LEAVING BYSK 273 



he had " nearly " fallen off, a euphemism which made 

 us all laugh so much that our driver was forced to 

 stop the drosky for two or three minutes. The other 

 m'oujik only managed to struggle back into a sitting 

 posture after he had been nearly pulled off by his 

 companion in his fall. 



The journey to the river took us ij hours. It 

 was not so broken up as we had expected it to be, 

 though we found that the horses were of no use and 

 that it would be necessary to carry everything across 

 the broken ice. The three drunken men were the 

 only help we had, so we were forced to assist our- 

 selves, and the five of us commenced the journey 

 across the Obi, which was at this point about 

 150 yards in width. Just below the Irtish, however, 

 it increases to 3,512 yards . We fully expected some 

 trouble before we reached the other side and were 

 not disappointed. We weighted the three moujiks 

 according to our estimate of the quantities of vodka 

 they had respectively imbibed, giving the most in- 

 capable the lightest weight, and so on. They 

 staggered across with great distances between them. 

 In the middle the strong current had broken the 

 ice, so that we had to cross this portion in a boat, 

 pushing our way between large blocks of ice. We 

 resumed the crossing on the ice and were nearing 

 the other side, when we missed one of the moujiks 

 and turned back to look for him. We found him 

 lying on the ice. On being expostulated with he 

 said he had had no sleep during the last week, as 

 he had been celebrating Easter. We lifted him up 

 and reloaded him. Eventually we crossed in a boat, 

 which connected the last piece of ice with the banks, 

 and at nine p.m. carried the luggage up the banks 

 of the river. That day we had been on the move 

 sixteen hours, and had covered seventy miles. 



We sent one of the moujiks in search of a drosky, 



18 



