For one hundred and three days Mr. Atkinson wandered among the Alatou Mountains, exploring peak, precipice, valley, and ravine; surveying torrent and river and waterfall; now ascending far above the line of perpetual snow, now descending into warm and sheltered woods, where the greensward was enamelled with blossoms. From the eastern end of the Alatou, a seventeen days’ ride over hill and steppe brought him to the Russian frontier and the comforts of civilization at Semipalatinsk. But, almost as strongly possessed with the spirit of continuous motion as the Wandering Jew in the grim old legend, he next set forth on a journey across Siberia, from its western boundary on the Irtisch, to its Oriental capital, Irkutsk. In the course of his long journey he visited the Saian Mountains; ascended the valley of the Oka; explored a bed of lava and a volcanic crater in the valley of the Ojem-a-louk; rode across the rugged shoulder of Nouk-a-Daban; and descended the little river Koultouk to Lake Baikal, or, as the natives call it, the Holy Sea. Hiring a small boat, with a crew of seven men, he crossed the lake to the mouth of the river Angara. Baikal is the third largest lake in Asia—about four hundred miles in length, and varying in breadth from nineteen miles to seventy. Though fed by numerous streams, it has only one outlet, the Angara, a tributary of the Yenisei. Lying deep among the Baikal Mountains, an off-shoot of the Altai, it presents some vividly coloured and striking scenery. Its fisheries are valuable. In the great chain of communication between Russia and China it holds an important place, and of late years its navigation has been conducted by steamboats. The native peoples inhabiting its borders are the Buriats and Tungusians. Mr. Atkinson spent eight and twenty days in exploring this Alpine sea, and afterwards proceeded to Irkutsk. {228} ALEXINA TINNÉ AND HER WANDERINGS IN THE SOUDAN.