Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/364

358 At night every star was reflected as in a mirror, and I saw the heavens above me, beneath me, and all around. As the rising moon lighted up the faint horizon of ice and sky, I could half believe I had left the world

behind me, and was moving away through the myriads of stars towards the centre of another solar system distinct from our own.'

"The natives have many superstitions concerning the Baikal," Mr. Hegeman continued. "In their language it is the 'Holy Sea,' and they consider it sacrilege to call it a lake. It is very deep, soundings of two thousand feet having been made without finding bottom. It is more like a sea than a lake in some of its peculiarities; gulls and other ocean birds fly over it, and it is the only body of fresh water on the globe where the seal abounds. There are banks of coral in some parts of it, in spite of the high northern latitude and the constant coldness of the water. The