tation of Obdorsk, under the Arctic Circle. Their possessions--that
is, the hunting grounds visited by the Russian agents of the Strogonov
family--consequently skirted the great river for a distance of 600
miles. But the Slav power was destined soon to be consolidated
by conquest, and such is the respect inspired by force that the
successful expedition of a Cossack brigand, on whose head a price
had been set, was supposed to have led to the discovery of Siberia,
although really preceded by many visits of a peaceful character.
Even still the conquering Yermak is often regarded as a sort of
explorer of the lands beyond the Urals. But he merely establishes
himself as a master where the Strogonov traders had been received
as guests. Maps of the Ob and of the Ostiak country had already
been published by Sebastian Munster and by Herberstein a generation
before the Cossacks entered Sibir. The very name of this town is
marked on Munster's map.

In 1579, Yermak began the second plundering expedition, which in
two years resulted in the capture of the Tatar kingdom. When the
conquerors entered Sibir they had been reduced from over 800 to
about 400 men. But this handful represented the power of the Tsars
and Yermak could sue for pardon, with the offer of a kingdom as
his ransom. Before the close of the Sixteenth Century the land had
been finally subdued. Sibir itself, which stood on a high bluff on
the right bank of the Irtish, exists no more, having probably been
swept away by the erosions of the stream. But ten miles farther down
another capital, Tobolsk, arose, also on the right bank, and the
whole of the north was gradually added to the Tsar's dominions. The
fur trappers, more even than the soldiers, were the real conquerors
of Siberia. Nevertheless, many battles had to be fought down to
the middle of the Seventeenth Century. The Buriats of the Angora
basin, the Koriaks, and other tribes long held out; but most of
the land was peacefully acquired, and permanently secured by the
forts erected by the Cossacks at the junction of the rivers, at
the entrance of the mountain passes, and other strategic points.
History records no other instance of such a vast dominion so rapidly
acquired, and with such slender means, by a handful of men acting
mostly on their own impulse, without chiefs or instructions from
the centre of authority.

Even China allowed the Cossacks to settle on the banks of the Amur,
though the treaty of Nerchinsk r