course
into the Arctic Ocean. The mountains bounding the valley are not
lofty, but sufficiently high to wring the moisture from the snow
clouds. Both above and below Krasnoyarsk, there is but little snow
even in severe seasons.

Our animals were superbly atrocious, and made good speed only on
descending grades. We were four hours going thirty versts, and for
three-fourths that distance our route was equal to the Bloomingdale
Road. Occasionally we saw farm houses with a dejected appearance as if
the winter had come upon them unawares. From the quantity of ground
enclosed by fences I judged the land was fertile, and well cultivated.

Toward sunset we saw the domes of Krasnoyarsk rising beyond the frozen
Yenesei. We crossed the river on the ice, and passed near several
women engaged in rinsing clothes.

A laundress does her washing at the house, but rinses her linen at the
river. In summer this may be well enough, but it seemed to me that the
winter exercise of standing in a keen wind with the thermometer below
zero, and rinsing clothes in a hole cut through the ice was anything
but agreeable. It was a cold day, and I was well wrapped in furs, but
these women were in ordinary clothing, and some had bare legs. They
stood at the edges of circular holes in the ice, and after 'swashing'
the linen a short time in the water, wrung it with their purple hands.
How they escaped frost bites I cannot imagine.

The Yenesei is a magnificent river, one of the largest in Siberia. It
is difficult to estimate with accuracy any distance upon ice, and I
may be far from correct in considering the Yenesei a thousand yards
wide at Krasnoyarsk. The telegraph wires are supported on tall masts
as at the crossing of the Missouri near Kansas City. In summer there
are two steamboats navigating the river from Yeneseisk to the Arctic
Ocean. Rapids and shoals below Krasnoyarsk prevent their ascending to
the latter town. The tributaries of the Yenesei are quite rich in gold
deposits, and support a mining business of considerable extent.

Krasnoyarsk derives its name from the red hills in its vicinity, and
the color of the soil where it stands. It is on the left bank of the
Yenesei, and has about ten thousand inhabitants. It was nearly night
when we climbed the sloping road in the hillside, and reached the
level of the plateau. The ladies insisted that we should occupy their
house during our stay, and utterly forbade our going to the hotel.
While w