SIBERIAN VILLAGES. 271 



After agriculture the rearing of live-stock forms an 

 important element in the husbandry of the country, 

 horses, cattle, and sheep being raised in large numbers, 

 especially in the Barnaul and Biisk districts. Bee- 

 keeping, too, is largely practised, enormous quantities 

 of honey and wax being produced in the Biisk and 

 Zeminogorsk districts, and when travelling through the 

 country I often obtained excellent honey from the 

 villagers. The villages are invariably composed of 

 wooden houses built of rough unsquared logs, moss 

 and earth being forced into the interstices to keep out 

 the cold. The windows are double for the same reason 

 — a good enough reason, too, when we remember that 

 the thermometer drops to 70° below zero (Fahrenheit), 

 without causing surprise to any one.^ Originality 

 plays no part in their construction, one being like 

 unto another ; " indeed," to quote Mr Simpson once 

 more, " they only differ in one respect — their linear 

 extent ; otherwise they are all at the same stage of 

 development." I saw the interiors of many such dwell- 

 ings, often spending the night in the house of some 

 villager when travelling, and was struck with the 

 uniformity of their appearance. The rooms, of which 

 there were generally two or three, were always fur- 

 nished on the most simple plan — a table standing 

 against a bare wall, a few chairs, and a large wooden 

 bed piled up with cushions and blankets, constituting 

 the bed- and sitting-room, while a huge whitewashed 

 brick stove and oven combined monopolised the greater 

 part of the other, which served as kitchen. The walls 

 were seldom adorned with anything beyond an ikon 

 and print of the Tsar and Tsaritsa, and never once did I 

 see a sign of those odds and ends, such as ornaments, 



At Novo Nicholaewsk on the Siberian railway the greatest amount of 

 cold registered is usually 46° Keamur = 103° of frost Fahrenheit. 



