SIBERIA.

No. II.-NISHNEY-KOLYMSK.-THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF NORTHERN SIBERIA. NISHNEY-KOLYMSK, where Baron Wrangel arrived on the 2d of November 1820, and which for three years remained the central point whence he directed his scientific investigations, would in Europe be deemed a very poor fishing village, but in the remote part of the world in which it is situated, it is looked upon as a city of very considerable importance. It is the largest of the three towns on the Kolymá river. These towns are Verkhney-Kolymsk, SredneyKolymsk, and Nishney-Kolymsk, or Upper, Middle, and Lower Kolymsk. The last, and by far the largest, consists of a church, a wooden fortress, and forty-two houses and huts. It is situated in 68° 31′ 53′′ N. lat., and in 160° 35' E. long. Sredney-Kolymsk, though it enjoys the advantage of a somewhat milder climate, and is moreover the residence of the principal functionaries of the whole commissariat of the Kolyma, contains only a church and thirteen houses; Verkhney-Kolymsk, the most southern of the three, but quite as cold, owing to its elevated position, contains, according to Cochrane, fifteen houses. Each house, on an average, may be estimated to contain ten or twelve inmates.

These towns are generally abandoned by the whole population as soon as the winter breaks up, for no part of the Kolyma country being within the range of agriculture, the inhabitants have only the chase and the fishery to depend on; and if these do not in summer provide a sufficient store for the nine or ten months' winter, famine, and all its attendant horrors, must be looked for before the close. In the country about Sredney-Kolymsk, some attention is paid to the rearing of cattle, but the more northerly portions of the district are too poor in grass to allow the inhabitants to place much reliance on their power to collect a stock of hay for the winter; and in Nishney-Kolymsk, it is on the chace and the fishery, more particularly the latter, that the whole population must rely for their subsistence. Even in Sredney-Kolymsk, the early return of winter will sometimes, by interrupting the hay harvest, oblige the unfortunate owners to slaughter the greater part of their herds; literally to kill them in order to prevent their perishing by hunger.

The Kolyma receives the waters of several large tributary streams. Of these the Omolon and the Great and Little Aniuy are the most important. Here also, as on the Lena, the establishment of a small steamer would be of the greatest benefit to the country, for at present very little advantage is taken of the facility which the river offers for an exchange of produce between the upper and lower parts of the country; the boats now in use are of the rudest description, unfit for any purpose but to convey their owners to and from their several fishing-stations; indeed, to show how little progress the inhabitants of this part of Asia have yet made in seamanship, it may be sufficient to state, that the use of sails is entirely unknown to them.

The intense severity of the climate at Nishney-Kolymsk may be attributed quite as much to the disadvantageous nature of its position as to its high degree of latitude. To the west lies a naked, boundless heath, or tundra; and towards the north lies the Arctic Ocean, covered with perpetual ice. The most prevalent winds are those that blow from the north and the west, and against neither of these is the place in any way sheltered. The killing north-west blast, even in the middle of summer, seldom fails to bring frost and snow with it; and this wind sweeps over the little town with unimpeded violence

The average temperature of the year, in consequence of this exposed situation, is not over-8° of Reaumur (+14° of Fahrenheit); and during the months of December, January, and February, the thermometer frequently falls below forty degrees of cold, equal to fifty-eight degrees below Fahrenheit's zero. About the middle of August the frost sets in, and lasts without interruption till about the middle of May. At Oust Iansk, a Russian settlement at the mouth of the Yana, the climate is even more severe, by three or four degrees, than at Nishney-Kolymsk.

