sound from an asthmatic fiddle in the orchestra, or a melancholy toot, toot, as one of the musicians tuned his comb. If this was to be the nature of the entertainment, I could not see any impropriety in having it on Sunday. It was as mournfully suggestive as a funeral. Little did I know, however, the capabilities of excitement which were concealed under the sober exteriors of those natives. In a few moments a little stir around the door announced refreshments, and a young Chuancee brought round and handed to me a huge wooden bowl, holding about four quarts of raw frozen cranberries. I thought it could not be possible that I was expected to eat four quarts of frozen cranberries! but I took a spoonful or two, and looked to Dodd for instructions. He motioned to me to pass them along, and as they tasted like acidulated hailstones, and gave me a toothache, I was very glad to do so. The next course consisted of another wooden bowl, filled with what seemed to be white pine shavings, and I looked at it in perfect astonishment. Frozen cranberries and pine shavings were the most extraordinary refreshments that I had ever seen--even in Siberia; but I prided myself upon my ability to eat almost anything, and if the natives could stand cranberries and shavings I knew I could. What seemed to be white pine shavings I found upon trial to be thin shavings of raw frozen fish--a great delicacy among the Siberians, and one with which, under the name of "struganini" (stroo-gan-nee'-nee), I afterward became very familiar. I succeeded in disposing of these fish-shavings without any more serious result than an aggravation of my toothache. They were followed by white bread and butter, cranberry tarts, and cups of boiling hot tea, with which the supper finally ended. We were then supposed to be prepared for the labours of the evening; and after a good deal of preliminary scraping and tuning the orchestra struck up a lively Russian dance called "kapalooshka." The heads and right legs of the musicians all beat time emphatically to the music, the man with the comb blew himself red in the face, and the whole assembly began to sing. In a moment one of the men, clad in a spotted deerskin coat and buckskin trousers, sprang into the centre of the room and bowed low to a lady who sat upon one end of a long crowded bench. The lady rose with a graceful courtesy and they began a sort of half dance half pantomime about the room, advancing and retiring in perfect time to the music, crossing over and whirling swiftly around, the man apparently making love to the lady, and the lady repulsing all his advances, turning away and hiding her face with her handkerchief. After a few moments of this dumb show the lady retired and another took her place; the music doubled its energy and rapidity, the dancers began the execution of a tremendous "break-down," and shrill exciting cries of "Heekh! Heekh! Heekh! Vallai-i-i! Ne fstavai-i-i!" resounded from all parts of the room,