In passing this forest, I thought indeed we must, after all our dangers were, in our imagination, escaped, as before, have been plundered and robbed, and perhaps murdered, by a troop of thieves:  of what country they were; whether the roving bands of the Ostiachi, a kind of Tartars, or wild people on the banks of the Oby, had ranged thus far; or whether they were the sable-hunters of Siberia, I am yet at a loss to know; but they were all on horseback, carried bows and arrows, and were at first about five-and-forty in number.  They came so near to us as within about two musket shot; and, asking no questions, they surrounded us with their horses, and looked very earnestly upon us twice.  At length they placed themselves just in our way; upon which we drew up in a little line before our camels, being not above sixteen men in all; and being drawn up thus, we halted, and sent out the Siberian servant who attended his lord, to see who they were:  his master was the more willing to let him go, because he was not a little apprehensive that they were a Siberian troop sent out after him.  The man came up near them with a flag of truce, and called to them; but though he spoke several of their languages, or dialects of languages rather, he could not understand a word they said:  however, after some signs to him not to come nearer to them at his peril, so he said he understood them to mean, offering to shoot at him if he advanced, the fellow came back no wiser than he went, only that by their dress, he said, he believed them to be some Tartars of Kalmuck, or of the Circassian hordes; and that there must be more of them on the great desert, though he never heard that ever any of them were seen so far north before.

This was small comfort to us; however, we had no remedy:  there was on our left hand, at about a quarter of a mile’s distance, a little grove or clump of trees, which stood close together, and very near the road; I immediately resolved we should advance to those trees, and fortify ourselves as well as we could there; for, first, I considered that the trees would in a great measure cover us from their arrows; and in the next place, they could not come to charge us in a body:  it was, indeed, my old Portuguese pilot who proposed it; and who had this excellency attending him, namely, that he was always readiest and most apt to direct and encourage us in cases of the most danger.  We advanced immediately with what speed we could, and gained that little wood, the Tartars, or thieves, for we knew not what to call them, keeping their stand, and not attempting to hinder us.  When we came thither, we found, to our great satisfaction, that it was a swampy, springy piece of ground, and, on the other side, a great spring of water, which, running out in a little rill or brook, was a little farther joined by another of the like bigness; and was, in short, the head or source of a considerable river, called afterwards the Wirtska.  The trees which grew about this spring were not in all above two hundred, but were very large, and stood pretty thick; so that as soon as we got in, we saw ourselves perfectly safe from the enemy, unless they alighted and attacked us on foot.