Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales. Лев Николаевич Толстой

they had best go.

      They discussed how many barges they needed, how much grain, cattle, guns, powder, lead, how many captive Tartar interpreters, and how many foreigners as masters of gunnery.

      Stroganóv thought:

      "Though it may cost me much, I must give them everything or else they will stay here and will ruin me."

      Stroganóv agreed to everything, gathered what was needed, and fitted out Ermák and the Cossacks.

      On the 1st of September the Cossacks rowed with Ermák up the river Chúsovaya on thirty-two barges, with twelve men in each. For four days they rowed up the river, and then they turned into Serébryanaya River. Beyond that point it was impossible to navigate. They asked the guides, and learned that from there they had to cross the mountains and walk overland about two hundred versts, and then the rivers would begin again. The Cossacks stopped, built a town, and unloaded all their equipment; they abandoned the boats, made carts, put everything upon them, and started overland, across the mountains. All those places were covered with forest, and nobody was living there. They marched for about ten days, and struck the river Zharóvnya. Here they stopped again, and made themselves boats. They loaded them, and rowed down the river. They rowed five days, and then came more cheerful places, – meadows, forests, lakes. There was a plenty of fish and of animals, and animals that had not been scared by hunters. They rowed another day, and sailed into the river Túra. Along the Túra they came on Tartar people and towns.

      Ermák sent some Cossacks to take a look at a town, to see what it was like, and whether there was any considerable force in it. Twenty Cossacks went there, and they frightened all the Tartars, and seized the whole town, and captured all the cattle. Some of the Tartars they killed, and others they brought back alive.

      Ermák asked the Tartars through his interpreters what kind of people they were, and under whose rule they were living. The Tartars said that they were in the Siberian kingdom, and that their king was Kuchum.

      Ermák let the Tartars go, but three of the more intelligent he took with him, to show him the road.

      They rowed on. The farther they rowed, the larger did the river grow; and the farther they went, the better did the places become.