eight in the evening
Here were high granite cliffs , there wild gorges , down which rushed a torrent ; sometimes appeared a clearing with a still smoking village , then thick pine forests blazing . But though the Tartars had left their traces on all sides , they themselves were not to be seen as yet , for they were more especially massed at the approaches to Irkutsk . All this time the pilgrims were repeating their prayers aloud , and the old boatman , shoving away the blocks of ice which pressed too near them , imperturbably steered the raft in the middle of the rapid current of the Angara . BY eight in the evening , the country , as the state of the sky had foretold , was enveloped in complete darkness . The moon being new had not yet risen . From the middle of the river the banks were invisible . The cliffs were confounded with the heavy , low-hanging clouds .