The steamer was the Ignalienif, a side wheel boat of about 300 tons. Her model was that of an ocean or coasting craft, she had two masts, and could spread a little sail if desired. Her engines were built at Ekaterineburg in the Ural Mountains, and hauled overland 2500 miles. She and her sister boat, the General Korsackoff, are very profitable to their owners during the months of summer. They carry passengers, mails, and light freight, and nearly always have one or two soudnas in tow. Their great disadvantage at present is the absence of a port on the eastern shore.
The navigation of Lake Baikal is very difficult. Storms arise with little warning, and are often severe. At times the boats are obliged to remain for days in the middle of the lake as they cannot always make the land while a gale continues. There was very little breeze when we crossed, but the steamer was tossed quite roughly. The winds blowing from the mountains along the lake, frequently sweep with great violence and drive unlucky soudnas upon the rocks.
The water of the lake is so clear that one can see to a very great depth. The lake is nearly four hundred miles long by about thirty or thirty-five in width; it is twelve hundred feet above the sea level, and receives nearly two hundred tributaries great and small. Its outlet, the Angara, is near the southwestern end, and is said to carry off not more than a tenth of the water that enters the lake. What becomes of the surplus is a problem no one has been able to solve. The natives believe there is an underground passage to the sea, and sonic geologists favor this opinion. Soundings of 2000 feet have been made without finding bottom. On the western shore the mountains rise abruptly from the water, and in some places no bottom has been found at 400 feet depth, within pistol shot of the bank. This fact renders navigation dangerous, as a boat might be driven on shore in even a light breeze before her anchors found holding ground.
The natives have many superstitions concerning Lake Baikal. In their language it is the “Holy Sea,” and it would be sacrilege to term it a lake. Certainly it has several marine peculiarities. Gulls and other ocean birds frequent its shores, and it is the only body of fresh water on the globe where the seal abounds. Banks of coral like those in tropical seas exist in its depths.
AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.
The mountains on the western shore are evidently of volcanic origin, and earthquakes are not unfrequent. A few years ago the village of Stepnoi, about twenty miles from the mouth of the Selenga, was destroyed by an earthquake. Part of the village disappeared beneath the water while another part after sinking was lifted twenty or thirty feet above its original level. Irkutsk has been frequently shaken at the foundations, and on one occasion the walls of its churches were somewhat damaged. Around Lake Baikal there are several hot springs, some of which attract fashionable visitors from Irkutsk during the season.
LAKE BAIKAL IN WINTER
The natives say nobody was ever lost in Lake Baikal. When a person is drowned there the waves invariably throw his body on shore.