Touching the Riphean mountaines, whereupon the snow lieth continually, and
where hence in times past it was thought that Tanais the riuer did spring,
and that the rest of the wonders of nature, which the Grecians fained and
inuented of olde, were there to be seene: our men which lately came from
thence, neither sawe them, not yet haue brought home any perfect relation
of them, although they remained there for the space of three moneths, and
had gotten in that time some intelligence of the language of Moscouie. The
whole Countrey is plaine and champion, and few hils in it: and towards the
North it hath very large and spacious woods, wherein is great store of
Firre trees, a wood very necessarie, and fit for the building of houses:
there are also wilde beastes bred in those woods, as Buffes, Beares, and
blacke Wolues, and another kinde of beast vnknowen to vs, but called by
them Rossomakka: and the nature of the same is very rare and wonderfull:
for when it is great with yong, and ready to bring foorth, it seeketh out
some narrow place betweene two stakes, and so going through them, presseth
it selfe, and by that meanes is eased of her burden, which otherwise could
not be done. They hunt their buffes for the most part a horsebacke, but
their Beares a foot, with woodden forkes. The north parts of the Countrey
are reported to be so cold, that the very ice or water which distilleth out
of the moist wood which they lay upon the fire is presently congealed and
frozen: the diuersitie growing suddenly to be so great, that in one and the
selfe same firebrand, a man shall see both fire and ice. When the winter
doth once begin there it doth still more and more increase by a perpetuitie
of cold: neither doth that colde slake, vntill the force of the Sunne
beames doth dissolue the cold, and make glad the earth, returning to it
againe. Our mariners which we left in the ship in the meane time to keepe
it, in their going vp onely from their cabbins to the hatches, had their
breath oftentimes so suddenly taken away, that they eftsoones fell downe as
men very neere dead, so great is the sharpenesse of that colde climate: but
as for the South parts of the Countrey, they are somewhat more temperate.