300 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. viir. 



aUhough the safety valves were overloaded when necessary with lead 

 weights, was sometimes unable to make head with all the vessels 

 in tow against a current which at some places was very rapid, 

 and often, in the attempt to find still water near the river bank, 

 the steamer ran aground, notwithstanding the continual " ladno " 

 cry of the poling pilot standing in the fore. It made so slow 

 progress on this account that the passage from Saostrovskoj to 

 Yenisejsk occupied a whole month. 



The two main arms into which the Yenisej is divided south 

 of Yenisejsk are too rapid for the present Yenisej steamers 

 to ascend them, while, as has been already stated, there is no 

 difficulty in descending these rivers from the Selenga and the 

 Baikal Lake on the one hand, and from the Minusinsk region 

 abounding in grain on the other. The ' banks here consist, in 

 many places, of high rocky ridges covered with fine forests, with 

 wonderfully beautiful valleys between them, covered with 

 luxuriant vegetation. 



What I have said regarding the mode of travelling up the 

 Yenisej refers to the year 1875, in which I went up the river 

 accompanied by two Swedish naturalists and three Norwegian 

 seamen. It was then by no means unknown, for scientific men 

 such as Hansteen (1829), Gastrin (1846), Middendorb^ (winter 

 journeys in 1843 and 1844), and Schmidt (1866), had travelled 

 hither and communicated their observations to the scientific 

 world in valuable works on the nature and people of the region. 

 But the visits of the West-European still formed rare exceptions ; 

 no West-European commercial traveller had yet wandered to 

 those regions, and into the calculations of the friendly masters 

 of the Yenisej river steamers no import of goods from, or 

 export of goods to, Europe had ever entered. All at once a new 

 period seemed to begin. If the change has not gone on so fast 

 as many expected, life here, however, is more than it was at one 

 time, and every year the change is more and more noticeable. 

 It is on this account that I consider these notes from the journey 

 of 1875 worthy of being preserved. 



