File:In the uttermost East, being an account of investigations among the natives and Russian convicts of the island of Sakhalin, with notes of travel in Korea, Siberia, and Manchuria (1903) (14741448996).jpg

Identifier: inuttermosteastb00hawe (find matches)
Title: In the uttermost East, being an account of investigations among the natives and Russian convicts of the island of Sakhalin, with notes of travel in Korea, Siberia, and Manchuria
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Hawes, Charles Henry, 1867-1943
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Harper
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
, Was it not monoto-nous ? No ; not at all. The glorious mountain sceneryof Trans-Baikalia, with its deep, fir-clad valleys, wasfollowed by Lake Baikal, that huge sheet of water sur-rounded by a magnificent mountain range, snow-clad fromsummit to base. But was not the plain—the 2000-mileplain between Irkutsk and the Urals—deadly dull ? Again, no. One day we were running through a 100-mile forest, peering into the mysterious depths of thetaiga (it was as if you were riding through a narrow ridingin an unknown wood), and the next you were out upona low plateau, watching the caravans on a frozen river, orthe little log-built village in distant hollow. Lake Baikal, which marks the division between Easternand Western Siberia, is an extraordinary sheet of water inmore ways than one. Not only is it the largest fresh-waterlake in the Eastern hemisphere, but it boasts the deepestsoundings. In one spot the lead touches the bottom ata depth of 3185 feet. The level of its surface is 1561 feet
Text Appearing After Image:
TRANS-BAIKALTA TO MOSCOW 457 above the sea. The water is of wonderful limpidity, andhas given rise to many local legends. It goes by thename of Dalai Nor (ocean lake), or Bai-kul (rich sea),among the Mongols. Its length is 400 miles, and itswidth where the great ferries cross from Misovaya to alanding-station called Baikal 38^ miles. Two ice-breakers, built by Messrs. Armstrong & Co.—the Baikal and the smaller Angara—ply across the lake,the former supposed to take the trains, but only doing soon special occasions, when, for instance, an importantofficial is travelling. The surface is liable to sudden andviolent storms, and the passage is as much feared, and lastsas long, as the Dover to Ostend crossing. I made thecrossing in the Angara, with a favourable wind ; but sostrong was it that, on attempting to return to Mysovaya,she was beaten back, and had to give it up after an hoursstruggle. To the east the mountains drop to low hills asthey approach the lake, and on the west grea

Note About Images