Minnusinsk steppes, crossed by the high red mountain range called
the "Kizill-Kaiya" and dotted here and there with salt lakes. It is a
country of tombs, thousands of large and small dolmens, the tombs of the
earliest proprietors of this land: pyramids of stone ten metres high,
the marks set by Jenghiz Khan along his road of conquest and afterwards
by the cripple Tamerlane-Temur. Thousands of these dolmens and stone
pyramids stretch in endless rows to the north. In these plains the
Tartars now live. They were robbed by the Bolsheviki and therefore hated
them ardently. We openly told them that we were escaping. They gave us
food for nothing and supplied us with guides, telling us with whom we
might stop and where to hide in case of danger.

After several days we looked down from the high bank of the Yenisei upon
the first steamer, the "Oriol," from Krasnoyarsk to Minnusinsk, laden
with Red soldiers. Soon we came to the mouth of the river Tuba, which
we were to follow straight east to the Sayan mountains, where Urianhai
begins. We thought the stage along the Tuba and its branch, the Amyl,
the most dangerous part of our course, because the valleys of these two
rivers had a dense population which had contributed large numbers
of soldiers to the celebrated Communist Partisans, Schetinkin and
Krafcheno.

A Tartar ferried us and our horses over to the right bank of the Yenisei
and afterwards sent us some Cossacks at daybreak who guided us to the
mouth of the Tuba, where we spent the whole day in rest, gratifying
ourselves with a feast of wild black currants and cherries.


CHAPTER VIII