iberia. This was begun in 1579. In
1580 Yermak passed the Ural, and after several engagements marched
in particular against the Tartars living in Western Siberia, along
the rivers Tagil and Tura to Tjumen, and thence in 1581 farther
along the Tobol and Irtisch to Kutschum Khan's residence Sibir,
situated in the neighbourhood of the present Tobolsk. It was this
fortress, long since destroyed, which gave its name to the whole
north part of Asia.

From this point the Russians, mainly following the great rivers, and
passing from one river territory to another at the places where the
tributaries almost met, spread out rapidly in all directions. Yermak
himself indeed was drowned on the 16th August, 1584, in the river
Irtisch, but the adventurers who accompanied him overran in a few
decades the whole of the enormous territory lying north of the
deserts of Central Asia from Ural to the Pacific, everywhere
strengthening their dominion by building _Ostrogs_, or small
fortresses, at suitable places. It was the noble fur-yielding
animals of the extensive forests of Siberia which played the same
part with the Russian _promyschleni_, as gold with the Spanish
adventurers in South America.

At the close of the sixteenth century the Cossacks had already
possessed themselves of the greater part of the river territory of
the Irtisch-Ob, and sable-hunters had already gone as far
north-east[298] as the river Tas, where the sable-hunting was at one
time very productive and occasioned the founding of a town,
Mangasej, which however was soon abandoned. In 1610 the Russian
fur-hunters went from the river territory of the Tas to the Yenisej,
where the town Turuchansk was soon after founded on the Turuchan, a
tributary of the Yenisej. The attempt to row down in boats from this
point to the Polar Sea, with the view of penetrating farther along
the sea coast, failed in consequence of ice obstacles, but led to
the discovery of the river Pjaesina and to the levying of tribute
from the Samoyeds living there. To get farther eastward the
tributaries of the Yenisej were made use of instead of the sea
route. Following these the Russians on the upper course of the
Tunguska met with the mountain ridge which separates the river
territory of the Yenisej from that of the Lena. This ridge was
crossed, and on the other side of it a new stream was met with,
which in the year 1627 led the adventurers to the Lena, over whose
river territory the Cossacks and fur