182 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



Kutchum Khan. In one of these expeditions he laid siege 

 to the fortress of Kullara, which still belonged to his foe, 

 and by whom it was so bravely defended that Yermak had 

 to retreat. Kutchum Khan stealthily followed the Rus- 

 sians, and, finding them negligently posted on a small 

 island on the Itish, he forded the river, attacked them by 

 night, and came upon them so suddenly as with compara- 

 tive e^se to cut them to pieces. Yermak perished, but 

 not, it is said, by the sword of the enemy. Having cut 

 his way to the water's edge, he tried to jump into a boat, 

 but, stepping short, he fell into the water, and the weight 

 of his armour carried him to the bottom. Thus perished 

 Yermak Timofeeff, and when the news reached Sibir, the 

 remainder of his followers retired from the fortress, and 

 left the country. 



' The Court of Moscow, however, sent a body of 300 

 men, who before long made a fresh incursion, and reached 

 Tchingi almost without opposition. There they built the 

 fort of Tinmen, and re-ebtablished the Russian sovereignty. 

 Being soon afterwards reinforced, they extended their 

 operations, and built the fortresses of Tobolsk, Sungur, 

 and Tara, and soon gained for the Tsar all the territory 

 west of the Obi. The stream of conquest then flowed 

 eastward apace. Tomsk was founded in 1604, and became 

 the Russian head-quarters, whence the Cossacks organised 

 new expeditions. Yeneseisk was founded in 1619, and, 

 eight years afterwards, Krasnoiarsk. Passing the Yenesei, 

 they advanced to the shores of Lake Baikal, and 

 in 1620 attacked and partly conquered the popu- 

 lous nation of the Buriats. Then, turning northwards 

 to the basin of the Lena, they founded Yakutsk in 1632, 

 and made subject, though not without considerable diffi- 

 culty, the powerful nation of the Yakutes ; after which 

 they crossed the Aldan mountains, and in 1639 reached 

 the Sea of Okhotsk. Thus in the span of a single lifetime 

 — 70 years — was added to the Russian crown a territory 

 as large as the whole of Europe, whose ancient capital, as 

 I have said, was Tobolsk.' 



