wooden house, prefers to live in a yourt. We found him ill with rheu¬ matism, and left him some Elliman. His wife, a fat but well-favoured woman, entertained us with tea and boiled lamb, which was very good. They are, like many of the natives here, Christians, and we heard that a bishop had just passed through; so I suppose the Russian clergy do pay some regard to the aborigines, though as they are all nomads they must be hard to get at. We left after having spent an hour with the Saisan, whose relations and retainers all squatted near the door of the yourt, inside, while we talked through Joseph. There was evidence of a good deal of comfort, if not wealth, in this large yourt; but though there were mats and boxes all round, it was dirty enough, and had an open fire in the middle on which cooking was done.
On July 29th we made a long march down the Chanishman valley, which is a rocky gorge with high cliffs, topped by forested slopes about 2,000 feet above the river. The road was often very rough and stony over boulders, but sometimes over small sandy flats. It opened out in the evening into a plain about three miles long by one wide, at the lower end of which were several yourts, and some attempt at cultivation. Rye, now in flower, and spring bearded wheat were the crops grown, but they were very weedy. The people here seemed poor, but mostly Christians, and there were wooden graves with crosses in several places.
I did not get many butterflies, but there were a good many moths, and quantities of grasshoppers and locusts; also two species of dragon-fly which I had not seen before, but birds, excepting wagtails, were scarce. Next day we crossed the Bashkaus above its junction with the Chanish¬ man, at a ferry; but as there were two boats, we unloaded, swam the horses over, and loaded up again, in little over an hour without mishap. There were some wooden houses on the west side inhabited by half- castes. One of them, an ill-looking old man, agreed to let us have a boat with five men to take us from the end of the Teletskoi lake, which was fourteen miles further on, to its north-west end, about ninety versts, for thirty-five roubles.
Passing on without halting, we camped in a beautiful spot by the river, half-way from the junction to the lake. This stretch of the valley is one of the most beautiful Alpine valleys I ever saw, and completely different in its character from what it is higher up. The sides, though very steep, are densely wooded with birch and Scotch fir, and the herbaceous vegeta¬ tion on the lower slopes and flats was the most luxuriant I ever saw in a temperate climate, except, perhaps, in some of the inner valleys of Sikkim. Bracken, which I had not seen before in the Altai, occurred, and tall ferns three or four feet high, with grass above one’s middle, and Del¬ phiniums, Spiræas and Thalictrum seven or eight feet high. This is probably owing to a moister climate, richer soil, and much heavier snow¬ fall ; for I noticed that the people who live here all make hay, and if they would utilise the mountain pasture, which few or none of them seemed to do, they might keep a great quantity of cattle.
We started at 7.30 next day, July 31st, on a beautiful morning, with a strong breeze from the south, and reached the lake in about two hours. Here we found a large clumsy boat and one or two huts, but no one living
