INTERESTING, IF TRUE.

Evening Star, Issue 3420, 6 February 1874, Page 3

INTERESTING, IF TRUE.

The New York 1 World’ has three columns and a-half of close type devoted to the record of an interview between one of the ‘World’s’ correspondents and Cheriton Batchmatchmck, a JRussian convict, lately pardoned by the Government in consideration of his wonderful discoveries in -Siberia to which territory he had been banished for smuggling. ('heriton had escaped from the mines of Nartchinsck, and having reached the mountains struck southward for the Amoor River intending to get to China. Meeting Gosaacks he again turned north, and essayed what seemed to be a pass in the great Altari range. For thirty days he scrambled about, seeking m vain for an outlet. At length he got out to the north, together with one of the branches of tlic Lena river. Ho then turned eastward, and was entering the gorges of the Aldan mountains when winter overtook him. Across the snow, however came a vast troops of animals, all going the same way. Cheriton followed them, arrived at the summit of the range, and there, far below his feet landlocked between great ranges of hills on all sides, lay a valley fifty miles wide by 150 long, and centred by a blue lake. He descended, and found the valley warm and fertile, and full of animals. Now came his sensational discovery. At tight he made a fire and lay down beside it to sleep. During the night dark shadowy forms came over the water, splashing towards him, and seemed to ask what his fire might mean. The trampling of great beas-s that crushed the wiUow stalks like pipe stems on their way to the water’s edge, and then came and stood over him, breathing heavily and slow as they seemed to gaze at the nre with stupid wonder, made him afraid each moment of being overrun. Wild eves reflecting the firelight, shone around him out of the gloom upon all sides, and wilder cries and howls gave new horrors to his positurn He sprang to his feet almost paralysed with fright, and fired off his pistol at the nearest intruder. The echo of the shot rang long around him, and it seemed the signal for the cries of a thousand new monsters to burst forth. There were mad, plunging rushes of frightened beasts around him that made the ground tremble; a peculiar long, shrill, quivering shriek sounded over the lake, ami was answered by a harsh, full, guttural bellow near at hand. When Uheriton awoke it was broad day, and there were no traces of animals that had disturbed him over night except the paths they had worn going down to the water. In these paths he saw the deep-pLnted spoor of some animals larger than anything of the sort he had ever before beheld. His first care was to seek some place to pass the next night where he could be free from the alarms that had made the past night so terrible. He recrossed the meadow, and followed the edge of the slope around to the direction in which he saw some rocks. Among these are found the wide and lofty entrance to a cave. He entered with some precautions, for the rocky pavement was worn as if by use, and within he heard a slow, measured movement, as of an animal gently ruminating, heavily breathmg with great calm inspirations and expirations, like the sigh of a smith’s bellows One turn, then another, he heard a heavy' starthng snort, and there in the half-light of the cave standing full before him, alive, chewmg the cud, and waving its proboscis to and Iro with a slow, gentle, majestic motion, he saw-a mammoth ! “ I did not know hen said Cheriton, “what I have since been told, that Siberia was an old habitat of these animals, and that some of the best scientific judges are uncertain whether to look upon the remains found on the shores of the Arctic Ocean as fossil animals or as the remnants of wandering herds caught ami perishing in storms, individuals of which may still exist under favorable circumstances, lit?" I that doubt. Cheriton describes the mammoth as being a very imposiug-looking animal covered with reddish-brown wool and long black hair During his stay in the valley he was close to five of them, all of which were nearly of a size, being about twelve feet high eighteen feet long, with tusks projecting about four feet, and being eight to ten feet m length, counting the curve. The skin which was bare on the upper surface of the ears, on the knees, and rump, Was of a mouse color, and seemed very thick. The animal was nocturnal in its habits, frequenting caves and forest depths by day, and feeding at fn d m - S®, morn - Cheriton thinks there might be some fifteen or twenty h iQ tbe val!e y together, but that all these are aged, and that very few are horn now-a-days. At any rate he saw none that had the least appearance animSf +° UD - g i T J ey , were vei V Peaceable animals, torpid and sluggish as old oxen, never disturbing Cheriton, nor indeed taking much notice of him. Cheriton, however, discovered at the same time another animal less easy to identify The lake was inhabited by a monster of which Cheriton was in constant dread, a seitof saurophidian, which he described as being thirty feet long, and armed with scales and horrible fangs, ibis monster-he never saw but one—was complexly paster of the lake, and lived by devouring the animals which came by night to its brink to drink. Cheriton gives a graphic and exciting description of a contest which he witnessed one morning at early dawn between this crocodile serpent and one of the mastodons. The battle, which lasted more than an hour, ended in the discomfiture of the mammoth, which could hardly hmp away after having been constneted m the serpent’s fold.” We are told that this unfortunate traveller is writing a book. We trust that when it appears it may be translated. What with aquariums and zoological gardens, we are getting tired of our modem beasts and fishes.