CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 



199 



KOKIAK YOURT. 



yet by their superior tactics they finally managed to gain a complete victory, 

 and those who escaped their bullets were either drowned or taken prisoners, 

 and then put to death in the most cruel manner. 



Convinced that a lasting security was impossible as long as the natives re- 

 tained their numbers, the Cossacks lost no opportunity of goading them to re- 

 volt, and then butchering as many of them as they could. Thus, in less than 

 forty years, the Kamchatkans were reduced to a twelfth part of their original 

 numbers ; and the Cossacks, having made a solitude, called it peace. 



In former times the nomads of the North used freely to wander with their 

 reindeer herds over the tundra, but after the conquest they were loaded with 

 taxes, and confined to certain districts. The consequence was that their rein- 

 deer gradually perished, and that a great number of wandering herdsmen were 

 now compelled to adopt a fisherman's life — a change fatal to many. 



It Avould, however, be unjust to accuse the Russian Government of having 

 willfully sought the ruin of the aboriginal tribes ; on the contrary, it has con- 

 stantly endeavored to protect them against the exactions of the Cossacks, and 

 in order to secure their existence, has even granted them the exchisive posses- 

 sion of the districts assigned to them. Thus the Ostiaks and Samoiedes, the 

 Koriaks and the Jakuts, have their own land, their own rivers, forests, and tun- 

 dri. But if it is a common saying in European Russia " that heaven is high, 

 and the Czar distant," it may easily be imagined that beyond the Ural the weak 

 indigenous tribes found the law but a very inefficient barrier against the rapac- 

 ity of their conquerors. 



Thus, in spite of the Government, the jassak was not unf requently raised, 

 under various pretenses, to six or ten times its original amount ; and the natives 

 were, besides, obliged to bring the best of their produce, from considerable dis- 

 tances, to the ostrog. 



