CHAPTER IV. 



Bad roads — Postal service in winter and summer — Changeable weather — Scenery 

 — Pinega and Kuloi rivers — Snow plains — The forests — Birds — Samoyedes — 

 Mezen — Polish exile — Snow-Buntings — How caught — Jackdaws — We leave 

 Mez^n — The weather — Scenery — ^The Mezen river — -The Pizhma — The roads — 

 Piottuch's accident — The Via diabolica — Bolshanivagorskia^Brealc up of the 

 road — Polish prejudices — The villages — Curiosity of the peasants — Greek 

 crosses — Love of ornament — Employment and amusements — Samoyedes — Birds 

 — [Imskia — First view of the Petchora — Arrival at Ust-Zylma. 



The journey from Archangel to Ust-Zylma on the Petchora 

 is between seven and eight hundred English miles. There 

 are about forty stations, the distance between each being 

 somewhat greater than that on our previous journey. Had 

 we left Archangel a fortnight earlier, before the sun was 



