among the Siberians, and one with which, under the name of “struganini” (stroo-gan-nee’-nee), I afterward became very familiar.  I succeeded in disposing of these fish-shavings without any more serious result than an aggravation of my toothache.  They were followed by white bread and butter, cranberry tarts, and cups of boiling hot tea, with which the supper finally ended.  We were then supposed to be prepared for the labours of the evening; and after a good deal of preliminary scraping and tuning the orchestra struck up a lively Russian dance called “kapalooshka.”  The heads and right legs of the musicians all beat time emphatically to the music, the man with the comb blew himself red in the face, and the whole assembly began to sing.  In a moment one of the men, clad in a spotted deerskin coat and buckskin trousers, sprang into the centre of the room and bowed low to a lady who sat upon one end of a long crowded bench.  The lady rose with a graceful courtesy and they began a sort of half dance half pantomime about the room, advancing and retiring in perfect time to the music, crossing over and whirling swiftly around, the man apparently making love to the lady, and the lady repulsing all his advances, turning away and hiding her face with her handkerchief.  After a few moments of this dumb show the lady retired and another took her place; the music doubled its energy and rapidity, the dancers began the execution of a tremendous “break-down,” and shrill exciting cries of “Heekh!  Heekh!  Heekh!  Vallai-i-i!  Ne fstavai-i-i!” resounded from all parts of the room, together with terrific tootings from the comb and the beating of half a hundred feet on the bare planks.  My blood began to dance in my veins with the contagious excitement.  Suddenly the man dropped down upon his stomach on the floor at the feet of his partner, and began jumping around like a huge broken-legged grasshopper upon his elbows and the ends of his toes!  This extraordinary feat brought down the house in the wildest enthusiasm, and the uproar of shouting and singing drowned all the instruments except the comb, which still droned away like a Scottish bagpipe in its last agonies!  Such singing, such dancing, and such excitement, I had never before witnessed.  It swept away my self-possession like the blast of a trumpet sounding a charge.  At last, the man, after dancing successively with all the ladies in the room, stopped apparently exhausted—­and I have no doubt that he was—­and with the perspiration rolling in streams down his face, went in search of some frozen cranberries to refresh himself after his violent exertion.  To this dance, which is called the “Russki” (roo’-ski), succeeded another known as the “Cossack waltz,” in which Dodd to my great astonishment promptly joined.  I knew I could dance anything he could; so, inviting a lady in red and blue calico to participate, I took my place on the floor.  The excitement was perfectly indescribable, when the two Americans began revolving