Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/159

Rh land undulates in graceful sweeps as on the steppes, but is covered with fine black mould of unsurpassed richness. Patches of half-dry swamps with tufts of marshy grass lie in the hollows; groves of graceful Siberian birch, interspersed with an occasional pine, are scattered in profusion over the natural meadows. It looked as if the pine forest had once held undisputed sway here, but that the hand of man, and possibly the increasing dryness of the climate or other agents of nature, had caused the timber army to retreat. But even now, where cultivation was neglected, little birch and pine trees appeared again, fighting as it were to reclaim the ground that they had lost.

Here, again, the natural meadows were all bursting with spring, the emerald-green of the vegetation surpassing even the verdure of Ireland. Birch-trees which a few days ago, like cold and melancholy ghosts, stood waving and sighing at the last touch of winter, had in a single night become covered with brilliant foliage, and now, like forest fairies, were waving and dancing at the approach of their spring lover.

Turning my steps toward the cultivated lands, I found here and there upon the natural meadows strips of rough plough, where the peasants had been scratching the surface for their spring corn. I now came across one or two log-huts where the peasants were storing their implements, and where they sometimes sheltered for the night instead of going home. A man's plot of land is often three or four miles from the village, and so it becomes quite an expedition when he goes forth for the day to attend to its cultivation. But the Siberian peasant is too well off to take life other than leisurely. He starts for his