‘We left Tebelssky Stan by water, in a small bat, a long and narrow boat made of a hollowed out tree. Each person could sit there separately, there was no room for two people to sit side by side. Apart from my son and myself with little luggage, there sat an experienced oarsman, and a pilot at the same time, in the rear, and we went down Telbes, a small but rapid river… High banks were often made of rocks among bushes and trees. There were no dangerous river shoals and riffels on Tilbes, maybe because it was the time of spring flood, and our bat was moving quickly and smoothly along the twisting river channel. In some places large round stones protruded from the water, and our pilot bypassed them easily. Five to six km away from the mine, Telbes joined the river Mundybash of a similar mountain type but a little larger, and a quarter of an hour later we floated into Kondoma, a larger and less rapid river. We went along that river for another hour or an hour and a half. We said good-buy to our oarer near the village of Kuzodeeva’