A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA. 411 



and with him, three days later, we set out on an expedition which 

 proved as dangerous as it was fatiguing. 



We were told that reindeer were to be found nine full days' 

 journey from us, on the pasturage of Saddabei in the Ural range; 

 at this season there was not one to be got near the Shtchutshya. 

 There was nothing for it but to set off on foot, and to face, as best 

 we might, the difficulties and hardships of a journey through a 

 pathless, barren, mosquito - plagued district, altogether hostile to 

 man, and worst of all unknown! 



After careful and prolonged consultation with the natives our 

 preparations were made, the burdens which each one was to bear 

 were carefully weighed, for the spectre of starvation loomed before 

 us. Full well we knew that only the nomad herdsman but no 

 huntsman was able to keep body and soul together on the tundra; 

 well we knew by previous experience all the trials of the pathless 

 way, all the torments which the army of mosquitoes promised, the 

 inconstancy of the weather, and the general inhospitability of the 

 tundra, and we made our preparations with due consideration of 

 all these. But we could not prepare for what we did not know and 

 could not foretell, and for what, in fact, eventually befell us. Not 

 that we wished to turn back, though, had we foreseen what was to 

 happen, we might well have done so. 



Dressed in short fur, heavily laden with knapsack, weapons, 

 and ammunition, we set off on the 29th of July, leaving our boat in 

 the charge of two of our company. Painfully we tramped, gasping 

 under our burdens, stopping every hour and half hour, and at length 

 every thousand paces, but finding no rest on account of the 

 mosquitoes, which tortured us day and night without ceasing. We 

 ascended countless hills, and traversed as many valleys, we waded 

 through as many marshes and morasses; we passed by hundreds of 

 nameless lakes, and crossed a multitude of swamps and streams. 



As it happened, the tundra could not well have been more 

 inhospitable. The wind beat the drizzling rain into our faces; 

 drenched to the skin we lay down on the soaking soil, without roof 

 to cover us, or fire to warm us, and unceasingly tormented by mos- 

 quitoes. But the sun dried us again, gave us new courage and 



