DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVELLING. 47 



the rods. Do not forget to purchase besides a hatchet. 

 All these we took, and more than all were wanted. 



' When the driver, or yemstchik, has taken his seat, the 

 horses will not stay a minute. Indeed, in some districts, 

 the horses' heads are held while the driver mounts, and, 

 when freed, they start with a bound. And now begin 

 your pains and penalties ! 



' When at Nijni Tagilsk, we descended by ladders 600 

 feet into a copper-mine, and came up in the same manner, 

 we were warned that on the following day we should be 

 terribly stiff; but I aver that the consequences were as 

 nothing compared with those of the first day's travelling 

 by tarantass. The roughness of the roads and the lack of 

 springs combine to cause a shaking up, the very remem- 

 brance of which is painful. Let the reader imagine him- 

 self about to descend a hill at the foot of which is a 

 stream crossed by a corduroy bridge of poles. The 

 ordinary tarantass has no brake, the two outer horses are 

 in loose harness, and the one in rods has no breeching. 

 The whole weight of the machine, therefore, is thrown on 

 bis collar, and the first half of the hill is descended as 

 slowly as may be. But the speed soon increases, first 

 because the rod-horse cannot help it, and next because 

 an impetus is desired to carry you up the opposite hill. 

 All three horses, therefore, begin to pull, and, long before 

 the bridge is reached, you are going at a flying pace, and 

 everybody has to " hold on." The bridge is approached ; 

 and now comes the excruciating moment. Most likely 

 almost to a certainty the rain has washed away the 

 earth a good six inches below the first timber of the 

 bridge, against which bump ! go your fore-wheels, and 

 thump ! go your hind ones ; whilst fare and driver are 

 alike shot up high into the air. I have a lively recollec- 

 tion of these ascents, some of which were so high that, 

 when travelling from Archangel to Lake Onega, we had 

 the hood removed, lest our skulls should strike the top. 

 Happily, all roads are not so perilously rough, and, briefly 

 to summarise my experience of them, I should say that 



