WESTERN SIBERIA AXD THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS 



489 



Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams 



FERRIS WHEELS IN IRKUTSK DURING EASTER WEEK 



In pre-Bolshevik days Irkutsk was the home of the Siberian branch of the Imperial Russian 



Geographical Society. 



where it led into and through the villages, 

 for here all the space between the houses 

 was a bottomless sea of black farmyard 

 filth, immersion in which would have left 

 the traveler's clothes "a thing to dream 

 of, not to tell." 



Altai's loftiest peaks are as high as 

 the matterhorn 



All these and many other drawbacks 

 to an Altaian journey are outweighed by 

 the views one gets from the heights, as 

 well as by the wild charm of the woods 

 and the sparkling torrents that foam 

 down the glens. In particular there 

 dwells in my memory one panoramic 

 prospect obtained from the summit of a 

 mountain above the Semenski Pass, a 

 little over three thousand feet high. 

 From it we looked out over an immense 

 stretch of rugged ridges and bare peaks 

 rising one behind another to where in the 

 far southeast snowy summits shone in 

 the sunlight. 



The two Belukha peaks (14,900 feet), 

 believed to be the loftiest points in the 

 Altai (about the height of the Matter- 

 horn), were hidden by nearer heights. 

 They are the center of a mass of glaciers, 



and round them the grandest crags and 

 gorges are to be found. 



Those gentler landscapes which we did 

 see were always picturesque and some- 

 times charming, but not comparable in 

 beauty to the finer parts of the Italian 

 Alps or Pyrenees, or to the valleys of the 

 Sierra Nevada of California, or to the 

 majestic summits of the Caucasus. 



Indeed, the Altaian scenery never re- 

 minded me of the Alps. It is more like 

 that of the Canadian Rockies, or even 

 perhaps the most secluded glens of the 

 Scottish Highlands, though in the latter 

 everything is, of course, on a much 

 smaller scale. 



What one found peculiarly impressive 

 in the Altai was the sense it gave of an 

 untouched primeval wilderness, remote- 

 ness and immensity. The very breezes, 

 whistling or moaning through the trees, 

 sound like 



"... a wind that shrills 



All night in a waste land where no man 



comes. 

 Or hath come, since the making of this 



world." 



Civilization seems infinitely far away. 

 for one is in regions where few signs 