In the first week of September, the Kolyma is usually frozen over so as to allow horses and sledges to cross it in perfect safety; and a little nearer to the sea, one of its mouths, somewhat more shallow than the main stream, is frequently covered with strong ice as early as the 20th of August; the frost continues without interruption till May, and when it ceases, several weeks of warm weather are requisite to loosen the icy crust of nine months' growth. It never breaks up before June, and frequently not till the middle of that month. During the three months of what the inhabitants dignify by the name of summer, the sun remains above the horizon for fifty-two days (from the 15th of May till the 6th of July); but its rays are so feeble, that they scarcely appear to dispense any heat, and it may, on an unclouded day, be contemplated by the naked eye, with as little inconvenience as an English full moon at harvesttime. Though the sun, however, remains in this way over the horizon for several weeks, the usual division of the twenty-four hours into day and night is perfectly perceptible; in proportion as the chilly sun declines, the evening sets in, and all nature sinks to repose, to revive a few hours afterwards, when the sun ascends again. The few small birds that visit these northern latitudes hail the new day with their hoarse melody; the little yellow flower opens its cup to the rising sun, and all that has life hastens to enjoy the beneficent influence of the enfeebled luminary. The inhabitants divide their year very gravely into four seasons; but during their spring, as they call it, the ground remains covered with snow, their rivers with ice, and the thermometer often sinks to thirty degrees of frost during the night. In the same way, their autumn, which commences with the first of September, generally ushers in a frost sufficiently severe to cover the Kolyma with a solid crust of ice, and a cold of thirty-five degrees (forty-seven below Fahrenheit's zero) is no unusual occurrence during this season.

The brief summer is a struggle between vegetation and annihilation. Towards the end of May, the stunted willow-bushes put forth a few diminutive leaves, and an appearance of verdure manifests itself on the sloping grounds that happen to have a southern aspect. In June there are days which would be thought warm even in Europe, the thermometer rising occasionally to +18° (+74° F.). The fields then become covered with flowers, and the berry-bearing bushes with blossoms; but a sudden north or north-west wind will sometimes destroy this cheering display of verdure in a single night, blighting the blossoms, and burning the scanty grass to a yellowish brown. In July the temperature is most agreeable; but the brief summer can scarcely be called a period of enjoyment, for the warm weather is always accompanied by countless myriads of gnats, that make it almost impossible to breathe except in an atmosphere of dense smoke. Heaps of dry leaves, moss, and damp wood are then raised at the entrance of every hut, and in the fields, for the benefit of the cattle; these heaps (called dymokury, in Siberia) are kept burning day and might, and this smoke is the only protection of man and beast against their diminutive tormentors. The horses carefully keep to windward of the field

fire, which must be daily moved, to provide the poor animals with fresh pasturage. Every thing, however, in nature seems to have some beneficent object in view. To the agency of the gnats, the people of Kolymsk are indebted for one of their chief means of subsistence. The wild rein-deer pass their winter in unexplored forests, but on the appearance of the gnats, migrate every year to the sea-coast. This they do in herds of many thousands, and the inhabitants lie in wait for them on the banks of the rivers, and destroy great numbers at the fording-places. When the rein-deer are returning to the forests, after feeding during the summer on the heaths near the coast, they are always in good condition, and then it is that the hunters are most diligent in pursuing and waylaying them.

The real winter on the Kolyma lasts nine months, though the intense frosts, which cause the snow to emit a vapour, make the act of breathing painful, and drive even the wild rein-deer to crouch under a bush,—do not set in before the end of November. Then, as a set-off for the two-months' day of summer, the sun remains concealed below the horizon for thirty-eight days This prolonged night, however, is lighted by the daily recurring aurora borealis, and by the strong reflexion from the snow.

The sun returns to the firmament at the close of December, but brings with it no diminution, but rather an increase, of cold, accompanied, singularly enough, by almost continual fogs and damp vapours. These are occasioned by the evaporations of the Arctic Ocean, of which there is reason to believe the greater part continues uncovered with ice throughout the whole winter. When our travellers were on the ice of the Ocean, the vicinity of open water was always announced by the appearance of the blue cloud that hung over the polynia, as one of these open spaces is called. The wind during winter blows always from the sea, and arrives heavily charged with these vapours.

