t of the
enemy, he stealthily crossed to the island with his force and fell upon
the sleeping camp. All the Russians but two were killed, and these,
escaping, reported the disaster at Sibir. When Yermak saw the
annihilation of his troops, he cut his way through the Tartars and
attempted to swim the stream, but was dragged to the bottom by his heavy
armor and drowned.

When news of the crushing disaster reached Sibir the Russians, losing
heart at the death of their leader, evacuated the place and returned
home. The czar, nevertheless, had no idea of permitting a land so
promising to slip from his grasp. It was not long before he sent a
larger army across the Ural Mountains, which not only reconquered the
lost territory but also the rest of western Siberia.

[Illustration: Gathering salt at the mouth of the Ural River]

Gradually the Cossacks moved eastward, conquering tribe after tribe. As
they advanced they built strong wooden forts by which to hold their
vantage ground. Tomsk was founded in 1604; by 1630 the tide of conquest
had reached the banks of the Lena; and within eighty years from their
first conquest the Russians had reached the Pacific.

Years afterward a suitable monument was erected to Yermak in the city of
Tobolsk, which was built on the battle-field where he gained his first
decisive victory over the Tartar ruler. His real monument is all
Siberia, whose conquest he inaugurated.

In 1847 the Amur River section was annexed by Russia regardless of the
protests of the Chinese Government. Quarrels ensued over the boundaries
and, finding resistance hopeless, the Chinese ceded to Russia all the
land on the left bank of the Amur as far as the mouth of the Ussuri and
on both its banks below that river.

The sable gradually led the Russian hunters to Kamtchatka, while the
more valuable sea-otter beckoned them across the sea to the Aleutian
Islands and that part of the American continent now Alaska Territory.
The chief incentive in all of these conquests was the securing of
valuable furs. The sable is even yet found along the streams in both
open and forested sections from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific; but
so relentless has been the pursuit of this valuable fur-bearing animal
that it is now nearly exterminated. Besides the sable and the sea-otter,
there are found in Siberia the ermine, bear, arctic fox, common fox,
deer, wolf, antelope, elk, hare, and squirrel.

To avoid entering into conflict with the m