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Updated: June 28, 2025
"Yes," Luka said, "Ostjaks have told me that their kindred far down the river were more like the people to the extreme north by the sea. They are pagans there, and not like us to the south. They have reindeer which draw their sledges. They are very poor and know nothing. From them we can get furs, but we can buy goat-skins and sheep-skins at Yeneseisk."
Flour we must take with us, but flour is very cheap at Yeneseisk. Corn will not grow there, but they bring it down in great boats from the upper river." "But how do they get the boats back, Luka?" "They do not get them back; they break them up for firewood. Firewood is dear at Yeneseisk, and they get much more for the barges for fires than it cost to build them in the forests higher up."
Properly they belonged to the government, and inherited their father's exile in not being permitted to go to Europe. The ukase removed all these disabilities and gave the children full authority to succeed to their father's hereditary titles and social and political rights. These exiles lived in different parts of Siberia, but chiefly in the governments of Irkutsk and Yeneseisk.
When the year's operations are ended the most of the men find their way to the larger towns, where they generally waste their substance in riotous living till the return of spring. As in mining communities everywhere, the prudent and economical are a minority. The mines in the government of Yeneseisk are generally on the tributaries of the Yenesei river.
They were fastened on by leathern straps, tied at the back of the head. The Ostjaks themselves seldom wore them, but they were used by Samoyedes, a kindred tribe, dwelling generally farther north, though many of them at times came down even as far as Yeneseisk. Early in November the Ostjaks prepared for a hunting expedition.
Gold washings are conducted on the general plan of those in the Yeneseisk government, the details varying according to circumstances. A representation of the principal silver mine somewhat on the plan of Barnum's "Niagara with Real Water" was shown me in the museum. In general features the mines are not materially unlike silver mines elsewhere.
A gentleman in Irkutsk told me he had a gold mine of this frozen character, and intimated that he found it profitable. The richest gold mines thus far worked in Siberia are in the government of Yeneseisk, but it is thought that some of the newly opened placers in the Trans-Baikal province and along the Amoor will rival them in productiveness.
The men were all away fishing, but the women came out to look at the strangers. As Luka spoke their dialect he had no difficulty in opening the conversation with them. He told them that he and his companion wanted to go down the river to Yeneseisk, and wished to buy a boat, a good one. The women said that some of the men would be in that evening, and that the matter could be arranged.
He had never been below the town of Yeneseisk, but he knew that the Ostjaks were to be found fully a thousand miles below that town, especially on the left bank of the river, but below that, and all along the right bank, the Tunguses and Yuraks were the principal tribes.
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