he river proper, where the
fairway became considerably better. Johannesen says in his
account of the voyage that it is improbable that any of the
western arms of the Lena are of importance, partly because the
mass of water which flows in an easterly direction is very
considerable in comparison with the whole quantity of water in
the river, partly because the western and northern arms which
Johannesen visited contained only salt water, while the water
in the eastern arm was completely free from any salt taste. On
the 8th, early in the morning, the first fixed dwelling-place on
the Lena, Tas-Ary, was reached. Here the voyagers landed to
get information about the fairway, but could not enter into
communication with the natives, because they were Tunguses.
In the afternoon of the same day they came to another river
village, Bulun. Impatient to proceed, and supposing that it
too was inhabited wholly by "Asiatics,"[206] Johannesen intended
to pass it without stopping. But when the inhabitants saw the
steamer they welcomed it with a salute from all the guns that
could be got hold of in haste.[207] The _Lena_ then anchored. Two
Crown officials and a priest came on board, and the latter
performed a thanksgiving service.

Even at that remote spot on the border of the _tundra_ the Asiatic
comprehended very well the importance of vessels from the great oceans
being able to reach the large rivers of Siberia. I too had a proof of
this in the year 1875. While still rowing up the river in my own
Nordland boat with two scientific men and three hunters, before we got
up with the steamer _Alexander_ we landed, among others, at a place
where a number of Dolgans were collected. When they understood clearly
that we had come to them, not as brandy-sellers or fish-buyers from the
south, but from the north, _from the ocean_, they went into complete
ecstasies. We were exposed to unpleasant embraces from our skin-clad
admirers, and finally one of us had the misfortune to get a bath in the
river in the course of an attempt which the Dolgans in their excitement
made to carry him almost with violence to the boat, which was lying in
the shallow water some distance from the shore. At Dudino, also, the
priests living there held a thanksgiving service for our happy arrival
thither. Two of them said mass, while the clerk, clad in a sheepskin
caftan reaching to his feet, zealously and devoutly swung an immense
censer. The odour from it was at first not