CHAPTER III. 



The taiga— The dusky ousel and the little bunting— The Tungus — 

 Platina— Women merchants — Dudinka — The first sight of the 

 tundra — Krestova — The Yenesei fisheries — Breokoft'sky Ostrov — 

 Stormbound — Arrival at Golchika — First impressions — A Good 

 Samaritan — Michael Petrovitch Antonoff. 



As we travelled northwards, the trees on the river bank 

 became smaller, and the snow patches between them 

 grew larger. It seemed as if for every day, spring was 

 retarded for one week. Outside Platina, which we 

 reached on 19th June, the steamer made a long stop to 

 take fuel on board, and I was able to take a walk in the 

 forest. The snow here lay so thickly that it was possible 

 to blunder waist-deep into a drift, but where the thaw 

 had left the moss black and bare, the crisp crimson leaf- 

 buds of the wild rhubarb were uncurling in the sunshine, 

 and the whole forest rang with the tinkle of little rills 

 of melting snow. Although the calendar made the 

 season mid- June, the air was that of a jocund Euglish 

 March. Yellow heartsease were in bloom beside the 

 snow, and wild garlic at the waterside. All day divers 

 passed the ship on their journey down the river — either 

 singly or in pairs. In the spring most birds go north 

 in couples, but they return in the autumn in troops. 

 The cook of the Oryol caught a red-throated diver — a 

 ga-garra as he called it — and brought it home alive, 



