134 Mr. Henry Seebohm. 



for her children. From Omsk they went to Tomsk, and the 

 scenery again changed. They came again on a mountainous 

 district, rich in forests, and in many parts one might imagine 

 he was driving through an EngHsh nobleman's park. There 

 were magnificent fir trees, willow, poplar, birch, &c. They 

 passed on to Krasnoyarsk, which was the extreme east 

 point of their journeyings. It la}' about loo miles east 

 of Calcutta, and possibly 3,000 miles north of it. Here 

 they found quite an important town of possibly 40,000 

 inhabitants. Here they found themselves nearly overtaken 

 by the south wind, and found nearly all the inhabitants 

 were travelling on wheels. In some places there was a 

 foot of water in the streets. In consequence of this they 

 were anxious not to stop any longer than the} could help, 

 and applied to the post for horses. They were obliged to 

 organise a little caravan consisting of three waggons. On one 

 of these they placed their sledge, on the other their baggage, 

 and on the third waggon they travelled themselves. For the 

 first two stages they had some difficulty, but as they got further 

 north they threw aside one of their waggons, the next stage 

 they threw aside another, and finally the frost again made the 

 roads hard, and they were able to sledge until they reached 

 Yen-e-saisk. This was a town of at any rate some 20,000 

 inhabitants. It was formerly more important still, but a few 

 years ago was almost entirely destroyed by fire. Captain 

 Wiggins had passed through Yen-e-saisk before, and conse- 

 quently they had no loss of invitations, many of the merchants 

 living in elegant houses and amid a great deal of comfort and 

 luxury. Three or four days sufficed to prepare for the further 

 journey. The most important thing he (Mr. Seebohm) had to 

 do was to find somebody who could act as a skinner of birds. 

 There was no one in the town who understood this operation, 

 but at last he succeeded in finding a Jew who was a tolerably 

 good German scholar, and also able to speak Russian, though 

 he mixed Hebrew words with both. This Jew he (Mr. 

 Seebohm) had to teach himself, but that was accomplished in 

 one or two lessons. He had the good fortune to meet an 

 Englishmen in Yen-e-saisk, a native of Heligoland, which was 

 under the English Government. This person had a ship three 

 parts built standing in the stocks, and he (Mr. Seebohm) made 

 a bargain with him for this ship. Immediately the ice broke 

 up, he and the builder were to bring the vessel down to the 

 Koo-ray-i-ka and to go about finding birds and birds" eggs. At 

 the end of the week they started on their journey northwards. 

 They were obliged to leave the one sledge and to take to two 

 lighter sledges, as there were now three of them, and they 

 started sledging down this great river. This great river was 



