Note 145 — Chapter 15 Officials—Siberian Governors-General—A Rapacious Police-Master—An Accommodating Judge—A Roasted Police-Captain—A Tatar Missionary—A Boy of the Female Sex—The Potato Terror, etc.

All their prayers may be reduced to a petition for the continuance of their race, for their crops, and the preservation of their herds.

‘May Yumala grant that from one sheep may be born two, from one grain may come five, that my children may have children.’

There is something miserable and gloomy, the survival from ancient times of oppression, in this lack of confidence in life on earth, and daily bread. The devil (Shaitan) is regarded as equal to God. I saw a terrible fire in a village, in which the inhabitants were mixed Russian and Votyak. The Russians were hard at work shouting and dragging out their things, the tavern-keeper was particularly conspicuous among them. It was impossible to check the fire, but it was easy at first to save things. The Votyaks were huddled together on a little hill, weeping copiously and doing nothing.