The almost impenetrable forest through which Yermak and his followers were forced step by step, to cut their way, the swollen streams dashing towards the Arctic Sea, across which they were obliged to pass, and the deep ravines filled with clievaux de f rises of fallen timber, were the difficulties which at first combined — rather than the feeble though growing resistance of the native tribes — to
* On a journey through the great northern forest belt of Russia referred to in a previous footnote, the author encountered at every station along the new railway the descendants of these tribes, the "Mordvins" and "Tchouds" of the present day. These strange woodland creatures — flat-faced, slant-eyed, with colourless whity-blond complexions — present many notable differences from the more robust Russian moujiks. It is interesting, however, to note the physical characteristics which this inferior stock have transmitted to the Slav race. The influence of Russian civilization is, however, fast spreading to these isolated districts. The men generally wear the outdoor dress of the Russian lower classes. The women, the conservative force in every community, still affect the ancient tribal costumes: coarse-woven gay-coloured shawls covering homespun smocks or long shirts. Wherever concessions have been made to modern "style," all, as though by common consent, wear town-made material of the same bright pattern and colours, clearly exhibiting the transition from tribal costume to individual dress.
impede the eastward march of the Cossacks. Indeed the short northern summer was wholly passed in contending with these natural obstacles, and Yermak reahzed the necessity of returning once more to his winter quarters with the Stroganovs. To the latter this second winter's visit must have been even less welcome than the first. Xor did the diplomatic merchants cease their efforts to encourage the Cossacks to persist in their adventure of looking for a practicable pathway toward the unkno\^Ti riches in the "beyond."
A\Tien the second slow-coming springtime had arrived Yermak had succeeded in enforcing a system of rigid military discipline among his unruly followers. Attempts at desertion, or disobedience of orders were punished by cruel penalties. According to Lesur, the crime of blasphemy was one of those most pitilessly forbidden. By Yermak's orders a portable altar with an ikon of St. Nicholas "the Wonder- Worker" was constructed to accompany the little army during its second expedition and before the Holy Ikons a renegade monk, assisted by two unfrocked priests, regularly celebrated a forest mass on Sundays and Holy Days.
The delays of the second winter also enabled the Cossacks to fit themselves out with a httle train of portable artillery whose strange thunders (and the terrif jong clouds of thick smoke given off by the coarse gunpowder manufactured by the Strog-
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anovs) doubled its effectiveness against the savage enemy.
The Stroganovs, by exciting the cupidity and ambition of the Cossacks simpHfied the task of their leader. Tales of the riches awaiting them, once the forest-guarded mountain chain of the Urals could be crossed, were eagerly listened to during the long winter nights of enforced idleness. Thus, from an undisciplined band of brigands and ruffians Yermak's genius for leadership welded a small but highly tempered little army capable of resisting the hardships they were to encounter for the second time.
Yet the end of a second summer's campaign found Yermak only a little farther advanced than at the end of the previous year. On the banks of the Ka or Silver River (a stream which has since become famous for its fisheries) he decided to pass the winter in an entrenched camp. This enabled him, in spite of terrible sufferings from the cold, to push on with the first signs of spring, his route following the course of the river Toura.
Until this point had been reached the principal difficulties met with on Yermak's line of march were the natural obstacles and the problem of obtaining provisions. But the expedition now found itself confronted by more valiant enemies. The Tartar and Tartar-led tribes along the shores of the stream they were obliged to follow offered a stubborn and unexpected resistance. The whole summer was consumed in bitter skirmishes with this new enemy (1580).