Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. From Yakutsk to the Lower Lena
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the vessel and, maybe, the sea-sickness which accompanies
it, contribute to create the illusion that you are on the
open sea rather than on fresh water.
Having passed the mouth of the Vilui, one gets the first
sight of the snow-clad Verkhoyansk mountains far away
to the east, the outskirts of which, cut through by the
Lena, form the Utesi or “strand mountains.” The country
is utterly wild and desolate. The trees become smaller,
the woods thinner. North of the Vilui the pine is no more
seen. Near the polar-circle the spruce ceases, and yet a
little farther north the beech, until finally only the hardy
Siberian larch remains and continues all the way to within
a few miles of the Lena delta.
On the shores of the river were heaped masses of
driftwood, and here and there, even though we were at the
end of June, lay colossal blocks of ice. In the steep cliffs
rising from the shore and composed of yellow and whitish
sandstone, are seen layers of coal of varying thickness.
Immediately north of Schigansk they have a thickness of
as much as eight or nine feet.
Day after day we went down the gigantic river without
seeing any other signs of man than fox-traps, a lonely
cross over some grave on the top of a conspicuous rock
or promontory, or a little group of tents and yurtas at
the mouth of some tributary stream where fish were in
especial plenty.
Some 500 miles north of the city of Yakutsk we met
with the first Tunguses. They were “fishing Tunguses,”
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