icf2 CON Q^U EST OF SIBERIA. 



he cut his way through the troops who furrounded 

 him, and made to the banks of the IrtiOi *. Being 

 cloiely purfued by a detachment of the enemy, he en- 

 deavoured to throw himfelf into a boat which lay near 

 the fliore ; but ftepping fhort, he fell into the water, 

 and being incumbered with the weight of his armour^ 

 lunk inftantly to the bottom t. 



His body was not long afterwards taken out of the 

 Irtilh, and expofed., by order of Kutchum Chan, to all 

 the infnlts which revenge ever fuggefted to barbarians 

 in the frenzy of fuccefs. But thefe firft tranfports of 

 refentment had no fooner fubfided, than the Tartars 

 tellified the moft pointed indignation at the ungenerous 



* Many difficulties have arifcn concerning the branch of the Irtiili in 

 •which Yermac was drowned ; but it is now fufficiently afcertained that 

 k was a canal, which feme time before this cataftrophe had been cut by 

 order of that Coffac : Not far from the fpot, where the Vagal falls into 

 the Irtlfli, the latter river forms a bend of fix verfts ; by cutting a canal 

 in a ftrelght line from the two extreme points of this fweep, he fhortened 

 the length of the navigation. S. R. G. p. 365 — 366. 



■f- Cyprian was appointed the firft archblfliop of Siberia, in 1621. Upon 

 his arrival at Tobolfk, he enquired for feveral of the antient followers 

 of Yermac who were ftill alive ; and from them he made himfelf aQ- 

 qualnted with the principal clrcumftances attending the expedition of 

 that Colfac, and the conquefl: of Siberia. Thole clrcumftances he tranf- 

 mltted to writing ; and thefe papers are the archives of the Siberian 

 hlftory ; from which the feveral hiftorlans of that country have drawn 

 their relations. Sava YefimofF, who was himfelf one of Yermac's follow- 

 ers, is one of the moll accurate hiftorlans of thofe times. He carries 

 down his hlftory to the year 1636. Flf. Sib. Gef I. p. 430. 



ferocity 



