16 AFTER WILD SHEEP IN THE ALTAI 



in the middle of the woods with the inscription : 

 -'.Here ends Europe, here begins Asia." There are 

 also many traditions of the passage of Ermak, the 

 adventurer, who in the sixteenth century crossed the 

 Ural Mountains with a few followers and conquered 

 Siberia for the Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible. 

 I\Ian\- rocks bear witness to his journey, with in- 

 scriptions in places where he had camped. A few 

 villages are scattered about the country, most of them 

 having sprung up owing to mines or gold washings 

 in the neighbourhood. At their outskirts usually 

 stands a shed where the peasants, each in turn, place 

 bread and "kvas," a Russian beverage made of 

 barley. A wooden board above the shed bears these 

 strange words : " For the miserable." This is an old 

 custom of the country. Russian convicts, who con- 

 trive to escape from the Eastern Siberian galleys, 

 cross the Ural range on their way back to Europe. 

 Being short of food, and in order to obtain it, they 

 used to raid the villages by night, and bloodshed 

 would often ensue. In order to put an end to this 

 state of things, the inhabitants decided to provide 

 these outlaws with food in the way I have described, 

 and thus prevent the frequent murders that took 

 place. The mining people are sometimes very savage 

 and cruel ; in one case a girl was slowly burnt to 



