382 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
the Ural to the neighbourhood of the Sea of Ochotsk, and from 
the fifty-eighth or fifty-ninth degree of latitude to far north 
of the Arctic Circle, that is to say, about one thousand kilo¬ 
metres from north to south, and perhaps four times as much 
from east to west. It is a primeval forest of enormous extent, 
nearly untouched by the axe of the cultivator, but at many 
places devastated by extensive forest fires. 
On the high eastern bank of the Yenisej the forest begins 
immediately at the river bank. It consists principally of pines : 
the cembra pine (Finns Gemhra, L.), valued for its seeds, enor¬ 
mous larches, the nearly awl-formed Siberian pine (Finns 
sibirica, Ledeb.), the fir (Finns ohovata, TuRCZ.), and scattered 
trees of the common pine (Finns syhestris^ L.), Most of these 
already north of the Arctic Circle reach a colossal size, but in 
such a case are often here, far from all forestry, grey and half- 
dried up with age. Between the trees the ground is so covered 
with fallen branches and stems, only some of which are fresh, 
the others converted into a mass of wood-mould held together 
only by the bark, that there one willingly avoids going forward 
on an unbroken path. If that must be done, the progress made 
is small, and there is constant danger of breaking one’s bones 
in the labyrinth of stems. Nearly everywhere the fallen stems 
are covered, often concealed, by an exceedingly luxuriant bed of 
mosses, while on the other hand tree-lichens, probably in con¬ 
sequence of the dry inland climate of Siberia, occur sparingly. 
The pines, therefore, want the shaggy covering common in 
Sweden, and the bark of the birches which are seen here 
and there among the pines is distinguished by an uncommon 
blinding whiteness. 
The western bank of the Yenesej consists, like the innumer¬ 
able islands of the river, for the most part of lowlying and 
marshy stretches of land, which at the season of the spring 
floods are overflowed by the river and abundantly manured with 
its mud. In this way there is formed here a fertile tract of 
