Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
These Tartars drove horses of the same race as those in the Baraba steppe. They carried us finely where the road permitted, and I had equal admiration for the powers of the horses and the skill of their drivers. In the night, after passing Malmouish, the weather became warm. I laid aside my dehar only a half hour before the thermometer fell, and set me shivering.
Travelers who are obliged to cross the Baraba during the summer take care to provide themselves with masks of horse-hair, to which is attached a coat of mail of very fine wire, which covers their shoulders. Notwithstanding these precautions, there are few who come out of these marshes without having their faces, necks, and hands covered with red spots.
Every few years the chain of frontier posts is pushed to the southward, and embraces a newly acquired region. Western Siberia is dotted over with abandoned and crumbling forts that once guarded the boundary, but are now far in the interior. Some of these defences are near the great road across the Baraba steppe.
He started therefore at dawn; but unfortunately the Baraba proved more detestable than ever. In fact, between Oubinsk and Kamakore the very heavy rains of some previous weeks were retained by this shallow depression as in a water-tight bowl. There was, for a long distance, no break in the succession of swamps, pools, and lakes.
He had left Moscow on the 15th of July. Therefore on this day, the 5th of August, including more than seventy hours lost on the banks of the Irtych, twenty days had gone by since his departure. One thousand miles still separated him from Irkutsk. MICHAEL'S fear of meeting the Tartars in the plains beyond the Baraba was by no means ungrounded.
They are a serious inconvenience to the traveler on account of the swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and other tormenting insects that they produce. While crossing the Baraba swamps in summer, men and women are obliged to wear veils as a protection against these pests. Horses are sometimes killed by their bites, and frequently became thin in flesh from the constant annoyance.
Tomsk takes its name from the river Tom, on whose banks it is built. It stands on the edge of the great Baraba steppe, and has about twenty thousand inhabitants of the usual varied character of a Russian population. I saw many fine houses, and was told that in society and wealth the city was little inferior to Irkutsk. Here, as at other places, large fortunes have been made in gold mining.
At Tomsk their reception was not less cordial than it had been at Irkutsk. Next they plunged into the immense marshes of Baraba; into a dreary succession of lakes, and pools, and swamps, blooming with a luxurious vegetation and a marvellous profusion of wild flowers, each more beautiful than the other, but swarming, unhappily, with a plague of insects eager to drink the blood of man or beast.
But if the small towns of Ikoulskoe and Karguinsk, which he passed on the next day, were comparatively quiet, owing to their position in the Baraba, was it not to be dreaded that, upon the right banks of the Obi, Michael Strogoff would have much more to fear from man? It was probable. However, should it become necessary, he would not hesitate to abandon the beaten path to Irkutsk.
On the morrow, Michael Strogoff left Elamsk at the moment when the first Tartar scouts were signaled ten versts behind upon the road to the Baraba, and he plunged again into the swampy region. The road was level, which made it easy, but very tortuous, and therefore long. It was impossible, moreover, to leave it, and to strike a straight line across that impassable network of pools and bogs.
Word Of The Day