They had so far found only deserts
and a small number of inhabitants. Then they moved, towing their small
crafts as far as the river of Iaravle. These places are, even to this
day, marked by the monuments of Iermak; rocks, caverns, remains of
fortifications, bear his name. It is asserted that the big boats
abandoned by him between the Serebrennaia and the Barantcha are not, in
our time, entirely decayed, and that lofty trees shade their ruins, half
reduced to dust. By the Iaravle and the Taghil the Cossacks, reaching
the Tura, which waters one of the provinces of the empire of Siberia,
for the first time drew the sword of conquerors. At the place where the
city of Turinsk now stands there then existed a little town, the domain
of the prince Yepantcha. He commanded a large number of Tartars and
Vogulitches, and received these audacious strangers with a hail of
arrows, shot from the banks of the river, at the place where is seen the
present village of Usseninovo; but, frightened by a discharge of
artillery, he forthwith took flight. Iermak caused the town to be
destroyed, of which the name alone remains, for the residents still give
to Turinsk the name "Town of Yepantcha." The camps and villages situated
along the Tura were devastated.
The Cossack leaders having taken, at the mouth of the Tavda, an officer
of Kutchum's, named Tausak, he, desirous of saving his life,
communicated to them important information regarding the country.
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