for the boat, and the
accommodations were quite limited. We thought the tarantass preferable
to the hotel, and retired early to sleep in our carriage. A teamster
tied his horses to our wheels, and as the brutes fell to kicking
during the night, and attempted to break away, they disturbed our
slumbers. I rose at daybreak and watched the yemshicks making their
toilet. The whole operation was performed by tightening the girdle and
rubbing the half-opened eyes.

Morning brought no boat. There was nothing very interesting after we
had breakfasted, and as we might be detained there a whole week, the
prospect was not charming. We organized a hunting excursion, Maack
with his gun and I with my revolver. I assaulted the magpies which
were numerous and impertinent, and succeeded in frightening them.
Gulls were flying over the lake; Maack desired one for his cabinet at
Irkutsk, but couldn't get him. He brought down an enormous crow, and
an imprudent hawk that pursued a small bird in our vicinity. His last
exploit was in shooting a partridge which alighted, strange to say, on
the roof of the hotel within twenty feet of a noisy crowd of
yemshicks. The bird was of a snowy whiteness, the Siberian partridge
changing from brown to white at the beginning of winter, and from
white to brown again as the snow disappears.

A "soudna" or sailing barge was anchored at the entrance of a little
bay, and was being filled with tea to be transported to Irkutsk. The
soudna is a bluff-bowed, broad sterned craft, a sort of cross between
Noah's Ark and a Chinese junk. It is strong but not elegant, and might
sail backward or sidewise nearly as well as ahead. Its carrying
capacity is great in proportion to its length, as it is very wide and
its sides rise very high above the water. Every soudna I saw had but
one mast which carried a square sail. These vessels can only sail
with the wind, and then not very rapidly. An American pilot boat could
pass a thousand of them without half trying.

About noon we saw a thin wreath of smoke betokening the approach of
the steamer. In joy at this welcome sight we dined and bought tickets
for the passage, ours of the first class being printed in gold, while
Evan's billet for the deck was in Democratic black. It cost fifteen
roubles for the transport of each tarantass, but our baggage was taken
free, and we were not even required to unload it.

[Illustration: A SOUDNA.]

There is no wharf at Posolsky and no harbor,