The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-11-30

wethers, are intrasted with peculiarly
constructed packs, on either side of
which is stuffed, among warm furs and
down, the baby members of the Jakut
family.
How wellI remember my first jour-
neys on deer.sled. This Is curious
affair, and, being provided with a hood
made of felt, its resemblance to a giant
baby's cradle on runners is complete.
Before reaching the regions inhabited BY
the Tonguse, it has to be- drawn by a
single horse, for the deer are not met
with until you get couple of hundred
miles north Of Yakutsk. I had at last
reached the Siberia of exile novelists, in
which you do not believe until you find
yourself in such weird, dreary scenery
"a vast whited cemetery, where the
black, leafess, riyen tree stand grim as
gravestones, as if marking the place
where Nature herself is buried for nine
months of the year.
And of this desolation we had still
sixty or seventy miles before US ere we
should cross the great Verchoiansk
range, beyond which were further hun
dreds Of miles OF desolation still more
complete, when the trees would grow
scraggier and the plains more whited and
grim. We entered upon the foothills
of the great range, and had still good
thirty miles to make before we should
come to the station where the deer were
to await us. The scenery became more
weird and majestic as we advanced, and
about ten in the morning we skirted the
foot of the high snow.clad and cloud.
capped range, mostly in the forest
graveyard, the way winding hither and
thither, backward and forward through
the grim, closely set trunks, whose
branches were loaded down with their
heavy burdens of the freshly fallen snow.
But it was weary work for the horses,
and we did not make much more than
three miles an hour. How longed for
the speedier kind of locomotion, and for
a sight of the reindeer! And about noon
we finally came upon the Tonguse birch
bark tent, where we were either to get
the deer or to have them sent on to the
station.
The tent was situated picturesquely in
small clearing. Round about it stood
a score of well.conditioned deer that
gazed at US in a curious fashion with
their large. tender, brown eyes. Inside
the yourte, as the tents are called, the
Touguse family were all gathered, the
men smoking and looking after the ire,
the women engaged in feeding their
children. The head of the family
promised to have the deer sent to Betygl,
that was the name of the next station,
in good time, and we proceeded on with
our horses to the end of the station. 1t
was q mistake, however, that we did not
annex the deer there and then, for the
remaining thirty versts were much worse
than anything We had before expert
cnced. Finally, about three in the
afternoon, the Cossack guide, mounted
en- the leading team, declared himself
unable to find the way further.
For over an hour We waited while the
Yakuts searched in vain for road ana
began to make up my mind for night
in the forest, when, to our JOY, we dis
cerned q long string of deer coming
toward US through the deep snow. 1t
was a strange procession when it came
Nd. There were about twenty animals,
divided into three groups, one following
in the others tracks. On the leading