t some places was very rapid, and often, in the
attempt to find still water near the river bank, the steamer ran
aground, notwithstanding the continual "ladno" cry of the poling
pilot standing in the fore. It made so slow progress on this account
that the passage from Saostrovskoj to Yenisejsk occupied a whole
month.

[Illustration: CHUKCH VILLAGE ON A SIBERIAN RIVER. (After a
Photograph.) ]

The two main arms into which the Yenisej is divided south of
Yenisejsk are too rapid for the present Yenisej steamers to ascend
them, while, as has been already stated, there is no difficulty in
descending these rivers from the Selenga and the Baikal Lake on the
one hand, and from the Minusinsk region abounding in grain on the
other. The banks here consist, in many places, of high rocky ridges
covered with fine forests, with wonderfully beautiful valleys
between them, covered with luxuriant vegetation.

What I have said regarding the mode of travelling up the Yenisej
refers to the year 1875, in which I went up the river accompanied by
two Swedish naturalists and three Norwegian seamen. It was then by
no means unknown, for scientific men such as HANSTEEN (1829),
CASTREN (1846), MIDDENDORFF (winter journeys in 1843 and 1844), and
SCHMIDT (1866), had travelled hither and communicated their
observations to the scientific world in valuable works on the nature
and people of the region. But the visits of the West-European still
formed rare exceptions; no West-European commercial traveller had
yet wandered to those regions, and into the calculations of the
friendly masters of the Yenisej river steamers no import of goods
from, or export of goods to, Europe had ever entered. All at once a
new period seemed to begin. If the change has not gone on so fast as
many expected, life here, however, is more than it was at one time,
and every year the change is more and more noticeable. It is on this
account that I consider these notes from the journey of 1875 worthy
of being preserved.

[Footnote 200: With this name, for want of another, I denote all the
innumerable islands which lie in the Yenisej between 69 deg. 45'
and 71 deg. N.L. ]

[Footnote 201: The _Moskwa_ was the first steamer which penetrated
from the Atlantic to the town of Yenisejsk. The principal dates of
this voyage may therefore be quoted here.

Baron Knoop, along with several Russian merchants, had chartered in
1878 a steamer, the _Louise_; but this vessel stranded on the