256 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



Ispravnik, and M. Bronza, the Polish priest), viz., 

 M. Eosenthal, who is engaged in measuring M. Rusanoff's 

 co-accession of the Mezen forests, which extend to 

 14,000,000 acres of pine and other wood. 



M. Rosenthal told us that at the next station fourteen 

 wild Reindeer had been shot lately. 



Our list of stations now somewhat misleads us, and we 

 found two additional stations not in our list. Our list 

 and map are from the postal authorities at Archangel, 

 but the Ispravnik at Pifiega has, Piottuch says, changed 

 all the stations for his own amusement son fantasie 

 and that the other Ispravniks do the same. Possibly, 

 I think, the peasants bribe them and are so favoured. 



At Celechenskaia we bought twenty Snow Buntings 

 for 10 kopeks. Here also we saw a couple of Samoyede 

 sledges and deer. 



During the next stage we sledged as before up the 

 course of the Mezen River, from time to time diving 

 into the forest and cutting off the corners. 



April 13. 



On Tuesday, the 13th of April, soon after leaving Koina- 

 skaia, about seven in the morning, we drove through a 

 forest of immense larches 120 to 130 feet in height by 

 far and away the largest we have as yet seen in Russia. 



After leaving Ledskaia we passed from the main valley 

 of the Mezen River to that of the Pischma, the Mezenski 

 Pischma (to distinguish it from the Petchorskai Pischma), 

 along the banks of which we saw magnificent spruce-firs, 

 rivalling in height the larches I have just mentioned. 



M. Rosenthal had told us of a dangerous river on our 

 route, but he could not name it nor point it out on our map. 

 We soon concluded that the Pischma was meant, as the 

 water had in many places risen above the ice and con- 

 verted the snow into deep half -frozen sludge, and at one 



