THE MAMMOTH. 205 



"In 1846 there was unusually warm weather in the north of 

 Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors 

 and bogs, storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not 

 only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land, thawed by the 

 masses of warm water fed by the southern rains. . . . We steamed 

 on the first favourable day up the Indigirka ; but there were no 

 thoughts of land ; we saw around us only a sea of dirty brown 

 water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the 

 stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses 

 of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger that 

 we could proceed. At the end of the second day, we were only 

 about forty versts up the stream ; some one had to stand with 

 the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so 

 many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel 

 would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the 

 flooded land for eight days. We met with the like hindrances until 

 at last we reached the place where our Jakuti were to have met 

 us. Further up was a place called Ujandina, whence the people 

 were to have come to us; but they were not there, prevented 

 evidently by the floods. 



"As we had been there in former years, we knew the place. 

 But how it had changed ! The Indigirka, here about three versts 

 wide, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel ; and 

 when the waters sank we saw, to our astonishment, that the old 

 river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream. 

 This allowed me to cut through the soft earth, and we went recon- 

 noitring up the new stream, which had worn its way westwards. 

 Afterwards we landed on the new shore, and surveyed the under- 

 mining and destructive operation of the wild waters, that carried 

 away, with extraordinary rapidity, masses of soft peat and loam. 

 It was then that we made a wonderful discovery. The land 

 on which we were treading was moorland, covered thickly with 

 young plants. Many lovely flowers rejoiced the eye in the warm 

 beams of the sun, that shone for twenty-two out of the twenty-four 



