152 SIBERIA 



with the inmates. The linguistic difficulty being 

 practically insurmountable I endeavoured to allay any 

 suspicions which might be lurking in some recess 

 of their unsophisticated inteUigences by adroitly 

 balancing a paper funnel on my nose and applying 

 a lighted match to it. This impressed them very 

 much. They said that they had never seen anything 

 like it before. The eight recumbent forms assumed 

 an erect position and a general expansive grin, and 

 when, at half -past eight, we resumed our journey, 

 some fifteen polite and amicably-disposed peasants 

 raised their caps and wished us " God-speed," or 

 its equivalent in Russian. The church was the most 

 attractive building in each village. 



The journey to Altaiskoe, our next station, was 

 one of 34 miles. The post road is marked out 

 by square verst posts about 8 feet high and one 

 foot square, painted black and white, the official 

 colours, and showing the number of versts from the 

 nearest station ; that is to say that half-way between 

 two stations the numbers begin to reduce, showing 

 the distance to the next one. These posts are one 

 verst, or about two-thirds of a mile, apart, and are 

 the only solace to the traveller in the bitter winter 

 night as he shakes along in the sledge, jolted up 

 into a corner, cramped, nearly frozen, and seated 

 on the sharpest edge of some article of his baggage. 

 On this occasion the darkness was so intense that 

 the verst posts were altogether invisible, while a' thick 

 haze seemed to accompany us all the way, making it 

 appear as if we were continually driving into a wall 

 of snow -hills. .We passed quite close to a leader 

 of ,a pack of wolves, but when we turned back he 

 was not to be seen. Presumably he had no desire 

 to sample the contents of an EngUsh-made cartridge, 

 or that his skin should he taken to England as a 

 trophy. In addition to wolves there are large 



