Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/302

296 get a good many tumbles in the course of twenty-four hours. The saddle is directly over the shoulders of the beast, as it would break his back if placed where we ordinarily put the saddle on a horse. Consequently you are shaken at every footstep—an excellent thing for a dyspeptic, but not agreeable to a man in good health.

"Between the Okhotsk Sea and the Arctic Ocean the wealth of the country is in reindeer. Some natives own as many as forty thousand of these animals, and herds of a thousand or more are not at all rare. The natives wander from place to place in search of pasturage. In summer the deer eat the mosses and shrubbery that spring up all over the country, and in winter they scrape away the snow to feed on the moss beneath it. The native uses the reindeer to ride upon or to draw his sledge; he eats the flesh of the animal, and makes clothing and tent-covering of his skin. In fact he cannot get along without the reindeer any more than could the native of Newfoundland exist without the codfish.

"But I was willing to let the natives have a monopoly of the reindeer for riding purposes, and took passage in a ship for the Amoor River.

"The Amoor is the greatest river of Siberia, and flows into the Pacific Ocean. It is navigable twenty-three hundred miles from its mouth, and receives several important streams from the south. In one part of its course it makes a great bend to the south, where it flows through magnificent forests containing several trees peculiar to the tropics. The tiger roams up to the south bank of the river at this point, and the reindeer comes down to it on the north; occasionally the tiger crosses the river and feeds upon the reindeer—the only place in the world where these two animals come together naturally."

"What a funny idea!" exclaimed Frank. "To think of tigers in Siberia!"

"Tigers are found elsewhere in Siberia," continued their informant.