CHAPTER VII
TUNGUSE AND KORAK HOSPITALITY.
My Korak host—"Bear!"—I shoot my first arctic fox—My Tunguse guide—Twenty-two persons sleep in a twelve-foot tent—Tunguse family prayers—The advent of Howka—Chrisoffsky once more.
I struck what I thought to be a straight course toward our destination. The going was much better than it had been a few weeks before, because of the hard frost which held everything solid till ten o'clock in the morning. Then the sun would melt the ice and make it very hard to travel; for the broken ice would cut our boots, which meant wet feet for the rest of the day.
On the second day we struck a small water-course and saw many signs of reindeer. Soon we found a tiny trail, and, following it down the valley, I turned around a bend in the creek, and saw before me six large deerskin tents, while on the surrounding hillsides were hundreds of reindeer. As we neared the village a dozen curs came rushing out; some of them were hobbled so as to prevent their chasing the deer. They attacked us savagely, as is the custom of these ugly little mongrels. We had to make a counter attack with stones to keep them off. The noise aroused the natives, who hurried out and received us with the hospitable "drosty."
Village of Christowic, Okhotsk Sea.