A singular natural phenomenon, that manifests itself during the Siberian winter, is the Teplot Veter, or warm wind. It blows from the E.S.E. or S E. by S., and will sometimes raise the temperature, as if by magic, from thirtyfive degrees of frost to one or two degrees above the freezing point. This wind seldom lasts more than twenty-four hours; but, during its continuance, it has a remarkably enlivening effect upon the inhabitants. It is attended by one inconvenience, indeed, that of thawing all the ice-panes, which in this part of the world supply the place of window-glass; but the materials for remedying this are always at hand. The Teplot Veter is of frequent occurrence along the banks of the Aniuy, but is rarely experienced much further west than the Kolyma.

Rude and severe as this climate is, it does not appear to exert any pernicious influence on health. In some parts of the country, indeed, scurvy frequently rages to a most destructive extent; but this, there is reason to believe, is the effect of diet rather than of climate. On the Kolyma the disease is unknown; whereas, towards the mouth of the Lena, it is almost of yearly recurrence: about the Kolyma, the people never preserve their food by the aid of salt, but invariably by either drying or freezing it; about the Lena, on the contrary, salt is in constant use. The habitual consumption of salted provisions, there is little doubt, acts most injuriously; whereas, fish, or meat preserved simply in a frozen state, is, in point of fact, eaten perfectly fresh. Nor does the Siberian experience the slightest difficulty in freezing his meat, even on the hottest day in summer. The earth, at the depth of one or two feet, is perpetually frozen; and all that it is necessary for a hunter to do, to keep a rein-deer fresh and sweet for his Christmas dinner, even though he may

have shot him in July, is to bury him three feet under ground, and to look sharp that some hungry wolf or other do not come to rob him of his prize. The almost total want of vegetable food tends to aggravate many maladies which, under more favourable circumstances, would have been of trivial importance; and inflammation of the eyes may almost be said to be periodically epidemic, occasioned by the dazzling effect of the snow. For this last-named malady, the Siberian specific is to strew snuff upon the afflicted part; the application is, of course, followed by several hours of excruciating pain, but seldom fails to reduce the inflammation. The severity of the climate appears also to have the effect of increasing nervous weakness. Thus females of a delicate constitution are liable in Siberia to an illness known there by the name of miräk, and spoken of by Cochrane as the diable au corps. The miräk, in the opinion of Wrangel, is nothing but a very high degree of hysterical excite ment, but vulgar superstition ascribes it to the agency of an ancient enchantress of the name of Agrafena Shiganskaïa, who, though dead for centuries, continues to be an object of great dread, and who is supposed to possess herself of the patient. Occasionally, men also are attacked by the miräk, but, generally speaking, it may be confined to the list of female complaints.

Of the poverty of the vegetable kingdom in Northern Siberia we have already spoken. The vicinity of Nishney Kolymsk is composed of a low swamp, covered with a thin layer of vegetable earth, the gradual deposit of decayed grass and moss, in which particles of ice are always found mingled. A few stunted larch trees creep along the surface of the ground; their roots, shunning the frozen soil, lie almost wholly exposed, and receive their nourishment through the smaller fibres. The wonder is, that with so slight a hold upon the ground, the tree is not blown away by the first storm that comes sweeping from the Arctic Ocean. Along the banks of the river, wherever there happens to be a southern aspect, the willow is seen, but only in the shape of a bush, for at so high a latitude, it never rises into the dignity of a tree. At thirtyfive versts north of Nishney-Kolymsk, bushes and trees are alike unknown.

At Sredney-Kolymsk radishes have been cultivated with success; an attempt has even been made to raise cabbages, but the plant has always refused to form a head. Currants and bilberries of various kinds are the only descriptions of fruit that ever ripen in this part of Siberia, if we except the creeping cedar, of which the small delicate nut is greatly esteemed by the ladies. The berries, however, can never be depended on; often for several years in succession they are destroyed by sudden frosts during the early part of the summer, and the maidens of the Kolyma are then deprived of one of their favourite occupa tions, the gathering of the berries, a season of as much festivity in Siberia as the vintage in Italy.

