On the 17th of March, the weather, as they began to approach the Baikal lake, changed so suddenly from winter to spring that they almost imagined themselves dropped imperceptibly into another climate. They therefore abandoned their sledges, which, as the snow was gone, were now become useless, and proceeded on horseback. Next day they arrived at Irkutsk on the river Angara. Here they remained until the 15th of May, waiting for the melting of the ice on the lake; and amusing themselves in the meanwhile with hunting, and observing the country and its inhabitants. When the season was thought to be sufficiently far advanced, they proceeded up the banks of the river, until they discovered the lake bursting out between two high rocks, and tumbling down over enormous stones which lie quite across the channel of the river, which is here a mile in breadth. The sublimity of the scene, which is magnificent beyond description, is heightened exceedingly by the dashing and roaring of the waters, which impress the beholder with ideas of the irresistible power and grandeur of nature, the privilege to contemplate which elevates and ennobles him in his own estimation. And this, in reality, is the principal source of the pleasure we derive from the view of stupendous mountains, the tempestuous ocean, cataracts, volcanoes, or conflagrations. They now embarked on the Baikal, which, as Gibbon facetiously observes, disdains the modest appellation of a lake, and on receding from the land enjoyed a full prospect of its western shores, rising abruptly into rocky pinnacles capped with snow, and towering far above every thing around them. These stretched away immeasurably towards the north, until they were lost in the distance. On the south the view was bounded by hills of gentler elevation, whose tops, for the most part, were covered with wood. Their passage was tedious, for on approaching the mouth of the Selinga they found the whole shore skirted by long reefs of floating icebergs, between which they forced their way with considerable difficulty. However, they at length entered the Selinga, and ascending partly in their boats and partly on horseback along its banks, arrived safely at Selinguisky on the 29th of May.