284 THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



of the Golden Horde — the proud heritage of one of the 

 greatest empires of the world ! 



The story of the exploits of Yermak up to the day 

 of his violent death in the frenzied waters of the 

 Irtish, while trying to swim to safety from a disas- 

 trous night -attack at the hands of his old enemy, the 

 Tartar chief Kutchum, and of the daring feats and 

 heroic endurance of the Cossack bands who took up 

 the task thus started, as they pressed steadfastly on 

 towards the East, harassed by the savage tribes they 

 encountered, cut off by vast stretches of inhospitable 

 country from their base, and exposed to the rigour of 

 the terrible Siberian winter, is one of surpassing in- 

 terest, but one which it would be beyond the scope of 

 the present chapter to portray. Suffice it to say that 

 little less than half a century after Yermak had led 

 his band across the Urals, thanks to the dauntless 

 courage and perseverance of these pioneers, the limit 

 of the continent was reached on the Sea of Okhotsk ; 

 while, in strong contrast to this activity and progress 

 in the north, stands the indifference of the Government 

 at Moscow and the incompetence of their envoy in the 

 Amur region on the south, who, baffled by the ability 

 of a Jesuit priest,-^ signed away the ground won under 

 exceptional difficulties by a succession of heroes, and 

 put a check upon Russian expansion in the direction 

 of the Pacific, which was only removed a century and 

 a half later by the genius of a man who did for E-ussia 

 in the Far East all and more than Yermak had done 

 for her in the West. 



^ The treaty of Nertchinsk, the first ever concluded by China with a 

 foreign power, was signed in 1689 by the Russian envoy Golovin and the 

 Jesuit fathers, Gerbillon and Pereira, who accompanied the Chinese Pleni- 

 potentiary. By its terms Russia gave up the Amur and retired behind 

 the river Gorbitza, the line of mountains bounding on the north the basin 

 of the Amur and the river Argun. 



