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Updated: August 6, 2024
The islands of Novaia Zemlia were left behind, the waters of the Obi and Yenisei splashed against the hull, no drift ice opposed the passage of the Swedish vessel, and on August 19 Cape Cheliuskin, the most northern point of the Old World, was reached. Farther east the coast was followed to Nordenskiöld Sea.
A brilliant remembrance of the Arctic Ocean is the pride of the Swedes. The north-west passage had been discovered by Englishmen; but the north-east passage, which for 350 years had been attempted by all seafaring nations, was not yet achieved. By a series of voyages to Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the Yenisei, Adolf Nordenskiöld had made himself an experienced Polar voyager.
Beyond rise the high hills of the Eastern shore, crowned with forests, whose tops were then empurpled with light. The Yenisei stretched on either side as far as the eye could reach. The beautiful panorama lay before them for a distance of fifty versts. But not a boat was to be seen. All had been taken away or destroyed, according to order.
Unless the Tartars should bring with them materials for building a bridge of boats, their march towards Irkutsk would certainly be stopped for some time by this barrier, the Yenisei. "I remember," said Michael, "that higher up, on the outskirts of Krasnoiarsk, there is a little quay. There the boats touch. Friend, let us go up the river, and see if some boat has not been forgotten on the bank."
These stories were very lively, full of attractive adventure, danger and struggle. Ivan was a type of these prospectors who have discovered in Russia, and perhaps in other countries, the richest gold mines, while they themselves remain beggars. He evaded telling me why he left Transbaikalia to come to the Yenisei.
These people held, in force, the upper waters of the Yenisei, and thence under various names stretched southward to Thibet and Kashgar.
Then, after having knelt before a small picture of the Panaghia, hung on the wall, and still lighted up by a flickering lamp, Nicholas and the young girl slept, whilst Michael, over whom sleep had no influence, watched. Before daybreak the next morning, the 26th of August, the horse was drawing the kibitka through the forests of birch trees towards the banks of the Yenisei.
Just north of Mongolia where the Yenisei River enters Russian territory is the wonderfully interesting fertile prairie region of Minusinsk. Being well watered and sheltered on all sides by mountains, it is one of the most fertile spots in all Siberia. Here the disintegration of gold-bearing rocks has formed large mining fields which are profitably worked.
They are a purely pastoral people, frugal, cleanly, and hospitable, living mainly on meats, and milk and cheese, the products of their herds. Both for pasture and for the culture of cereals, the vast territory between the Obi and the Yenisei will be unrivalled in the whole world. Kurgan is the capital. It will become an Asiatic Chicago.
He had seen the Congo and the Euphrates, the Ganges and the Nile, the Yang-tse-kiang and the Yenisei; he had climbed mountains in Abyssinia, in Siam, in Thibet and Afghanistan; he had shot big game in more than one jungle, and had been shot at by small brown men in more than one forest, to say nothing of the little encounters he had had in most un-Occidental towns and cities.
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