28 SLEDGING TO UST-ZYLMA 



The scenery on this journey was more varied than 

 any we had previously met with. We alternated between 

 forest, river, and open plain. The Meze"n is a fine river, 

 half a mile or more wide, with steep banks of what 

 looked like red chalk about 100 feet high, clothed with 

 forest to the edge, which is continually crumbling away 

 and letting the pine-trees slip into the water. At in- 

 tervals, and often with remarkable regularity, the cliffs 

 were cut away down to the water's edge, probably by 

 small temporary rivulets born of the melting snow. The 

 Pizhma is a much smaller river, not half the size of the 

 Mezen, and without rocky cliffs on the banks. There 

 are two Pizhmas, on both of which we travelled. Both 

 rise in the lake of Jam, the Petchorski Pizhma flowing 

 north-east into the Zylma just before that river enters 

 the Petchora, and the Mezenski Pizhma flowing south- 

 west into the Mezen. On the rivers the roads were 

 always good, except in one part of the Mezenski Pizhma 

 where the river is very narrow and the current very 

 strong. In one place we almost shuddered to see open 

 water rushing along within nine feet of the sledge. Not 

 long afterwards we stuck fast, and had to get out of the 

 sledge on the snow in the middle of the river. It was 

 nearly midnight and very cloudy. Piottuch with his 

 lighter sledge had got safely over the dangerous part 

 and stood grinning at us, as the yemschiks hacked the 

 frozen snow off the runners of our sledge with their axes, 

 and having added his two horses to our team, placed two 

 little fir-trees across the path and flogged the horses 

 until they dragged the machine through the snow and 

 water on to firm ground. We had our revenge, however, 

 shortly afterwards. A few stations farther on Piottuch's 

 sledge came to grief, one of the runners breaking com- 

 pletely in two in the front. He was some distance in 



