[Illustration: TAKING THE CENSUS.]

The ordinary residents at the mouth of Ghijiga river were the pilot
and his family, with three or four Cossacks to row boats on the bay.
The natives of the vicinity came there occasionally, but none were
permanent citizens. The arrival of the Variag and Clara Bell gave
unusual activity to the settlement, and the Ispravnik might have
returned a large population had he imitated the practice of those
western towns that take their census during the stay of a railway
train or a steamboat. There was once, according to a rural historian,
an aspiring politician in Tennessee who wanted to go to Congress.
There were not inhabitants enough in his district to send him, and so
he placed a couple of his friends at the railway station to take the
names of passengers as they visited the refreshment saloon and entered
or left the depot. In a short time the requisite constituency was
secured and sworn to, so that the aspirant for official honor
accomplished the wish of his heart.

[Illustration: LIGHT-HOUSE AT GHIJIGA.]

The light-house on the promontory is a hexagonal edifice ten feet in
diameter and height; it is of logs and has a flat top covered with
dirt, whereon to kindle a fire. The interior is entered by a low door,
and I found it floored with two sticks of wood and a mud puddle. One
could reach the top by climbing a sloping pole notched like an
American fence-post. The pilot resides at the foot of the bluff, and
is expected to visit this beacon daily. A cannon, old enough to have
served at Pultawa, stands near the light-house, in a condition of
utter helplessness.