Across the Roof of the World. 



other words in the language dear to the heart of the slothful 

 Russian, but " Sechas " heads them all, and when he quits this 

 mortal coil the last word breathed to the unwashed multitude 

 around the bedside is " Sechas." 



I left Kokbekti for Ustkhamenogorsk at 10.30 on the night 

 of the 8th, the road being hilly and rough, and the thermometer 

 dropping to 45 degrees below zero. Soon after midnight I 

 arrived at one of the post-houses and found it full of soldiers 

 sleeping on the benches, the table, and spread about in all 

 positions over the floor. The starosta was asleep in the only other 

 room in the house, and in no good humour at being disturbed at 

 this unearthly hour of the night, grumbling loudly and declaring 

 no horses were available. I allowed him to finish and then pro- 

 duced my papers, at the sight of which his face fell and liorses 

 were forthcoming without further delay. Though I rejoiced at 

 the change thus brought about by the display of my credentials 

 I inwardly sympathised with the man at being turned out at 

 two in the morning to harness fresh horses, with nearly 80 degrees 

 of frost and a cold wind that must have made him curse the 

 " Angliski offttzier." 



Throughout the gth I drove hard, the liorses at the different 

 stages on the way being in excellent condition so that we 

 literally tore over the snow-covered steppes, with never a sign 

 of life save the post-houses situated at intervals of twenty and 

 twenty-five versts. These were the steppes over which in years 

 gone by marched many a batch of prisoners doomed to perpetual 

 exile in Siberia. Often the journey from Russia to the distant 

 penal settlements occupied a full two years, during which the 

 weaker amongst the detachments succumbed to the hardships of 

 such a fearful ordeal. As one drives across the silent steppes 

 one's thoughts travel back to those dark and gloomy days when 

 every verst of the road was marked with such suffering as few 

 have endured since sorrow first entered the world. 



Shortly before eleven that night I crossed the Irtish River 

 and ran into Ustkhamenogorsk, driving first to the post-house 



412 



