We found here a large flat-bottomed decked boat, which we loaded with the provisions which had been brought together by the orders of the Admiralty at Irkuzk, and on the evening of the 28th of June we began to descend this majestic river.

Kotschuga is a kind of entrepôt for all goods which are to be sent by water to towns or places near the Lena. They are sent partly by large and heavily-laden barks, which are broken up for buildingmaterials or for fire-wood on their arrival at Jakuzk, as they are too large to return against the stream; and partly by smaller boats, which can be rowed or towed up the river again: there are also a few good-sized decked boats with sails.

Travellers who have but little luggage make use of small light boats, which always keep near the windward bank for safety. The traveller is entitled to demand, at every post station, as many rowers as there are horses marked on his travelling pass. In this way he gets on he gets on without interruption, and speedily, especially if he is going down the stream.

These are as yet the only provisions made for an internal navigation, which is of the highest importance in a country like Siberia, where settlements are often many hundred wersts apart, and where the northern provinces have to depend for the necessaries of life on the cultivated provinces in the South. Few countries in the world are favoured with such abundant river-communication as Siberia. The great rivers flowing from South to North seem intended by nature to convey the superfluities of the South to the inhabitants of the barren North; and the country is intersected, besides, by such a number of navigable

streams, that there is hardly a point of any importance which cannot be reached by water. Some meal, salt, tea, sugar, brandy, tobacco, and a few cloth stuffs, are indeed sent in boats from the yearly fair at Jakuzk to Shigansk, and other places on the Lower Lena; but from the imperfection of the boats, and the want of men, the passage is often so long, that winter comes on before they arrive at their destination. They have then to wait till spring, and though a part of the most indispensable articles are carried by land, this enhances the price so enormously, that very little is sent in that way. The arrival of these stores is a subject of painful anxiety to the inhabitants; their non-arrival often causes severe and general sickness. The stores which are left are sure to be more or less injured, and the custody of them during the winter is a heavy charge upon the settlers on the banks of the river, who are held responsible for whatever belongs to the crown.

All these serious disadvantages might be obviated by the employment of a steamer, by the assistance of which, vessels could reach the most distant places on the lower Lena in a month from Kotschuga ; and thus the passage could be made twice in the course of the summer. The whole district between Irkuzk and the sea, about 4000 wersts, would receive new life, industry would be encouraged, and severe suffering and privation averted; the forests on the banks of the Upper Lena offer inexhaustible stores of cheap and easily accessible fuel, the preparation of which would afford additional employment and profit to the natives.

I return to our own navigation. With the occasional assistance of sails or oars, our boat glided rapidly down the river between high and romantic banks. The Lena is one of the largest rivers in the world; from Kotschuga to Rigi, a distance of 400 wersts, the country is mountainous and covered with impenetrable forests, and the banks of the river offer a succession of views of picturesque and varied beauty. On the slopes of the hills, we saw cultivated fields, pasture-grounds and vegetable-gardens, surrounding the cottages of the peasants, which sometimes stood singly, and sometimes formed little villages.*

There are many wooded islands in the bed of the river. The banks became steeper, and the mountains more lofty, as we approached Rigi, where the river takes a sudden bend to the East; and the mountains appear to close in upon it, and divert it from its course. Lower down it escapes from the hills, and flows on in a still broader stream, between flat banks. Below Rigi there are a few shallows which in some degree impede the navigation, when the water is low: when these are past, the flat vessels in common use meet with no impediment throughout the remainder of their course. The first permanent winter-habitation of the Russians on the banks of the Lena was built in 1631, at the mouth of the Kuta, a tributary stream from the westward. The Lena was first discovered by the Turu

*The inhabitants suffer much from inundations, which, particularly when the river is swollen by the melting of the snow in the valleys, often ruin their little farms for the year. At such times they have recourse to the government magazines, which are yearly filled from the fruitful districts of Irkuzk and Krasnojarsk, and from which they can purchase corn at a moderate price.

chanschi in 1607, and afterwards by Cossacks from the Jenissei in 1628.

Between Saborje and Kirensk the Lena winds so much that the distance by water is 105 wersts, and in a straight line is only thirty-five wersts. The river here is seven fathoms deep, and has scarcely any current. At Kirensk, the left bank consists of black slate rock, with some talc. A few wersts below I saw strata of chloride slate, in red clay. About 100 wersts lower down, the right bank consists of common clay and imperfect slate. At Schtscheki, 250 wersts below Kirensk, the rocks on the left bank are limestone, interspersed with veins of flint and calcareous spar. The banks become low and flat 350 wersts above Olekma. Here there are a quantity of fragments of green-stone porphyry, common quartz with mica, and much mica-slate. About 150 wersts above Olekma, the left bank which is high, consists of layers of different coloured slate; the green layers are thick, and the intervening gray layers are very thin; occasionally I saw small veins of gypsum interspersed; at Olekma the left bank consists entirely of clay, with rather thick layers of gray slate, and a beautiful dazzling white gypsum. About 180 wersts above Jakuzk, the right bank of the river consists of perpendicular rocks, which are called from their form Stolby, or the pillars: there are here several kinds of marble. About sixty wersts below Stolby, there are many excavations in the bluff limestone rocks. These are probably the remains of former attempts to discover silver ore. Dr. Kyber saw in one of these caves a larch-tree growing from the rocky floor, at the depth of several fathoms, and

flourishing in spite of the constant darkness. To these scanty notices concerning the banks of the Lena, I may add the mention of two mineral springs on opposite sides, 150 wersts below Stolby. The one on the left bank issues from a steep limestone rock, and has a sulphurous smell, and a high temperature; the other on the low bank on the opposite side is cold, very clear, and has a strong salt taste.

The town of Kirensk is a poor little village, chiefly deserving of notice for the success of the inhabitants in cultivating vegetables. They send to Jakuzk, cabbages, potatoes, turnips, and sometimes even cucumbers. The gardens are all so placed as to be sheltered from the North and East, by hills, rocks, or woods.

About 250 wersts below Kirensk, the Lena passes between precipitous rocks, nearly 500 feet high; the depth of the river in this part is twelve fathoms. This place is remarkable for an echo, which repeats a pistol-shot at least a hundred times, increasing in the intensity of the sound so as to resemble a wellsustained running fire of musketry, or even a cannonade. They told us here the story of a hunter, who, on his snow-shoes, had pursued an elk to the edge of the precipice. In the ardour of the chase, both man and beast had been precipitated on the ice of the river, eighty fathoms below. Near this place we passed a steep rock in the bed of the river, where a bark laden with brandy had been wrecked some time before; it is a little above the mouth of the Witima, which is celebrated for the quantity of talc found on its banks, and still more for its beautiful sables, which are esteemed the finest in all Siberia,