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I can only cursorily refer to the numerous and animated gatherings of birds which take place, always on the same spot, before they begin their long journeys north or south, as also those which one sees in the north, after the birds have arrived at their breeding-places on the Yenisei or in the northern counties of England.
All had been more or less unfortunate to Michael Strogoff. On the Irtych, the boat which carried him and Nadia had been attacked by Tartars. On the Obi, after his horse had been struck by a bullet, he had only by a miracle escaped from the horsemen who were pursuing him. In fact, this passage of the Yenisei had been performed the least disastrously.
The double river-systems of the Volga and Kama, the Obi and Irtish, the Angara and Yenisei, the Lena and Vitim on the Arctic slope, the Amur and Sungari on the Pacific slope, are instances. They were the true channels of Russian colonization.
It may possibly be essayed in a generation or two, when Ekaterinenborg, built up into a great city by the copper, iron, gold, and, above all, the lately-opened coal-mines of the Ural, shall have become the focus of the Yenisei, Amour, Yang-tse and Indus system of railways. But here, again, we are overstepping our century.
The magnitude of this undertaking may be imagined from the fact that the Yenisei river is only reached after a ride of 2,000 miles from Cheliabinsk, and then the traveller has not traversed half the distance across the continent which this railroad spans. We arrive at the main stream of the Obi when the train rolls into the station at Kolivan.
Irkutsk is the largest town in Siberia, and has 100,000 inhabitants; it stands on the bank of the river Angara, which flows out of Lake Baikal, and thus forms the outlet of all the rivers and streams which empty themselves into the lake, the largest of which is the Selenga. Although the Angara is five times as large as the Yenisei, it is called a tributary of the latter.
I felt it to be a clear case of embezzlement that they had used my money, paid for a specific purpose, to make these useless, if possibly interesting, deductions. For while they dawdled and read learned papers to each other, the Grass touched the Persian Gulf and the Caspian, paused before Lake Balkash and reached the Yenisei at the Arctic Circle.
The country has also good prospects of future development owing to its remarkably excellent agricultural land. Most of this is situated near the railway, and all Siberia is intersected by a net of waterways. From one of the tributaries of the Obi steamers can pass by canal to the Yenisei, and thence on to the Lena.
The following day we went up over the high chain of mountains called Daban and, traversing a great area of burned timber where our trail lay among the fallen trees, we began to descend into a valley hidden from us by the intervening foothills. There behind these hills flowed the Little Yenisei, the last large river before reaching Mongolia proper.
The width of the Yenisei in this place is about three hundred metres. The stream is very rapid and the shore breaks away abruptly to the full depth of the stream. The night was absolutely dark with not a star in the sky. The wind in whistling swirls drove the snow and sleet sharply against our faces.
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