east. He overthrew Prince Beghiche
and captured his city, of which the ruins may still be seen on the
shores of a sinuous lake, near the mouth of the Vogai. He made himself
master of all the country which stretches as far as the Ischim,
terrifying by his vengeance those who dared resist him, and sparing
those who lay down their arms. In the country of Sargaty there lived an
illustrious old man, a former Tartar chief, a hereditary judge of all
the tribes since the first khan of Siberia. He made the act of
submission as well as Prince Etichai, who governed the city of Tehend.
The latter, bearing tribute to Iermak, presented his young daughter,
betrothed to the son of Kutchum. But the hetman, a rigid observer of the
laws of chastity, sent the young girl home. Near the mouth of the
Ischim, a bloody quarrel arose between the soldiers of Iermak and the
wild inhabitants of that wretched country, in which five brave Cossacks
lost their lives. Their memory is still celebrated in the melancholy
songs of Siberia. The little town of Tachatkan also fell into the power
of the Russians. Their chief did not judge it advisable to attack a more
important place, founded by Kutchum, on the banks of the lake Aussaklu.
He penetrated as far as the shore of Chische, where the deserts begin;
imposed tributes on this new conquest, and returned to take to Isker the
spoils which were to be his last trophies.

FIRST COLONY OF ENGLAND BEYOND SEAS

A.D. 1583

MOSES HARVEY

In the Elizabethan era, when maritime discovery was being actively
pursued by England's adventurous spirits, Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of Virginia, took
possession of Newfoundland, with feudal ceremony, in the name of the
Virgin Queen. Sir Humphrey's expedition was barren of results in the
way of colonization, and even in the way of discovery on the island;
while it proved fatal to its leader, and those who sailed with him
on the Squirrel, for on the return voyage to England the vessel
foundered at sea, and only the companion-ship, the Golden Hind,
reached the port of Falmouth, Devon. But the formal occupation of
Newfoundland at that early period makes it the most ancient colony
of the British crown, English settlement beginning shortly after Sir
Humphrey Gilbert's visit, though interrupted between the