance, so the people gave notice in the town that someone should come and ascertain what had happened to him. [Footnote 1: A column of frozen air, moving southwards. After a chijus, corpses of frozen people are generally found.] 'They came and closed in upon the cottage carefully. There was the Bilak on the bed in his furs, all covered with snow, and in his hand he held a cross. The Bilak was dead; perhaps hunger had killed him, perhaps the frost, or maybe the devil had taken him. Now tell me, was there no reason for us to be afraid of the Bilaks? Here was only a single one who drove all the neighbourhood to flight, and now all of a sudden a great many of you arrived? He! he! he! You know how to write, brother, but you are yet very young! So you thought people had no good reasons for their fears? Well, you see, you were mistaken. A Sacha is cleverer than he looks!' This legend of a Pole who could not bear to look upon human beings--a legend I repeatedly heard again later--made a deep impression upon me. These woods, these fields where I was walking now had perhaps been haunted by the unfortunate man, driven mad and wild with excess of sorrow.