Yakoutsk is one of the principal cities of Siberia, a country the
name of which excites exaggerated ideas of sterility and desolation.
Watered by rivers, which in every direction do the work of railways,
with richly-wooded mountains and valleys, with green slopes,
cultivated fields, soft meadows, gardens, and grassy islands in
the great streams, with all the common vegetables in pretty fair
abundance, with an endless source of commerce in furs and ivory,
Siberia, except in its extreme northern provinces, presents, like
most other lands, a very considerable amount of compensation for
considerable rigor of climate. Yakoutsk is a completely northern town
on the great river Lena, with wide streets and miserable huts, all of
wood, in many of which ice is still used in winter for panes of glass.
A very eminent traveler tells us that on his visit there were 4000
people living in 500 houses; with three stone churches, two wooden
ones, and a convent. It had once an antiquity to show--the ancient
Ostrog or fortress built in 1647 by the Cossacks; but which menaced
ruin more and more every day, being not of stone, but of wood, and
at last disappeared. Even here progress is observable, and wretched
cabins give way gradually to houses, some of which are even elegantly
arranged in the interior. It is a great commercial center: from the
Anubra to Behring's Straits, from the banks of the Frozen Sea to Mount
Aldana, from Okhotsk and even Kamschatka, goods are brought hither,
consisting chiefly of furs, seals' teeth and mammoths' tusks, which
afford excellent ivory, all of which are sold in the summer to
itinerant traders, who give in return powerfully-flavored tobacco,
corn and flour, tea, sugar, strong drinks, Chinese silks and cottons,
cloth, iron and copper utensils, and glass.

The inhabitants of the town are chiefly traders, who buy of the
Yakouta hunters their furs at a cheap rate, and then sell them in