My navigation became less disagreeable when I had reached Pelodoui, a large village, the inhabitants of which are Russians, descended from the first cultivators of Siberia, called Starogili. There I was freed from the dangerous exiles, and had no other guides than honest peasants, who were equally assiduous and complaisant. The houses were not so distant from one another, and promised me at least some resource. In each of these villages there are six men appointed to conduct the business of the post: no privilege exempts them from this service; like all the Russian peasants they are annexed to the glebe, pay the same duties to the crown, and furnish recruits. The produce of their harvests are not adequate to their maintenance during the whole year; they are obliged to purchase and lay up a stock of corn. Rye is no where so dear as in this place; it sells at seventy or eighty kopecs the poud.
Vitim is the village nearest to the preceding one. As it resembles all the Russian villages, I need not describe it; churches are less common than the cabacs or public-houses.
Birds are fond of the environs and the borders of the Lena, where they very much abound. The clouds of gnats which cover it, account for this. To keep off these insects, we had taken care to furnish ourselves with a quantity of horse-dung, with which we keep up a continual fire in our boat; but another unavoidable inconvenience on this river is the vermin it engenders; the more we bathe, the faster they multiply.
Four hundred wersts from Peledoui I passed by a small town called Kirinsk, or Kiringui, at the bottom of which the Lena flows, and farther on the Kiringa. In the midst of the houses, none of which make any figure, we could distinguish the church, which is built of stone.
The bank becoming wider and more sandy, we were frequently drawn by horses[98]. The ropes were weak, but it gave me no uneasiness; the pleasure of advancing inspired me with a blind confidence, for which I was soon punished. In the night of the 29, my boat touched upon a rock, which the darkness concealed from us. The rope broke with the violence of the shock, and our boat was in a minute full of water; we had only time to get out, in order to draw it upon the shore, which required all our efforts. I immediately mounted one of the horses, with my box before me. We were but four wersts from a village, and it was easy to have speedy succour. My boat was refitted in the course of the day, and the next morning I proceeded on my route.
In quitting the village of Ustiug, I perceived a considerable salt pit that was pointed out to me, and beyond it three zavodes or copper founderies.
My boat was broken a second time, and again hastily repaired; this day also, which was 4 August, my rudder, which continually struck against the bottom, was carried away, as well as a kind of keel that was fastened under the boat, and I abandoned it without hesitation. It became the perquisite of my faithful Golikoff.
I took horses at Toutoura, which is three hundred and seventy wersts from Irkoutsk, and having passed through the large village of Verkhalensk, I arrived the 5, at two o’clock in the afternoon, at that of Katschouga, where it is common to land in order to avoid the elbow of the Lena, and also because this river soon ceases to be navigable. In this village travellers are provided with kibitks[99], or Russian four wheel carriages, which are conducted by exiles, and from time to time by the Bratskis.