s thinly peopled as it is at present, nor can the sparse
population which will be found there procure themselves means to
purchase such products of the industry of the present day as are
able to bear long railway carriage. In the absence of contemporaneous
sea-communication the railway will therefore be without traffic, the
land such as it is at present, and the unprosperous condition of the
European population undiminished.

In order to give the reader an idea of the present natural
conditions, and the present communication on a Siberian river, I
shall, before returning to the sketch of the voyage of the _Vega_,
give some extracts from notes made during my journey up the Yenesej
in 1875, reminding the reader, however, that the natural conditions
of the Ob-Irtisch and the Lena differ considerably from those of the
Yenisej, the Ob-Irtisch flowing through lower, more fertile, and
more thickly peopled regions, the Lena again through a wilder, more
beautiful, but less cultivated country.

When one travels up the river from Port Dickson, the broad sound
between Sibiriakoff's Island and the mainland is first passed, but
the island is so low that it is not visible from the eastern bank of
the river and which is usually followed in sailing up or down the
river. The mainland, on the other hand, is at first high-lying, and
in sailing along the coast it is possible to distinguish various
spurs of the range of hills, estimated to be from 150 to 200 metres
high, in the interior. These are free of snow in summer. A little
south of Port Dickson they run to the river bank, where they form a
low rock and rocky island projecting into the river, named after
some otherwise unknown Siberian Polar trapper, Yefremov Kamen.

Sibiriakoff's Island has never, so far as we know, been visited by
man, not even during the time when numerous _simovies_ were found at
the mouth of the Yenesej. For no indication of this island is found
in the older maps of Siberia, although these, as appears from the
fac-simile reproduced at page 192, give the names of a number of
_simovies_ at the mouth of the Yenisej, now abandoned. Nor is it
mentioned in the accounts of the voyages of the great northern
expeditions. The western strand of the island, the only one I have
seen, completely bore the stamp of the _tundra_ described below.
Several reindeer were seen pasturing on the low grassy eminences of
the island, giving promise of abundant sport to the hunter who fir