n as Siberia, which extends
to-day through thousands of miles of width, from the Urals to the
Pacific. Before this time we know little about this great expanse of
land. It seems to have been peopled by a succession of races, immigrants
from the south, each new wave of people driving the older tribes deeper
into the frozen regions of the north. Early in the Christian era there
came hither a people destitute of iron, but expert in the working of
bronze, silver, and gold. They had wide regions of irrigated fields, and
a higher civilization than that of those who in time took their place.

People of Turkish origin succeeded these tribes about the eleventh
century. They brought with them weapons of iron and made fine pottery.
In the thirteenth century, when the great Mongol outbreak took place
under Genghis Khan, the Turkish kingdom in Siberia was destroyed and
Tartars took their place. Civilization went decidedly down hill. Such
was the state of affairs when Russia began to turn eyes of longing
towards Siberia.

The busy traders of Novgorod had made their way into Siberia as early as
the eleventh century. But this republic fell, and the trade came to an
end. In 1555, Khan Ediger, who had made himself a kingdom in Siberia,
and whose people had crossed swords with the Russians beyond the Urals,
sent envoys to Moscow, who consented to pay to Russia a yearly tribute
of a thousand sables, thus acknowledging Russian supremacy.

This tribute showed that there were riches beyond the mountains. The
Stroganofs made their way to the barrier of the hills, and it was not
long before the trader was followed by the soldier. The invasion of
Siberia was due to an event which for the time threatened the total
overthrow of the Russian government. A Cossack brigand, Stepan Rozni by
name, had long defied the forces of the czar, and gradually gained in
strength until he had an army of three hundred thousand men under his
command. If he had been a soldier of ability he might have made himself
lord of the empire. Being a brigand in grain, he was soon overturned and
his forces dispersed.

Among his followers was one Yermak, a chief of the Cossacks of the Don,
whom the czar sentenced to death for his love of plunder, but afterwards
pardoned. Yermak and his followers soon found the rule of Moscow too
stringent for their ideas of personal liberty, and he led a Cossack band
to the Stroganof settlements in Perm.

Tradition tells us that the Strogan