The abundance of animal life forms a singular contrast to the poverty of vegetation. Rein-deer are often seen in herds of many thousands; the elk is less frequently met with, as he seldom quits the shelter of the forest; the woods are fairly alive with bears, foxes, sables, and squirrels; the white or Arctic fox abounds along the sea-shore; the wolf, as elsewhere, wages perpetual war against all the world, and every man's hand is ready to rise against him; his only offence, all the while being, that he loves horseflesh and reindeer venison as well as those who express such indignation at his ravenous propensities. Against the wolf, as against other unqualified sportsmen, the true hunter is always anxious to see the game-laws rigorously put in force. Birds, particularly water-fowl, arrive in Siberia, in countless numbers, at the beginning of summer, and seek retired places to moult their feathers and

build their nests; eagles, owls, and mews pursue their prey along the sea-coast; the white snow-fowl skip about among the bushes in immense numbers, and a small description of snipe is seen busily tripping over the moors; the sociable crows congregate about the scattered dwellings of man, and when the sun for a few brief weeks disputes his ground with the grim tyrant of the north, the cheerful song of the finch, and of one or two other small birds, is occasionally heard.

All this abundance of animal life, however, is insufficient, Wrangel says, “to mitigate the ghastly effect produced by the first contemplation of this cy desert. That animals should dwell here is the law of nature, and in becoming denizens of these inhospitable regions, they but obey the dictates of instinct. But man! what could induce him to migrate to this grave of nature? I do not here allude to the handful of Russians, whom the hope of gain induces for a few years to repair to the extreme north, but of the native tribes who, though attracted by no such motive, must have abandoned a milder climate, in exchange for a land which, buried under a shroud of perpetual ice and snow, has scarcely any sustenance to offer; where life is but a melancholy struggle against cold and famine; where what to us are the commonest necessaries, are deemed luxuries; where, in a word, existence is not life?"

This little rhapsody of our entertaining author will not, perhaps, admit of very close philosophical examination. Man abandons the happy valley for the rugged mountain to escape from the persecution of his fellow-men. As the Tshuktshi, in the last century, fled from the plains of Siberia before the conquering sword of the Russians, and sought refuge among the mountains and ravines of which the eastern extremity of Asia is composed, so, perhaps, the ancestors of the Yakuts and Yuhagires may, in their time, have been driven from happier homes, by the exterminating sword of some now forgotten hero. Be this, however, as it may, the Siberian has not even the faint light of tradition to guide him to a knowledge of his ancestors. Engaged in a constant struggle to wring from nature the means of satisfying his mere animal wants, the present is all to him, the past scarcely engages his thoughts. Even the history of the Russian conquest, which goes back little more than eighty years, is so enveloped in doubt and darkness, that nothing positive is known respecting the nations that then dwelt there. A dark saying still prevails, that "the Omóki had once more fires along the banks of the Kolyma than there are stars in heaven;" but who the Omóki were, and what has now become of them, are questions to which none are able to return a satisfactory reply. Yet, that numerous tribes must, at no very remote age, have dwelt there, is proved by the many tumuli, or grave hills, and by the numerous remains of human habitations, the frail materials of which make it more than improbable that they can belong to any very remote antiquity.

It is a melancholy fact, but one for which we have here the authority of a Russian admiral, that the population of Siberia has been declining since its annexation to the Russian empire. The Omóki are not the only nation that have entirely disappeared from the face of this vast country. The Shelagi, the Aniuyili, and several others, whatever their numbers may have been when their land was first invaded by the Cossack, are now known but by name.

During the summer of 1821, Dr. Kyber and Mr. Matiushkin, the associates of Baron Wrangel in his scientific mission, spent some weeks on a tour along the banks of the Aniuy, where they were hospitably entertained by a wealthy Yukagire chief. From the information they obtained during this tour, partly from their host, and partly from other sources, a report was drawn up, which Asiat.Jour.N.S.VOL.32.No. 125.

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