vni.] EUSSIAN HOUSES. . 291 



fertility. Without manure and with an exceedingly small 

 amount of labour expended on cultivation, man will year by 

 year draw forth from its black soil the most abundant harvests. 

 For the present, however, this land, with its splendid capabili- 

 ties for cultivation, has an exceedingly scanty population ; and 

 this holds good in a yet higher degree of the forest belt, which 

 is less susceptible of cultivation. At a considerable distance 

 from the rivers it is for the most part an unknown land, where 

 the European seldom or never sets his foot, and where only the 

 native nomad or hunter wanders about. These forests, how- 

 ever, are by no means so rich in game as might be expected, 

 perhaps because the mosquitoes in summer are unendurable by 

 warm-blooded animals. 



The main population in the forest belt consists of native nomad 

 or Ininting tribes, of which Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Tunguses, and 

 Yakuts are the most numerous. Only along the rivers do we 

 find Russian villages and peasant settlements, placed there for 

 trading with the natives, for fishing, and at some places for 

 washing gold. Not till we come to the middle of the country 

 is the Russian population more numerous ; here it spreads out in 

 a broad belt over the whole of the immense expanse between 

 the Ural and the Angara. 



In the farthest north the Russian dwelling-places consist of 

 single cabins built of logs or planks from broken-up lighters,^ 

 and having flat, turf-covered roofs. Such carvings and orna- 

 ments as are commonly found on the houses of the well-to-do 

 Russian peasant, and whose artistic outlines indicate that the 

 inhabitants have had time to think of somethino^ else than the 

 satisfaction of the wants of the moment, are here completely 

 wanting; but further south the villages are larger, and the 

 houses finer, with raised roofs and high gables richly ornamented 

 with wood-carvings. A church, painted in bright colours, 

 generally shows that one of the inhabitants of the village has 

 become rich enough to be at the expense of this ornament to 

 his native place. The whole indicates a degree of prosperity, 

 and the interiors of the houses, if we except the cockroaches, 

 which swarm everywhere, are very clean. The walls are orna- 

 mented with numerous, if not very artistic, photographs and 

 lithographs. Sacred pictures, richly ornamented, are placed in 

 a corner, and before them hang several small oil-lamps, or small 

 wax-lights, which are lighted on festive occasions. The sleep- 



^ Provisions and wares intended for trade with the natives are trans- 

 ported on the Yenisej, as on many other Siberian rivers, down the stream 

 in colossal lighters, built of planks like logs. It does not pay to take 

 them up the river again, on which account, after their lading has been 

 taken out of them, they are either left on the bank to rot or broken up for 

 the timber. 



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