trader on the Kemchik steppes of the Siberian-Mongolian frontier, I also visited their fur-trading brethren, who live on the same latitudes at higher altitudes in the Upper Yenisei forest plateau.[1] All along this frontier, from the Upper Amur to the Altai plateaus, wherever there is fur-bearing forest, there one can see the solitary houses of the Siberian fur trader, the pioneers of Russian commerce and Slavonic civilization in these remote corners of the earth, just as the Siberian wool traders are its pioneers on the steppes. The houses of these Siberians are typically Russian in every respect. Situated on little grassy fiats and surrounded by primeval forests of pine, spruce and larch, may be seen the little log-houses, fresh and clean, with just that type of roof, and shape of window and door, that reminds the traveller of what he saw in the last Siberian village north of the frontier. Inside the little stockade there is generally a rude shed, where a few cows and horses can harbour against the severities of the winter. Another is kept for storing furs, valuable sable, or wapiti horn, while nailed up against the walls of the house are skins of elk and other big game, the products of the chase. In another little shed, often built up against the house, is a store where tea, sugar, sacks of flour and little oddments are kept for barter with the native Finns. In the yard outside are fishing nets hanging up to dry or waiting for repair, and barrels of fish, perhaps from some remote lake in the forest, ready to be sent off to the nearest Siberian market town on the raft, which lies moored to the river bank. Inside the house one sees a typical Russian room, always the same, whether it
- ↑ See Map of Vegetation Zones of Western and Central Siberia.
