CHAPTER III. 



MISHAPS AND DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN 

 TEAVELLING IN EASTEEN EUSSIA. 



As an inducement to me to accompany my friends on their 

 visit to Ufa, it was jestingly proposed that we should not 

 only visit the forests of Bogoyovensk and Vergator, but 

 that some of us should proceed to Orenburg, in the 

 extreme south of the Government ; and thence advance 

 beyond the boundary, and see something of Siberia. 

 The proposal was in jest ; but the idea having been once 

 suggested it was deemed feasible; and some of the party 

 set out to carry it into execution. To the jcurney a brief 

 reference was made in the preceding chapter. Of what 

 was experienced in making the attempt to reach Orenburg 

 my friend wrote to me : — 



' To resume my narrative, which, please notice, is not 

 founded on any journal report, but altogether on memory : 

 Interesting as everything was, villages with their various 

 tribes (each village being distinct) — first, it may be a 

 Bashkir or a Tartar one, then a Russian, followed by a 

 Tchuvash one (Mordins and other tribes were spoken of, 

 but none were distinctly pointed out), the road was often 

 traceable for miles by a straight line of trees ; the hills 

 ran parallel with us on our left, many of them were of fine 

 shape, but, with a few exceptions, bare of trees ; then 

 gradually hills appeared on our right, and we were soon 

 closed in by darkness as well as hills. The morning found 

 us at a station named Uralsk. We had been durino- 

 the night crossing a spur of the Ural range running at 

 right angles to the main range. The heights cannot be 

 great ; but I cannot speak from observation, for both goino- 

 and returning we slept most of the time, the night not 



