30 
SARYTSCHEW’S TRAVELS 
spot where Sredne-kolynisk now stands. The church, there™ 
fore, and soon after that the fortress, were there erected. 
By Kamenka, a considerable river issuing from the moun¬ 
tains, which we left to the right on the 28th, as well as by the 
Troizka, the Jakuts and Tunguses catch many foxes, otters, 
unicorns, and sometimes sables, which are said to have been 
formerly very abundant in these parts. 
Here, from the mouth of the Sranka to the fortress of 
Sredne-kolymsk, the Kosaks of Werchne and Sredne-kolymsk, 
have their summer encampments, for the purpose of providing 
themselves and their dogs w ith fish. They catch them w ith nets, 
and cure their jukol as usual by drying. The neolma, muksun, 
tschira, and, towards the autumn, herrings, are the most abun¬ 
dant here. In the evening we stopped at Sredne-kolymsk, a 
wooden fortress, situated on the left bank of the Kolyma, hav¬ 
ing a church and some houses. It was formerly called Jarman- 
ka, (fair) because all the inhabitants from an immense distance, 
as Tunguses, Jakuts, and Jukagirens, assembled here for the 
purposes of trade. They bartered their skins with the Jakutish 
and Kosak merchants, for tobacco and other trifling articles. 
The quantity of skins, particularly from the sables, taken near 
the river Kolyma, was so considerable as to furnish a yearly re¬ 
venue of 4000 to the crowm, being a tenth of the w hole amount; 
from whence this tax had the name of a tvthe. The sables hav¬ 
ing all now disappeared from this quarter, the fair has, of 
course, been totally abandoned. 
On the 17th of June, w r e stopped at the mouth of the Ome- 
lon, on the left bank of which we discovered the summer en¬ 
campment of the peasants of Omelon. During this season 
they are engaged in fishing until autumn, when they return to 
their village, lying about 20 versts distance from the river. On 
the other side of this village there are Jakutish kagireus still 
remaining. 
The river Omelon, together with the Inshiga and the Oen- 
shina, issues from a chain of mountains, and receives the addi¬ 
tion of five rather inconsiderable rivers ; three from the right 
and two from the left; one of which is the Magaseika above- 
mentioned. Four hundred versts up the Omelon is an old 
wooden structure, erected probably on the discovery of the 
river by the Russian hunters, who had undertaken their excur¬ 
sion in kotscken *, from the river Lena into the Frozen Ocean, 
and from thence to the mouth of the Kolyma, which leads to 
the Omelon. 
* A flat-bottomed vessel very similar to a barge. 
