270 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



to our voyage. If the coast had been followed the whole time, 

 if the weather had been clear and the navigable water sufficiently 

 surveyed, so that it had been possible to keep the course of 

 the vessel near the land, the voyage of the Vega to the mouth 

 of the Lena ivould never have hcen obstructed by ice, and I am 

 convinced that this will happen year after year during the close 

 of August, at least between the Yenisej and the Lena. For 

 I believe that the place where ice-obstacles will perhaps be met 

 with most frequently will not be the north point of Asia, but 

 the res^ion east of the entrance to the Kara Sea. 



CHAPTER VIIL 



The voyage of tlie Fraser and the Express up the Yenisej and their return 

 to Norway — Contract for the piloting of tlie Lena up the Lena river — 

 The voyage of the Lena through the delta and up the river to Yakutsk 

 — The natural state of Siberia in general — The river territories — The 

 fitness of the land for cultivation and the necessity for improved com- 

 munications — The great rivers, the future commercial highways of 

 Siberia — Voyage up the Yenisej in 1875 — Sibiriakoff's Island — The 

 tundra — The primeval Siberian forest — The inhabitants of Western 

 Siberia: the Russians, the Exiles, the "Asiatics" — Ways of travelling 

 on the Yenisej : dog-boats, floating trading stores propelled by steam 

 — New prospects for Siberia. 



I HAVE mentioned in the Introduction that the Vega during 

 the first part of the voyage was accomj^anied by three other 

 vessels, which together with the principal vessel of the Expedi- 

 tion stood at my disposal and under my orders, and I have stated 

 in passing that their voyages too deserve a place in the history 

 of navigation. Now, when we were parted from the vessel 

 which had accompanied the Vega farthest in her route eastwards, 

 it may be the proper place to give a brief account of the close 

 of the voyages of the Fraser, the Express, and the Lena, and 

 give reasons for what I have said of the importance of these 

 voyages. 



On the 9th August at 10 a.m., after Mr. Serebrenikoff had 

 gone on board the Express to take command, as Sibiriakoff's 

 commissioner, of the two vessels bound for the Yenisej, the 

 Eraser, with the Express in tow, started from Port Dickson for 

 the river. The voyage passed without other adventures than 

 that in consequence of unacquaintance with the navigable 

 waters the vessel sometimes gently grounded. On the 11th 

 August Korepovskoj was reached, the same place where I laid up 

 in 1876 the goods which I had brought with me in the Ymer. 

 Here my old friend from my voyages of 1875 and 1876, the 



