The whole of the Upper Yenesei basin was found to be sparsely inhabited by tribes of Uriankhai, a race of of Finno-Tarter stock of peculiarly small stature. A section of this race are "dwellers in the taiga," or reindeer-keepers, whiler the remainder live in the more open park-like country larch groves and pasture land. The former are most interesting people, ving isolated, lonely lives in secluded valleys. Their lives are given up to bunting and herding their domesticated reindeer. Mr. J. H. Miller, who investigated the occurrence and condi. tions of the reindeer in these regions, thus describes them Few people are aware of the existence of reindeer within the boundaries of the Chinese Empire, yet they are to be found there both in a domesticated and wild state, On the tributaries of the Bei-kern, upper waters of the Yenesei, Uriankhai were met with, who rely almost entirely on their herds of domesticated reindeer for their existence. These reindeer Keepers are only to be found in small, isolated encampments, tacked away in remote. valleys amongst the dense ige." On the Obapsa tributary of the Sint em, at an encampment of twenty-three birch-bark wigwams, possessing a bord of several hundred beaste, there was ample opportanity for stadyioy: their habits. The reindeer are ased both as baggage and riding animals, the tips of their horns being saw off to facilitate their passage along the narrow forest paths. Their shine are used for making hing, saddles, and various other their moat and milk tone encampment. In their winter one is almost pare white, while the other in of a geveral desk brown colour. They are said, moreover, never to interbreed.
On} the headwaters of the Chapss river, where the bare tops of the Ssisnsk divide rise above the simest impenetrable forest, the existence of wild reindeer wax proved, shed antlers being picked up and one wild specimen being seen. This animal was almost pare white, with short and mossi Daring the sommer months they are exceedingly hard to find, living as they do on the upper ede of the timber, amonget cedar, and rhododendron serab, In the winter they go ap on to the open, bill-tops, which are blown clear of snow, and subsist chiefly on an abuodaot growth of reindeer moss.
The distribution of these reindeer extends from the oppor Sisti-kern in the Ssinnek divide to the neighbourhood of Lake Kosogol. It will be of the greatest interest to prove if these reindeer differ in any way from those of Northern Siberia, and whether the customs of the natives with regard to them are dissimilar to those of the northern tribes. It would appear that the Saiansk might be compared to the w caribou of North America, whilst those of Northern Siberia take the place of the barren-ground caribou.
Superstition was rife amonjat the inhabit ants of this somewhat melancholy region, where the mountains and other objects of nature are regarded as deities. Shaman ism is practised under a guise of Buddhism,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.