The road was abominable, though it might have been worse.  It was full of drifts, bare spots, and oukhabas, and our motion was as varied as a politician’s career.  Sometimes it was up, then down, then sidewise, and then all ways at once.  We pitched and rolled like a canoe descending the Lachine rapids, or a whale-boat towed by a hundred-barrel “bow-head.”  In many places the snow was blown from the regular road, and the winter track wound through fields and forests wherever snow could be found.  There was an abundance of rocks, stumps, and other inequalities to relieve the monotony of this mode of travel.  We went much out of our way to find snow, and I think we sometimes increased, by a third or a half, the distance between stations.  The road was both horizontally and vertically tortuous.

My companion took every occurrence with the utmost coolness, and taught me some things in patience I had not known before.  He was long accustomed to Siberian travel, having made several scientific journeys through Northern Asia.  In 1859 the Russian Geographical Society sent him to visit the Amoor valley and explore the island of Sakhalin.  His journey thither was accomplished in winter, and when he returned he brought many valuable data touching the geology and the vegetable and animal life of the island.  He told me he spoke the American language, having learned it among my countrymen at Nicolayevsk, but had never studied English.  His journey to the Arctic Circle was made on behalf of the Russian Academy of Science, of which he was an active member.

In 1865 the captain of a Yenesei steamer learned that some natives had discovered the perfectly preserved remains of a mammoth in latitude 67 deg., about a hundred versts west of the river.  He announced the fact to a savant, who sent the intelligence to St. Petersburg.  Scientific men deemed the discovery so important that they immediately commissioned Dr. Schmidt to follow it up.  The doctor went to Eastern Siberia in February, and in the following month proceeded down the Yenesei to Turuhansk, where he remained four or five weeks waiting for the season of warmth and light.  He was accompanied by Mr. Lopatin, a Russian geologist, and a staff of three or four assistants.  They carried a photographic apparatus, and one of the sensations of their voyage was to take photographs at midnight in the light of a blazing sun.

When the Yenesei was free of ice the explorers, in a barge, descended from Turuhansk to the landing place nearest the mammoth deposit.  Several Cossacks accompanied the party from Turuhansk, and assisted in its intercourse with the natives.  The latter were peacefully inclined, and gladly served the men who came so recently from the emperor’s dwelling place.  They brought their reindeer and sledges, and guided the explorers to the object of their search.  The country in the Arctic Circle has very little vegetation, and the drift wood that descends the Yenesei is an important item to the few natives along the river.  The trees growing north of latitude 66 deg. are very small, and as one nears the coast of the Frozen Ocean they disappear altogether.  The principal features of the country are the wide tundras, or moss-covered plains, similar to those of North Eastern Siberia.