A Goldee house is warmed by means of wooden pipes under the divan and passing out under ground to a chimney ten or fifteen feet from the building. Great economy is shown in using fuel and great care against conflagrations. I was not able to stand erect in any Goldee houses I entered.
Like all people of the Mongolian race, the natives pretended to have little curiosity. When we landed at their villages many continued their occupations and paid no attention to strangers. Above Gorin a Goldee gentleman took me into his house, where a woman placed a mat on the divan and motioned me to a seat. The man tendered me a piece of dried fish, which I ate out of courtesy to my hosts. Several children gathered to look at me, but retired on a gesture from pater familias. I am not able to say if the fact that my eyes were attracted to a pretty girl of seventeen had anything to do with the dispersal of the group. Curiosity dwells in Mongol breasts, but the Asiatics, like our Indians, consider its exhibition in bad taste.
Outside this man’s house there were many scaffoldings for drying fish. A tame eagle was fastened with a long chain to one of the scaffolds; he was supposed to keep other birds away and was a pet of his owner. There were many dogs walking or lying around loose, while others were tied to the posts that supported the scaffolds.
The dogs of the Goldees are very intelligent. One morning Mr. Maack missed his pots which he had left the night before full of meat. After some search they were found in the woods near the village, overturned and empty. Several dogs were prowling about and had evidently committed the theft. Fearing to be interrupted at their meal they carried the pots where they could eat at leisure.
While steaming up the river I frequently saw temporary dwellings of poles and bark like our Indian wigwams. These were at the fishing stations upon sand bars or low islands. The afternoon following our departure from Gorin I counted about thirty huts, or yourts, on one island, and more than fifty boats on the river.
For half a mile the scene was animated and interesting. Some boats were near the shore, their inmates hauling seines or paddling up or down the stream. In one heavily laden boat there was one man steering with a paddle. Four men towed the craft against the current, and behind it was another drawn by six dogs. Out in the river were small skiffs and canoes in couples, engaged in holding nets across the direction of the current. The paddles wore struck regularly and slowly to prevent drifting down the stream.
TEN MILES AN HOUR.
One boat with two men rowing and another steering attempted a race with the steamer and fairly passed us, though we were making ten miles an hour. All these natives are very skillful in managing their boats.
When we passed near a boat we were greeted with ‘Mendow, mendow,’ the Mongol word of welcome. Sometimes we were hailed with the Russian salutation of ‘sdrastveteh.’ In one boat I saw a Goldee belle dressed with considerable taste and wearing a ring in the cartilage of her nose. How powerful are the mandates of Fashion! This damsel would scorn to wear her pendants after the manner of Paris and New York, while the ladies of Broadway and the Boulevards would equally reject the Goldee custom.