t importance to Dr.
Herz, for everything depended upon the arrival of his treasure in
European Russia in a frozen condition. A few days of warm muggy weather
nearing Europe might render futile the task of many months of hardship.
So our interview was of short duration, but I am glad to say that the
eminent Professor eventually met with success, and that his priceless
addition to the treasury of natural history now occupies a niche of
honour in the Imperial Academy of Science in Petersburg.

Nearing Yakutsk the country becomes unutterably wild and desolate.
Forest trees are now replaced for miles and miles by low withered scrub
and dwarf fir-trees on either side of the river. As we proceed the Lena
gradually widens until it resembles a succession of huge lakes, where
even our practised drivers have some difficulty in finding the way. The
Russian language is now seldom heard, for in the villages a kind of
native _patois_ is spoken. And yet the country is more thickly populated
than upriver, although the pretty Russian _isba_ has given place to the
Yakute _yurta_, a hideous flat-roofed mud-hut, with blocks of ice for
window-panes, and yellow-faced weirdly clad inmates, with rough, uncouth
manners and the beady black eyes of the Tartar. And one cold grey
morning I awaken, worn out with cold and fatigue, to peer with sleepy
eyes, no longer down the familiar avenue of ice and pine-trees, but
across a white and dreary wilderness of snow. On the far horizon,
dividing earth and sky, a thin drab streak is seen which soon merges, in
the clear sunrise, into the faint semblance of a city. Golden domes and
tapering fire-towers are soon distinguishable, and our driver grows
proportionately loquacious as his home is neared. "Yakutsk!" he cries,
with a wave of his short, heavy whip, and I awaken de Clinchamp, still
slumbering peacefully, with the welcome news that the first important
stage of our long land-journey is nearly at an end.[12]

[Footnote 12: This was on February 14, 1902, and 7800 miles (out of a
somewhat alarming total) now lay behind us. To reach this from Irkutsk
we had employed 720 horses, at a cost of under L70 for both sleighs.]

CHAPTER IV

THE CITY OF THE YAKUTE

During our stay in Yakutsk we were the guests of the Chief of Police, an
official generally associated (in the English mind) with mystery and
oppression, dungeons and the knout. But Captain Zuyeff in no way
resembled his prototype of the London