another Russian," was his reply. "Are you glad to return to your Russian fellow-citizens?" I asked. "Of course," he said; "how could I be otherwise. These Tartars are pleasant and peaceable, but they are not like my Russian brothers; they are not of our type (Volost). For example, you cannot get bread or cabbage soup or vodka here, and the life is wild and tedious in these lands." It was clear, therefore, that the Siberian wool trader on these frontier steppes of the Altai, tolerant as he is of his Tartar neighbours, is more at home in his village, where he can satisfy his everyday necessities more nearly than he can in a Tartar encampment. But, unlike the British colonist, his preference is based less on social than on economic grounds. He can naturally enjoy his life better in a village of his Russian fellow-citizens, for there he can get his bread, his soup and his vodka, while on the steppes he must be content with cheese and kumis. But, socially, he has not the smallest objection to associating and living with the Tartars, for the sake of those material gains which come to him through trading with them. So little, in fact, do social considerations worry him that he even intermarries with them, if he cannot find a Russian girl to suit him. The Siberian frontier wool trader, like the Siberian peasant, has a tolerant mind, he is peaceable and childlike, and his ideas of life are somewhat material.
That night we roasted some mutton on a spit over the fire, used our fingers for forks, and then lay on the floor of the tent wrapped in felt blankets along with the rest of the Tartars.
After spending a few more days in the encampment
