The traps used by the Siberian tribes to take these valuable animals are
described by Erman (I. 452), only in the English translation the
description is totally incomprehensible; also in Wrangell, I. 151.
NOTE 5. - The country chiefly described in this chapter is probably that
which the Russians, and also the Arabian Geographers, used to term
Yugria, apparently the country of the Ostyaks on the Obi. The
winter-dwellings of the people are not, strictly speaking, underground, but
they are flanked with earth piled up against the walls. The same is the
case with those of the Yakuts in Eastern Siberia, and these often have the
floors also sunk 3 feet in the earth. Habitations really subterranean, of
some previous race, have been found in the Samoyed country. (Klaproth's
Mag. Asiatique, II. 66.)
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCERNING THE LAND OF DARKNESS.
Still further north, and a long way beyond that kingdom of which I have
spoken, there is a region which bears the name of DARKNESS, because
neither sun nor moon nor stars appear, but it is always as dark as with us
in the twilight. The people have no king of their own, nor are they
subject to any foreigner, and live like beasts. [They are dull of
understanding, like half-witted persons.[NOTE 1]]
The Tartars however sometimes visit the country, and they do it in this
way. They enter the region riding mares that have foals, and these foals
they leave behind. After taking all the plunder that they can get they
find their way back by help of the mares, which are all eager to get back
to their foals, and find the way much better than their riders could do.
[NOTE 2]
Those people have vast quantities of valuable peltry; thus they have those
costly Sables of which I spoke, and they have the Ermine, the Arculin, the
Vair, the Black Fox, and many other valuable furs. They are all hunters by
trade, and amass amazing quantities of those furs. And the people who are
on their borders, where the Light is, purchase all those furs from them;
for the people of the Land of Darkness carry the furs to the Light country
for sale, and the merchants who purchase these make great gain thereby, I
assure you.[NOTE 3]
The people of this region are tall and shapely, but very pale and
colourless. One end of the country borders upon Great Rosia. And as there
is no more to be said about it, I will now proceed, and first I will tell
you about the Province of Rosia.
NOTE 1. - In the Ramusian version we have a more intelligent representation
of the facts regarding the Land of Darkness: "Because for most part of
the winter months the sun appears not, and the air is dusky, as it is just
before the dawn when you see and yet do not see;" and again below it
speaks of the inhabitants catching the fur animals "in summer when they
have continuous daylight." It is evident that the writer of this version
did and the writer of the original French which we have translated from
did not understand what he was writing.
