EXPEDITION TO THE yVLTAI 167 



interested in our guns, and we had to discharge 

 them once or twice to show them how they worked, 

 as their own weapons are very primitive. 



We left Koksa in the afternoon for Ouemon, a 

 distance of i6 miles, travelling mostly downhill and 

 over very rough ground, and reached that village in 

 the evening. There was a doctor stopping at the 

 post station and we were informed that he was the 

 only one within a radius of loo miles ; but there is 

 very little sickness in this Siberian Switzerland. 



We were bearers of a letter of introduction to 

 Mr. Oshlikofif, a wealthy merchant of Ouemon, but 

 we found, on arrival, that one half of the village was 

 situated on one side of the river and the other half 

 on the other, and that the man we wanted was on 

 the wrong side, so we decided to defer our visit to 

 him" until the following morning and to retire to rest 

 in the meantime. The following morning was very 

 warm, the thermometer registering 98 degrees Fahr. 

 in the sun and 40 degrees in the shade. This too 

 in the middle of April. We walked through mud 

 for a quarter of a mile to the River Katun, and were 

 ferried across to pay a visit to our friend. He lived 

 in an uncommonly fine house, for Siberia, in which 

 there were two splendid bedrooms, with beautifully 

 clean beds in them, so that considering that we had 

 not taken our clothes off for about ten days, and had 

 not seen such luxury anywhere else- in Siberia:, we 

 were very sorry we had not come across the river 

 the previous night. Mr. Oshlikoff gave us some 

 fatherly advice, and among the rest he strongly urged 

 us not to attempt the mountains. He assured us that 

 we would, in all probability, get lost, as no one 

 had ever been there in the winter. My interpreter 

 was duly impressed, and told me, that our friend's 

 opinion confirming what so many others had said 

 went to prove that our expedition was hopeless ; to 



