34 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. iv. 



alighted from the sledge which had not sunk in the snow. 

 The two yemschiks set to work in good earnest, and we 

 doffed our malitzas and followed suit. The horses were 

 unharnessed, and we soon succeeded in making them struggle 

 out on to firm ground. We had no difficulty in pushing the 

 sledge after them, and were soon ready to start again. All 

 this time Piottuch stood calmly by, never offering for a 

 moment to render us the smallest assistance. The Eussians 

 we always found equal to any emergency, and ready to lend 

 a helping hand on such occasions as an Englishman would. 

 The Poles, on the contrary, seem to be a helpless, shiftless 

 race of people, with a contemptible prejudice against manual 

 labour. A similar accident did not happen again. We had 

 many a stumble, but no irretrievable fall. Our horses were 

 sure-footed and wonderfully plucky, and we seldom had a 

 really bad animal. We started with five horses for the 

 two sledges, which we reduced to four the latter half of the 

 journey, and on one or more occasions we accomplished a 

 stage satisfactorily with only three. The country is very 

 thinly populated. After leaving Mezen the villages were 

 small, and during the last 150 miles there were no villages at 

 all, only a single station-house, where a change of horses 

 could be obtained, and which would shortly be deserted 

 altogether for the summer months. As we were the first 

 Englishmen who had travelled on this road during the life- 

 time of any of the villagers, our appearance naturally excited 

 great curiosity, and when we stopped at a station in the vil- 

 lage to change horses, a crowd quickly gathered round the 

 sledges. We found the peasants very inquisitive, asking the 



