Works of A.P. Chekhov, Vol. 10: Sakhalin Island

it necessary and possible to give a public lecture here at the club. Now, however, nearly half of the houses are abandoned by their owners, semi-ruined, and dark, frame-less windows look at you like the eye sockets of a skull. The inhabitants lead a drowsy, drunken life and generally live from hand to mouth, on whatever God sends. They subsist on supplying fish to Sakhalin, gold poaching, the exploitation of the indigenous people, and the sale of panty velvet antlers, that is, reindeer horns, from which the Chinese prepare stimulating pills. On the way from Khabarovka to Nikolayevsk, I happened to meet quite a few smugglers; here they do not hide their profession. One of them, who showed me gold dust and a pair of antlers, said to me with pride: "My father was a smuggler too!" The exploitation of the indigenous people, besides the usual debauchery through alcohol, fooling them, etc., is sometimes expressed in an original form. Thus, the Nikolayevsk merchant Ivanov, now deceased, used to travel to Sakhalin every summer and collect tribute from the Gilyaks an indigenous people of the Russian Far East, now known as the Nivkh, and he would torture and hang those who were delinquent in their payments.

There is no hotel in the city. In the public assembly, I was allowed to rest after dinner in a room with a low ceiling—they say that balls are held here in the winter; but to my question about where I could spend the night, they only shrugged their shoulders. There was nothing to be done, I had to spend two nights on the steamer; when it left back for Khabarovka, I found myself like a crab on a shoal: where shall I go? My luggage is on the pier; I walk along the shore and do not know what to do with myself. Directly opposite the city, two or three versts from the shore, stands the steamer Baikal, on which I will go to the Tatar Strait, but they say that it will depart in four or five days, not earlier, although the departure flag is already flying on its mast. Should I just take it and go to the Baikal? But it is awkward: they might not let me in, they will say it is too early. A wind blew, the Amur frowned and became agitated like