But to return to Ekaterineburg. The iron mines now being worked are at the convenient distance of 100 miles from the town, and the cost of transit of the pig-iron is comparatively small. This town is therefore advantageously situated for iron-work, and a large quantity is turned out every year. Most of the iron-work for Siberia goes from this place. The boilers and engines for the Baikal steamers are made in Ekaterineburg, and transported nearly 2400 miles to their destination. The workmen in the English foundries are chiefly Germans and Russians, with English foremen. Experience has proved the remarkable fact that English workmen deteriorate in Siberia. The native Russians are excellent workmen under skilful superintendence. Some few of them have intellect enough to be trusted with the more responsible departments of their business, but such cases are quite exceptional. They are in general mere imitators, exhibiting no power to think for themselves.
A large fish-curing trade is carried on here. The fish is brought from the great rivers, chiefly the Ob, near its mouth. About 50,000 poods, equal to 1,800,000 lbs. avoirdupois, are salted annually in this town.
Recruiting was going on actively here also. Having occasion to call on the master of police on a little matter of business, we drove up in a sledge to his office, but found the doorway and the portion of the street immediately adjoining it, so crowded with rough-looking moujiks wildly vociferating, that we could neither get in, nor even make our presence known, for some time. These were recruits who were being registered, passing one by one into the bureau, and coming out again by the same crowded doorway. It seemed to be quite an understood thing that each recruit should drop kopeks into the hands of the gendarmes who acted as door-keepers. By dint of hard pushing we succeeded in insinuating ourselves into the passage, but only to find a yet more impenetrable crowd inside. Sickened by the exhalations of so many unclean animals in sheep-skins, half suffocated in the frowsy atmosphere within, and crushed in the living mass till we had to fight for breath like a person in a nightmare, we were glad to escape into the fresh air, and abandon the purpose of our visit. The moujiks were followed to the rendezvous by their wives, who made confusion worse confounded by their frantic yelling and pushing, each one eager to get her own protégé into a good place. There were many hundreds of them, and one day would not suffice to register them all at the rate they were then progressing.
The temperature was ominously high on the 18th of November,—only one degree of frost. Some days previously it had been down to -15° Réaumur (-2° Fahrenheit). We were fairly committed to sledge travelling, and there was so little snow on the ground that a few hours' thaw would have melted away our charming sledge road. The frost set in about the usual time at Ekaterineburg, October 1/13, but the snow there as elsewhere was late.
The hills and forests in the neighbourhood are well stocked with game. Black-cock, white partridges, ryabchik, reindeer, elk, and hares, are more or less abundant. Wolves are also common, but there are no wild boar. Game is plentiful in most parts of Siberia, but the Russians are no great sportsmen, except those who make a living by hunting. The nomad tribes are, however, expert in the use of the rifle.
Ekaterineburg is the most westerly town in Siberia, lying at the foot of the Ural mountains which separate Europe from Asia. I had formed great conceptions of this mountain chain, but the illusion was dispelled when, on inquiring for the Urals, I was pointed to densely wooded undulating hills, in appearance not more imposing than the Lammermoor range in Scotland. I know not why they are so darkly shaded on most of our maps, and made to look like a formidable barrier between the two continents. They certainly cover a broad expanse of country, but in elevation they are really insignificant, and rendered still more so in appearance by their very gradual rise from the level country. The elevation in the latitude of Ekaterineburg is little more than 2000 feet above the sea, and the plain on the Siberian side being between 800 and 1000 feet in elevation, the gentle slope of the mountains makes them look diminutive.
While settling about our horses at the post-station of Ekaterineburg, we fell in with an elderly German lady, who was going to start the same day for St. Petersburg. As she spoke very little Russian, it occurred to her friends that it would be a good thing for her to travel with us. There was plenty of room for her in our sledge, and we willingly consented to take her in. This was arranged accordingly. But old ladies (and young ones too) like to have their own way, and she discovered that she had too much luggage to go comfortably with ours in one sledge, besides little baskets of sweet cakes and knick-knacks, of which she had laid in a store for the journey, and which were likely to come to harm lying under our feet. She therefore determined to travel in her own sledge, where she could munch cakes at pleasure, but keeping company with us for the sake of the collateral protection our escort afforded.
At six in the evening of the 19th we left Ekaterineburg with our convoy, and about ten at night we reached the highest point of the road on the ridge of the Ural. In a heavy fall of snow we turned out to see the obelisk which has been erected there, as the boundary stone between Europe and Asia. It is a plain stone with no other inscription than the word "Europe" on one side and "Asia" on the other. It is said to have been erected in honour of Yermak, the Cossack robber-chief, who atoned for his other offences by discovering, and partly conquering, Siberia for the Russians in the end of the sixteenth century.
It is quite unaccountable that the vast country of Siberia should have been left to be discovered by Yermak at such a late period. It was well known to the Tartars, for the dynasty of Genghis had extended their conquests there, and yet the Russians, during their communications with the Mongols of the Golden Horde which subsisted for two hundred years, had never learned what was beyond the Ural mountains.
Yermak compelled by some accident to "leave his country," i.e., being outlawed, found his way, with some two hundred adventurers, across the Ural. After pillaging the Tartars for some time, his handful of troops, i.e., robbers, became so wasted with constant fighting that he could no longer maintain himself among his numerous enemies. It then occurred to Yermak to return to Moscow, announce his discovery, and make his peace with the Tsar. The robber was promoted to the rank of a hero, and was appointed to command an expedition for the conquest of Siberia. Yermak first crossed the Ural in 1580, and in 1660 nearly all the Siberian tribes were subjugated by Russia.