FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAX. 293 



wind, our barricades were useless against its fury, 

 owing to the many breaches it had already made. 

 We asked for wood or coal the people had none. 

 We asked for food they had none. We tried 

 the stables, thinking we might find shelter there. 

 Standing over their fetlocks in filthy slush, in an 

 atmosphere that would stifle an Engli-h horse in 

 three minutes, were the few wretched-looking 

 beasts whose lot it was to live and labour at 

 Tchaillee. And yet, in spite of adverse circum- 

 stances such as these, in spite of short allowance 

 and no grooming, these hardy brutes, though 

 they look mere bags of bones, do more work 

 than our \vell-cared-for English horses, never 

 seem to suffer from coughs, colds, mud fever, or 

 any of the hundred and one ailments to which 

 an unnatural amount of coddling makes our 

 animals subject. There is this to be said for the 

 Russian, if he does not provide his beast with 

 good food and comfortable stabling, at least he 

 leaves him the coat that nature gave him. 



After trying in vain to find a resting-place else- 

 where, Ivan and myself bribed the chief yemstchik 

 (who was also the post-master) to let us share his 

 one-roomed hovel for the night. The man was a 

 Molochan, and lived with his parents and his chil- 

 dren, in a state of slovenly misery, in this one room. 

 The poor wife made the night hideous with a deep 

 racking cough that led one to hope that she would 



