The way proved more difficult than I had expected. At every moment I was obliged to jump or climb over bushes and avoid the deep, narrow wells, boarded round with tree-trunks felled a hundred years before and perfidiously concealed by the mosses and plants overgrowing them. As these wells were full of water, with bottoms as slippery as ice, an unwary pedestrian could easily break his neck or fracture a leg by falling into them. In many places swampy streams trickled along undefined channels, and though their banks were shallow, they were boggy and difficult to cross on account of the trunks and branches lying in them. The wood was full of trees with projecting, mud-covered roots, which now, when everything was assuming an indefinite shape in the twilight, looked twisted and monstrous. The white patches of lichen shining in the darkness at the foot of the trees like the immense shreds of a pall, emphasized and doubled their weird appearance. It is, therefore, no wonder that in the purple light of dawn, or in the moonlight, the natives should here see the tall wood-demon's pale face,--the Slav hunter who came from the South and now roams near the Yakut cottages, injuring cattle. Woe to the district where his shadow passes! Often from fifty to two hundred beasts fall dead at one shot from those terrible Southern arms. That evening, however, I met none of these inhabitants of the wood. I also did not see the 'demons,'--the dry Tungus corpses. At one time they were to be found here quite frequently, and the forest takes its name from them. Shrivelled and horrible, they usually sit somewhere under a tree or cleft in a rock, gazing eastwards with eye-sockets pecked by the birds. On their knees they hold a wooden bow, or a rifle, at their feet lies a hatchet with a broken handle, and at their belt, inlaid with silver and beads, hangs a broken knife in its sheath,--also broken, in order to prevent the dead man from doing any mischief after death. A little to one side lie scattered the bones of the reindeer, killed on his grave, the harness, and the small Tungus sledge. No one ever dares to possess himself of any of these considerably valuable articles, for punishment threatens the foolhardy, inasmuch as he loses his way all day long until he returns to the same place and restores the stolen object. Until they give ample satisfaction, and atone to the angered owner by a gift, obstinate people return some thirty, even a hundred times without being able to escape from the magic circle. It is dangerous even to touch any of the things belonging to the dead man, since that evokes a storm, or, at best, a high wind. Although the kindly natives had advised me to avoid meeting with the 'demon,' since it brings early, and sometimes immediate death, I was very sorry not to have seized him red-handed that evening. However, I came to be severely punished for this sinful wish.