Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/216

194 snow, and belted with a broad zone of evergreen forest; beneath lay a beautiful, park-like valley, through which ran the road, under the shade of scattered larches, across clear, rushing mountain streams which came tumbling down in cascades from the melting snows above, and over grassy meadows sprinkled with wild pansies, gentians, fringed pinks, and ripening strawberries. After three thousand miles of almost unbroken plain, or steppe, this scene

made upon me a profound impression. We reached the Altái Station about six o'clock in the cool of a beautiful, calm, midsummer afternoon. I shall never forget the enthusiastic delight that I felt as I rode up out of a wooded valley fragrant with wild-flowers, past a picturesque cluster of colored KÍrghis tents, across two hundred yards of smooth, elevated meadow, and then, stopping at the entrance to the village, turned back and looked at the mountains. Never, I thought, had I seen an alpine picture that could for a moment bear comparison with it. I have seen the most