after several days we started through the forest on the left bankof the yenisei toward the south, avoiding the villages as much aspossible in fear of leaving some trail by which we might befollowed. whenever we did have to go into them, we had a goodreception at the hands of the peasants, who did not penetrate ourdisguise; and we saw that they hated the bolsheviki, who haddestroyed many of their villages. in one place we were told that adetachment of red troops had been sent out from minnusinsk to chasethe whites. we were forced to work far back from the shore of theyenisei and to hide in the woods and mountains. here we remainednearly a fortnight, because all this time the red soldiers weretraversing the country and capturing in the woods half-dressedunarmed officers who were in hiding from the atrocious vengeance ofthe bolsheviki. afterwards by accident we passed a meadow where wefound the bodies of twenty-eight officers hung to the trees, withtheir faces and bodies mutilated. there we determined never toallow ourselves to come alive into the hands of the boisheviki. toprevent this we had our weapons and a supply of cyanide ofpotassium.
passing across one branch of the yenisei, once we saw a narrow,miry pass, the entrance to which was strewn with the bodies of menand horses. a little farther along we found a broken sleigh withrifled boxes and papers scattered about. near them were also torngarments and bodies. who were these pitiful ones? what tragedywas staged in this wild wood? we tried to guess this enigma and webegan to investigate the documents and papers. these were officialpapers addressed to the staff of general pepelaieff. probably onepart of the staff during the retreat of kolchak's army went throughthis wood, striving to hide from the enemy approaching from allsides; but here they were caught by the reds and killed. not farfrom here we found the body of a poor unfortunate woman, whosecondition proved clearly what had happened before relief camethrough the beneficent bullet. the body lay beside a shelter ofbranches, strewn with bottles and conserve tins, telling the taleof the bantering feast that had preceded the destruction of thislife.
the further we went to the south, the more pronouncedly hospitablethe people became toward us and the more hostile to the bolsheviki.
at last we emerged from the forests and entered the spaciousvastness of the minnusinsk steppes, crossed by the high redmountain range called the "kizill-kaiya" and dotted here and therewith salt lakes. it is a country of tombs, thousands of large andsmall dolmens, the tombs of the earliest proprietors of this land:
pyramids of stone ten metres high, the marks set by jenghiz khanalong his road of conquest and afterwards by the cripple tamerlane-temur. thousands of these dolmens and stone pyramids stretch inendless rows to the north. in these plains the tartars now live.
they were robbed by the bolsheviki and therefore hated themardently. we openly told them that we were escaping. they gave usfood for nothing and supplied us with guides, telling us with whomwe might stop and where to hide in case of danger.
after several days we looked down from the high bank of the yeniseiupon the first steamer, the "oriol," from krasnoyarsk tominnusinsk, laden with red soldiers. soon we came to the mouth ofthe river tuba, which we were to follow straight east to the sayanmountains, where urianhai begins. we thought the stage along thetuba and its branch, the amyl, the most dangerous part of ourcourse, because the valleys of these two rivers had a densepopulation which had contributed large numbers of soldiers to thecelebrated communist partisans, schetinkin and krafcheno.
a tartar ferried us and our horses over to the right bank of theyenisei and afterwards sent us some cossacks at daybreak who guidedus to the mouth of the tuba, where we spent the whole day in rest,gratifying ourselves with a feast of wild black currants andcherries.
