28 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. iv. 



Padarozhnas," with which General Timarsheff (the Minister 

 of the Interior at St. Petersburg) had kindly provided us, 

 horses were forthcoming at once. We paid for five horses on 

 one occasion when we had only four, and at Pinega the station- 

 master tried to make us take six, but our obstinate refusal to 

 do so, lest it should become a precedent in future, prevailed. 



We reached Mezen on the 10th of April, and spent an 

 interesting day in this frontier town of Siberia in Europe. 

 The Ispravnik, to whom we had letters from the Governor 

 of Archangel, called upon us and invited us to take tea at 

 his house. He spoke a smattering of French, but had asked 

 a Polish exile of the name of Bronza to meet us. Mr. Bronza 

 spoke excellent German, and we endeavoured to get some 

 information from him about the Samoyedes ; but he was so 

 full of his own grievances, and so utterly without interest in 

 Russia and everything Kussian, that we soon gave it up 

 in despair. Poland is evidently the Ireland of Kussia. Both 

 the Irish and the Poles seem crazy on the subject of home- 

 rule, and in many other points show a similarity of tempera- 

 ment. They are both hot-blooded races, endowed with a 

 wonderful sense of humour, and an intolerable tolerance of 

 dirt, disorder, and bad management generally. 



At Mezen we were much interested in watching a large 

 flock of snow-buntings. Their favourite resort was the steep 

 bank of the river, where they found abundance of food in the 

 manure which was thrown away. In a country where there 

 is abundance of grass in summer, and very little corn is 

 cultivated, and where the cattle have to be stall-fed for 

 seven or eight months out of the twelve, manure apparently 



