personal appearance, and my costume would have excited a sensation anywhere except in Siberia.  My face, which was not over clean, was darkened by three weeks’ growth of beard; my hair was in confusion and hung in long ragged locks over my forehead, and the fringe of shaggy black bearskin around my face gave me a peculiarly wild and savage expression of countenance.  The American boots which I had hastily drawn on as we entered the village were all that indicated any previous acquaintance with civilisation.  Replying to the respectful salutations of the Chuances, Yukagirs, and Russian Cossacks who in yellow fur hoods and potted deerskin coats crowded about the door, I followed the priest into the house.  It was the second dwelling worthy the name of house which I had entered in twenty-two days, and after the smoky Korak yurts of Kuil, Mikina, and Shestakova, it seemed to me to be a perfect palace.  The floor was carpeted with soft, dark deerskins in which one’s feet sank deeply at every step; a blazing fire burned in a neat fireplace in one corner, and flooded the room with cheerful light; the tables were covered with bright American table-cloths; a tiny gilt taper was lighted before a massive gilt shrine opposite the door; the windows were of glass instead of the slabs of ice and the smoky fish bladders to which I had become accustomed; a few illustrated newspapers lay on a stand in one corner, and everything in the house was arranged with a taste and a view to comfort which were as welcome to a tired traveller as they were unexpected in this land of desolate steppes and uncivilised people.  Dodd, who was driving his own sledge, had not yet arrived; but from the door we could hear a voice in the adjoining forest singing “Won’t I be glad when I get out of the wilderness, out o’ the wilderness, out o’ the wilderness,” the musician being entirely unconscious that he was near the village, or that his melodiously expressed desire to “get out o’ the wilderness” was overheard by any one else.  My Russian was not extensive or accurate enough to enable me to converse very satisfactorily with the priest, and I was heartily glad when Dodd got out of the wilderness, and appeared to relieve my embarrassment.  He didn’t look much better than I did; that was one comfort.  I drew mental comparisons as soon as he entered the room and convinced myself that one looked as much like a Korak as the other, and that neither could claim precedence in point of civilisation on account of superior elegance of dress.  We shook hands with the priest’s wife—­a pale slender lady with light hair and dark eyes,—­made the acquaintance of two or three pretty little children, who fled from us in affright as soon as they were released, and finally seated ourselves at the table to drink tea.