Nothing arousing his suspicions, he resumed his way.
On the 30th of July, at nine o'clock in the morning, Michael Strogoff
passed through the station of Touroumoff and entered the swampy district
of the Baraba.
There, for a distance of three hundred versts, the natural obstacles
would be extremely great. He knew this, but he also knew that he would
certainly surmount them.
These vast marshes of the Baraba, form the reservoir to all
the rain-water which finds no outlet either towards the Obi
or towards the Irtych. The soil of this vast depression is
entirely argillaceous, and therefore impermeable, so that the waters
remain there and make of it a region very difficult to cross
during the hot season. There, however, lies the way to Irkutsk,
and it is in the midst of ponds, pools, lakes, and swamps,
from which the sun draws poisonous exhalations, that the road winds,
and entails upon the traveler the greatest fatigue and danger.
Michael Strogoff spurred his horse into the midst of a grassy prairie,
differing greatly from the close-cropped sod of the steppe, where feed the
immense Siberian herds. The grass here was five or six feet in height,
and had made room for swamp-plants, to which the dampness of the place,
assisted by the heat of summer, had given giant proportions.
These were principally canes and rushes, which formed a tangled network,
an impenetrable undergrowth, sprinkled everywhere with a thousand
flowers remarkable for the brightness of their color.
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