The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-10-31
IN DEER. SLED.
A Journey Among the Yakuts Of Northern
Siberia.

new YORK Telegram.
Ihad C thousand miles to go before /
should reach the Arctic ocean. found
some difficulty in first examining my
self into my deer sled, and in a few
hours afterward quite as great In get
ting out oft. The deer sled is a long,
narrow affair, placed on high, wooden
runners; it is made extremely light, OF
a framework of slender birch, and is
covered with a hood in order to protect
the head and face of the occupant from
the biting blasts. 1t is, in fact, in APP
pearance o lengthened-out cradle, and
II think about as comfortable.
At night one sleeps in it very
comfortable. / remember the first
might've were in the forest, the moon
shone brightly, the road was good, and
Yakut horses are trained to follow n
another faithfully, and only the leading
driver has any serious work to do.
When / was awake, however, / found
the journey strangely weird and inter
esting. You see before you nothing but
q mass of trees and slender underwood
no opening in which you can imagine
that a road exists. But the leader en-
tiers the. gloom of the forest fearlessly;
he darts on first to the right and then
to the left, between trunks OF trees
scarcely more than a foot wider apart
than is needed through which your sled
is to pass. Now and then You lose.
sight of the sled in advance of you, but
your horse knows the road, if you do
not attempt to drive, and he fol-
lows. Strange forms then the sIeds
take on in the whitehead gloom.
Yakuts do not put sleigh bells on the
harness, and you pass on so silently,
and the fitting things in front of you,
of which you catch glimpses occasion
ally, seem to form part of some strange,
weired and ghostly procession. Soyou
pass on for hours through the forest.
Then a white bleak space opens In front
of you, over which you pass in the
moonlight. 1t is the frozen surface of
q lake, of which there are scores among
the forests. Suddenly, when yea have
passed the crest of a hill you look
down toward the valley that seems
a mile away You imagine that rockets
are being fired into the air by some I'M
known friends. They seem to be shot
up n after the other with great regu-
larity, and you can imagine for the mo-
ment that a company of Cossacks has
been sent in advance to point out your
resting or camping place. But this IS
an illusion. The valley is not a hun
dred yards away, and the rockets are
nothing more than the sparks from the
blazing hearth of a Yaknt yourte.
Outside the Yakut yourte looks a
very insignificant affair. 1t is very low
covered with g layer OF mud, and n
winter of snow, and has slabs of ice
propped up from the outside for win
dows, and a doorway only just large
! enough for a COW to squeeze through,
and much too low for a man. Enter
the hut and you feel the grateful warmth
of the blazings piled upon the raised
hearth, and feel at once well disposed
towards the inhabitants whoever they
may be. Once inside and you see that
the yourte is built Of stems of large
trees, the sides sloping upwards to-
ward the roof, which is also made OF
large stems laid side by side and sup
ported by pillars rising from the floor.
In the centre Of the yourte is the huge
raised hearth, slender stems OF
trees plastered with mud forming
the smoke conductor, or chimney.
The logs are thrown in an upright po-
sition, SO that they burn quickly and
throw out a comfortable warmth around
the room, which may be from fifteen to
twenty yards square. Close beneath
the sloping sides are built rude benches,
divided off into compartments, each
about six feet long. There are the
sleeping hunks, privacy being only pos
ible when you have a shawl or rug tc
hang before your division. On these
benches you all sleep, Yakuts and
travellers, the yemschieks taking The
floor, and you sleep comfortably enough
in the blaze and warmth of the fire,
There is an inner apartment of the
yourte, q kind of annex or dependence
This is net given up to the family, o.
even to the ladies of the house, but i
the unrestricted domain of the cows,
which. however, have to pass through
the living department to get to then
own.
Then there are the bellies ofthe family
These are nothing if not ugly. In on'
yourte there were three Yakut damsels
their ages ranging from IL to 20. They
possessed but a single pipe, which they
passed around from n to the other
If their brothers, the yemschiks. arr
Just going out on a journey, they ALLOW
each to take q few energetic whiffs be
fore their departure, and then go a
work themselves again, chatting ans
looking after the boiling of the SOU
milk at the same time. The pipe j
kept going almost necessarily from
morning till night, The girls are not
as I said before, handsome. Their face