in them. It seemed strange that here, at the foot of a lake which in any other half-civilised country would be a principal means of communication, there were no Russian settlers and very few native inhabitants. After a little delay we had all our baggage stowed, and got away at eleven, after having paid off the men and horses that had brought us here. On the whole, the men behaved very well and had given no trouble. They were rather lazy but never cheeky, and Omok, who had been my daily companion for nearly six weeks, was really a very good man. The horses also had been very good, and though two or three times one had kicked off a load, we had no accident or damage worth talking of to our baggage all the time.
The lake had very steep shores, especially on the west side, for many miles, and we rowed four hours before we found a place where we could have camped. The mountains rose about 3,000 feet, perhaps more, and there was no track of any sort along the west shore. On the east there were a good many yourts on the hillsides, and a large valley came in at the south-east end. The boat was a heavy load for four men to row, and did not make above three miles an hour. We stopped in the afternoon, where a large forest came in on the west shore, to make tea. I tried to go up the shore a little way, but found the forest so very thickly grown with underwood—Rhododendron and Lonicera being the principal shrubs— that it was almost impassable. Fallen timber and great boulders, with swarms of mosquitoes, added to the difficulty, and there was not the faintest trace of man’s presence, though I found traces of a bear. Growing under the pines were little beds of Cypripedium guttatum, past flower.
In the evening it came on rather gusty, and as the shore was very steep and the sea got up very quick, we had some difficulty in landing all right; but by great good luck we found a place flat enough to haul the boat up, and pitched our tent just before it came on wet. Next day we got off about 7.30 in the boat and rowed till nearly twelve, when we stopped to lunch. The forest was more open here, but the grass so long and wet that I could do no good. The flowers on the rocks by the lake were very pretty; a large-flowered dwarf pink aster being most conspicuous, and Saxifraga cordifolia being everywhere on the rocks.
I saw several times flocks of from twenty to a hundred Nutcrackers (N. caryocatactes) flying high along and over the shores of the lake, as though preparing to migrate, which they have been supposed to do, though before this I had always seen them as a solitary and resident bird. I also saw Ravens and Wagtails in the forest, and one Hazel grouse; also two Ospreys, but almost no ducks or water-birds. Common Sandpipers were the only birds on the shore.
About thirty miles from the south end the forest, facing north, was the most dense and impenetrable I ever saw out of the tropics; it was very rocky and full of large fallen trees, Pinus cembra, Larch and Spruce, being the commonest. The ferns, four feet high, and a dense jungle of Azalea, Red Currant, Raspberry, Saxifraga cordifolia and high grass, all growing up to one’s waist—and higher among the fallen timber and boulders—made it almost impossible to move except very slowly. Where the vegetation was not so dense, Linnea borealis and many mosses covered the ground, but I saw no orchids here.
