they had driven all the natives into the pale they left. But propaganda by alcohol continued to spread, and a few years after large encampments of nomads could be met with, whose sites were marked by the remains, half devoured by wolves and dingos, of Orthodox believers, who, having drunk themselves into oblivion, were frozen to death in the boreal darkness of the polar night.
Another branch of the missionaries was active among the Sectarians, particularly among the adepts of the old, unreformed Orthodoxy, or the so-called "old believers." The bishops and the theologians of the "old faith" are well-read men, capable of holding their own in a philosophical discussion, and only the ablest and most eloquent missionaries were entrusted with propaganda amongst them. The rhetorical combats, carried on usually with great passion, were of long duration, and the official monks and pastors had usually the worst of them. The learned of the "old faith" invariably gained a moral victory. But the missionaries had their remedies ready. They selected some corrupt members of the "old believers'" community, with whose help they organised illegal meetings, conferences, speeches, when the most dangerous and irreconcilable opponents could be arrested and deported, either to the north of European Russia or to Siberia.
