[63] The Yakouts seemed not to be much concerned at the loss of these animals, and have no idea of affording them any assistance. When they refuse to go on, or fall down from weakness or fatigue, they are abandoned to their deplorable fate, and their carcasses are left to be devoured by bears, who never relinquish their prey while any thing remains but the bones. Every ten steps we see skeletons of these horses, and from Okotsk to the cross of Yudoma, I imagine that I passed more than two thousand. My conductors informed me that the majority had perished the preceding year, in conveying from Okotsk to Yakoutsk the different materials required for M. Billings’s expedition, in consequence of having been surprised by the floods, which had been so sudden that the guides saved themselves with difficulty. A part of their loads were still under a kind of _labazis_, of which I have already spoken, where travellers place their effects till the waters subside. It was added, that the Yakouts lose in this manner every year four or five thousand horses, in transporting the different objects of the commerce which they undertake. [64] The Yakouts are so habituated to this exercise, that they might defy the most expeditious groom. They tie the horses three and three to each others tails, and a single rope serves to lead them all. [65] I was a witness on this day of a circumstance that deserves to be related. My Yakouts skilfully peeled off large pieces of bark from the pine tree, of which they formed a sort of tent or parapluie, under which they took up their abode during the night. [66] Beside various sorts of aquatic birds, we frequently met with the heath-cock and the white partridge; we also appropriated their eggs to our use, wherever we could find them. [67] They were chiefly willows and alders; but deeper in the forests we perceived some firs and birch trees of a good height. [68] They use for this purpose a long and wide blade fastened at the end of a stick three feet long. This instrument serves them both as lance and axe. [69] I have already mentioned the quickness of the vegetation. Its progress was every day perceptible; the trees, which had been so long bare, gradually recovered their dress, and the country soon appeared like a vast meadow enamelled with rural flowers. What a spectacle for a man whose eye had for the space of six months seen nothing but frozen rivers, and mountains and plains covered with snow! It seemed to revive with nature, and to spring out of its ruins. [70] There is actually a cross erected on the bank of the river. [71] The abatement of the water was every day perceptible to the eye, and a longer delay would have exposed me to all the dangers of shoals, and the most formidable cataracts. [72] These boats are flat, and terminate in points at the two extremities. [73] It is called _listvenischnoie-derevo_. [74] It pours itself into the Lena, at a little distance from, and north of, Yakoutsk.