Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/52

 40 and gradually decreasing through the Chukchi domain towards the north-easternmost extremity of the continent at East Cape. But it will be seen that the system is by no means continuous, being not only broken up into distinct sections by the deep gorges of the Upper Yenisei and Selenga Rivers, but merging round the Sea of Okhotsk into a moderately elevated plateau, where high ranges formerly figured on most of our maps. "Even the western section—that is, the Altai proper—is not so much a distinct mountain range as an aggregate of more or less detached chains running in various directions between the Upper Irtish and Yenisei valleys."

Agriculture is possible in some fertile valleys, most of the flat country being occupied by steppes. The Ishym steppe (between the Ishym and Irtish rivers), and the Barabine steppe (between the Irtish and the Obi), are the largest steppes where pastoral life is possible, although the abundance of swamps, with millions of annoying insects (which force the natives to wear masks), and with a local illness called sibirskaya iazva, make the open-air life not always comfortable. The hunting life is followed in the forests. All over this zone the climate, although no longer "polar," is typically "continental," except for the higher mountains. The people are mostly nomadic.

About the people inhabiting these regions Nordenskiold in The Voyage of the Vega gives the following impression:—

"Of the Polar races, whose acquaintance I have made, the reindeer Lapps undoubtedly stand highest; next to them come the Eskimo of Danish Greenland. . . . Next to them in civilisation come the Eskimo of north-western America. . . . Next come the Chukchis. . . . Last of all come the Samoyeds, or at least the Samoyeds who inhabit