wild uncultivated country, barren of people and good management, otherwise it is in itself a pleasant, fruitful, and agreeable country.

What inhabitants we found in it are all pagans, except such as are sent among them from Russia; for this is the country — I mean on both sides the river Oby — whither the Muscovite criminals that are not put to death are banished, and from whence it is next to impossible they should ever get away. I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs till I came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where I continued some time on the following account.

We had now been almost seven months on our journey, and winter began to come on apace; whereupon my partner and I called a council about our particular affairs, in which we found it