our populous cities. But the chief defect of the Yakouta is dirt.
Otherwise he is rather a favorable specimen of a savage. Since his
assiduous connection with the Russians he has become even rich, having
flocks and herds, and at home plenty of koumise to drink and horse's
flesh to eat. He has great endurance, and can bear tremendous cold. He
travels in the snow, with his saddle for a pillow, his horse-cloth for
a bed, his cloak for a covering, and so sleeps. His power of fasting
is prodigious, and his eyesight is so keen that a Yakouta one day told
an eminent Russian traveler that he had seen a great blue star eat a
number of little stars, and then cast them up. The man had seen the
eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Like the red Indian, he recollects
every bush, every stone, every hillock, every pond necessary to find
his way, and never loses himself, however great the distance he may
have to travel.

His food is boiled beef and horse's flesh, cow's and mare's milk. But
his chief delicacy is raw and melted fat, while quantity is always
the chief merit of a repast. He mixes likewise a mess of fish, flour,
milk, fat, and a kind of bark, the latter to augment the volume. Both
men and women smoke inordinately, swallowing the vapor, as do many
dwellers in civilized lands--a most pernicious and terrible habit.
Brandy is their most precious drink, their own koumise having not
sufficient strength to satisfy them. In summer they wander about in
tents collecting hay, in winter they dwell in the yourte or hut, which
is a wooden frame, of beehive shape, covered with grass, turf, and
clay, with windows of clear ice. The very poor dig three feet below
the soil; the rich have a wooden floor level with the adjacent ground,
while rude benches all round serve as beds, divided one from the other
by partitions. The fireplace is in the middle, inclining toward the
door. A pipe carries away the smoke.