In its long dreary journey to the north, the Irtish
nowadays receives few tributaries. The hundreds of
rivulets that used to flow into it, having had their
mouths barred by sand, now form marshes. The
sand-hills, too, bordering the river, held together of
old by forests of pine that have now been cut, have
begun to show signs of instability, and, by their
beginning to give way, threaten the destruction of
villages, and even of the capital itself. It is a similar
phenomenon to that which occurred in the middle
ages at the time of the destruction of the forests that
grew upon the sand-downs on the coast of Gascony.
In winter, when the rivers are frozen (in some
places to the bottom), the course is thus blocked, and
in various spots the water bursts up the ice from below,
spouts out of the cracks, spreads over the surface, and
is there frozen, to the continual thickening o f the ice.
Near Pavlodar, this bursting of the ice appears to
result in considerable inundations of the Steppe.*
Unlike most rivers having their rise in snow mountains,
such as the Rhine and Rhone, which are highest
mountains, flowing- first north-west, then north, and entering the White
Irtish above the capital, whilst below the capital is the largest tributary
of all— the Chaganka, made up of two great tributaries, the Aschi-Su,
rising close to the Karakol pass, and the Chagan, coming from thé
south-west.
* The mean dates (O. S.) of the opening and closing of the Irtish at
various points, computed on averages of periods varying from three to
thirteen years, is as follows :—
P l a c e s . No. of years
observed. Opening. ‘ Closing.
Zaisan 3 n th April. 30th October.
Ust-Kamenogorsk . 13 7*h 19th November.
Semipolatinsk . 10 8th „ 5th
Pavlodar . X2th ,, - 23rd October.
Omsk 13 20th ,, 27th
Tara . . . . 5 i8th ,, 24th ,,
Tobolsk 8 22nd ,, 25th
in July and August, the Irtish is lowest in summer, at
winch time the shallowness, caused by drought, lays
bare rocks in the bed at Semipolatinsk, so that
whereas Dr. Finsch mentions that the men had difficulty
in spring in rowing across the dashing stream
a ferry such as would carry tarantass and horses, I
was able to drive through the river without even
wetting the bottom of the carriage. In 1864 a steamer
ascended to the Black Irtish as far as Ak-tube, below
the confluence of the Koldjur, and a great stimulus
to trade was given by the establishment, in 1880, of
steamboat traffic in spring between the capital and
the lower river. The Irtish, as stated before, is rich
in fish, as also is Lake Zaisan. It is believed that by
cross-breeding of the fish of this lake with European
species, the latter might be greatly improved. A
piscicultural effort was made some time since by
Lieutenant Friedrichs to stock the Balkhash with fish
transported by land from the Irtish, but the experiment
failed.
The two principal lakes of the province are the
Balkhash, or rather a portion of it, which I sighted,
and shall describe hereafter, and the Nor-Zaisan,
situated in the south-eastern corner of the province,
in the midst of a vast steppe, whence one sees the
snowy peaks of the Altai to the north, and of the Saur
on the south. The Siberians of the seventeenth century
called the lake Kyzalpu. The Mongols euphoniously
named it Kun-Bloti-Nor, or the Lake of Bells, on
account of its waves producing, when striking against
some parts of the shore overgrown with weeds, a
sound that resembled from a distance the tinkling
of bells. Its present appellation was given by the
Kalmuks in 1650, when, during a period of famine,