d the eastern growth of Russia affords an
instance of swift and natural expansion. Picture on the one side a young
and vigorous community, dowered with patriotic pride by the long and
eventually triumphant conflict with the Tartar hordes, and dwelling in
dreary plains where Nature now and again drives men forth on the quest
for a sufficiency of food. On the other hand, behold a vast territory,
well-watered, with no natural barrier between the Urals and the Pacific,
sparsely inhabited by tribes of nomads having little in common. The one
active community will absorb the ill-organised units as inevitably as
the rising tide overflows the neighbouring mud-flats when once the
intervening barrier is overtopped. In the case of Russia and Siberia the
only barrier is that of the Ural Mountains; and their gradual slopes
form a slighter barrier than is anywhere else figured on the map of the
world in so conspicuous a chain. The Urals once crossed, the slopes and
waterways invite the traveller eastwards.

The French revolutionists of 1793 used to say, "With bread and iron one
can get to China." Russian pioneers had made good that boast nearly two
centuries before it was uttered in Paris. The impelling force which set
in motion the Muscovite tide originated with a man whose name is rarely
heard outside Russia. Yet, if the fame of men were proportionate to the
effect of their exploits, few names would be more widely known than that
of Jermak. This man had been a hauler of boats up the banks of the
Volga, until his strength, hardihood, and love of adventure impelled him
to a freebooting life, wherein his powers of command and the fierce
thoroughness of his methods speedily earned him the name of Jermak, "the
millstone." In the year 1580, the wealthy family of the Stroganoffs,
tempted by stories of the wealth to be gained from the fur-bearing
animals of Siberia, turned their thoughts to Jermak and his robber band
as the readiest tools for the conquest of those plains. The enterprise
appealed to Jermak and the hardy Cossacks with whom he had to do. He and
his men were no less skilled in river craft than in fighting; and the
roving Cossack spirit kindled at the thought of new lands to harry.
Proceeding by boat from Perm, they worked their way into the spurs of
the Urals, and then by no very long _portage_ crossed one of its lower
passes and found themselves on one of the tributaries of the Obi.

Thenceforth their course was easy. Jermak a