HISTORY OF KAMCHATKA 3 



for their pluck. Great must have been the difficulties 

 they had to encounter, and long their vicissitudes. 

 Unfortunately no record of their struggles has 

 reached us. Rivers were the only assistance nature 

 afforded them. Virgin forests, impenetrable marshes, 

 wild nomad tribes stood in their way ; these were 

 naturally hostile to the new-comers, and offered every 

 resistance in their power. But they were speedily 

 subdued by their comparatively more civilised an- 

 tagonists, and arbitrary taxes in the shape of furs and 

 skins were imposed upon them. In this manner the 

 adventurers reached the Irtish, and went as far as the 

 place where now stands the town of Tobolsk; here they 

 built an entrenchment as a foothold for further ex- 

 plorations, Ermak, the leader, is supposed to have 

 been drowned in crossing the River Ob. His name 

 is now coupled, in Russian tradition, with the tar- 

 sounding title of "Conqueror of Siberia,"' and the 

 mantle of the hero has entirely covered the crimes 

 of the brigand. The few of the party that returned 

 from their wanderings brought back both ''sable and 

 fox " to the Moscovian Tsar, and gave glowing- 

 accounts of the wide-stretching territories they had 

 taken possession of in his name. 



This was the first step ; the result was apparent, 

 and new jewels were soon to be added to the Russian 



