THE MAINLAND 373 



You will have had enough of us and our adventures 

 by this time, if indeed your patience has carried you so 

 far. We travelled from Okshin up the river to Ust 

 Tsilma, from there overland to Archangel, from there to 

 Vologda by sleigh, thence to Moscow, whence I sent 

 Hyland home by Riga, going myself to St. Petersburg, 

 where the Tsar's body was lying in state, and so to 

 England. 



I arrived at Oueenborough on November 19th. 



To tell you the details of this journey would take a 

 separate book by itself, for it opens a new chapter on 

 mainland Samoyeds and on Russian peasant home- 

 life. 



If we had chosen to wait for the winter we should 

 have had no further difficulty in crossing the frozen 

 rivers and the snowy tundra than to sit on a sleigh, as 

 others have done before. But, if Hyland was to be home 

 for his Christmas customers (a serious consideration in 

 his little trade), it was very necessary to start at once. 

 And so it was that we fell on a time when not a reason- 

 able soul ever took that journey, because the rivers were 

 half-frozen and very dangerous, and the swamps im- 

 passable, as was supposed. So that even the Govern- 

 ment service stops during this season of ' Rasputa,' and 

 all contracts are off for a month, and it is a time of 

 holiday, or, as the Russians say, of ' Stroke.' 



But I have written enough for this time. If this book 

 should win as much interest as may serve to warrant it. 



