KUNGES TO KULDJA 139 



One particularly cold night the driver, who was 

 rolled up in innumerable sheepskin-coats, and I 

 should think needed them all, kept looking back 

 at us as we reclined huddled up in the sledge ; but 

 if one of us moved he appeared satisfied for a time. 

 After a bit it dawned upon me that he feared we 

 might go to sleep and perish in our dreams. The 

 post sledges are wonderfully strong, and indeed 

 must be to stand the bumping in and out of small 

 unbridged streams. As a rule the horses were 

 distinctly good, and the troika (team of three horses 

 abreast) made light of their work. This way of 

 harnessing them has one advantage, which is that it 

 can be easily altered to suit narrow places in the 

 track. Sometimes we had two horses in front and 

 one in the shafts, sometimes the other way on, and 

 on one or two occasions all three were in single file, 

 with the driver doing postillion on the leader. 



The country is not worth seeing, at least at that 

 time of year, being a succession of flat plains 

 broken in two or three places by the already- 

 mentioned spurs of the hills, called the Alexander 

 Mountains by the Russians. The ascent of these 

 sometimes took five horses to a sledge to manage, 

 while the descent was accomplished at a furious 

 gallop, usually on one runner of the sleigh, while 

 the occupants were busy looking out for a soft spot 

 to fall on in case of the expected upset. 



In Tashkent we stayed ten days, putting up at a 



