220 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



scourge of the wind and the rain, its hopelessness. The 

 frame of the land was just as the ice had left it. Its 

 horizons lay in long, open curves, all angles planed away 

 by the firm hand of the glaciers. Most likely the fgrm 

 of the swamps and the rivers had not changed since 

 the mammoth lumbered over the frozen mudhills. But 

 to-day I felt more clearly the promise of the tundra — 

 its huge fertility, its immensity, its strange, indefinable 

 magic. Nowhere, except in the Alps, may be seen such 

 a profusion of flowers — forget-me-nots, lupins, saxifrage, 

 pedicularias, and poppies — purple, blue, crimson, and 

 orange — and in the hollows the willows were fragrant 

 with bloom. On every hillock stood a plover in gold- 

 studded livery, playing on his wild pipe, or malingering 

 piteously to lead me from his hidden nursery. Down 

 in the hollow, a pair of godwits whistled to one another 

 in notes like the striking of flint on steel, and red- 

 throated pipits dropped carolling among the flowers. 

 As I walked quickly beside the river-bank, little waders 

 ran before me down the sandy spits, too busy to be 

 afraid, and a fine willow-grouse rose with a ivhirr and 

 boomed away over the hill. Beside the ford, the gulls 

 flew to and fro, and stooped at their own purple shadows 

 on the sandbanks. And yesterday there had not been 

 a bird to be seen, and all the flowers had hidden their 

 rain-drenched heads ! All this transformation had been 

 caused by a little sunshine. It was like a resurrection. 

 The river ran tranquilly, reflecting a clear sky. Yester- 

 day the monotony of its broad, flat banks had oppressed 

 us by its drabness and dreariness. But to-day, its very 

 monotony lent it an added charm. It had no history : 



