44 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



cities that humau nature becomes wholly debased : men 

 who live in the wilderness keep some saving grace, 

 however small. At least the air that they breathe is 

 pure, and the sights that they see, save those of their 

 own making, are clean. But life such as this is a great 

 leveller. Many of the old settlers sink back to the 

 state of the aborigines. From year to year, they 

 almost forget a stranger's speech and gradually relapse 

 into the native dress and customs. On the Yenesei, 

 there are more half-breeds in the choom than in the 

 Russian hut. Face to face with the primitive life and 

 the primitive country, the native strain soon quenches 

 the European blood. 



At one time this region must have been much more 

 densely populated than it is at present. In 1824 there 

 are said to have been forty-six Russian homesteads 

 north of Turukhansk, whereas in 1863 there were only 

 twenty- seven. According to Dr. Nansen,^ who quotes 

 an old map of the Yenesei estuary, " there was a fairly 

 dense population the whole way, especially along the 

 east side of the Yenesei, from Dudinka northward, right 

 up past Dickson Island, and eastward to the mouth of 

 the Pyasina." Of late years, there has of course been 

 a renewed flow of immigration, but it will be a long 

 time before the traffic along the lower reaches of the 

 river is equal to what it used to be in the past. 



^ Through Siberia, p. 180. 



