12 LONDON TO ARCHANGEL 



fur, else both would have suffered severely. At first we 

 expected to be upset at each lurch, and took it for 

 granted that our sledge would be battered to pieces long 

 before the 600 miles to Archangel were completed, 

 but by degrees we began to feel reassured. The out- 

 riggers of our sledge were so contrived that the seat 

 might approach, but not quite reach, the perpendicular ; 

 and after we had broken a shaft once or twice, and seen 

 the cool businesslike way in which our yemschik brought 

 out his axe, cut down a birch-tree and fashioned a new 

 shaft, we began to contemplate the possibility of the 

 entire dissolution of the sledge with equanimity. The 

 weather was very changeable; sometimes the thermometer 

 was barely at freezing-point, sometimes we had a sort of 

 November fog, and occasionally a snowstorm, but nearly 

 half the time it was clear and cold with brilliant sunshine. 

 The last night and day it was intensely cold, from 2° to 

 4° below zero. There was a considerable amount of 

 traffic on the roads, and we frequently met long lines of 

 sledges laden with hides, tar-barrels, frozen sides of beef, 

 hay, flax, etc. Many peasants were sledging about from 

 place to place, but we saw very few travellers with 

 Government horses. The country was covered with 

 about two feet of snow. It was rarely flat ; at first a sort 

 of open rolling prairie land with plenty of timber and 

 well studded with villages, it afterwards became more 

 hilly and almost entirely covered with forest. In many 

 cases the road followed the course of a river, frequently 

 crossing it and often continuing for some miles on its 

 frozen surface. The track was then marked out with 

 small fir-trees stuck into the snow at intervals. During 

 the whole journey we met with only one person who 

 could speak either English, French, or German. This 

 was at Slavodka, where we bought some fancy bread 



