reached it in safety again, after having
crossed the Urals, slept for months in the snow, jumped over the
Russian frontier in the midst of balls, and passed through so many
sufferings and privations.

[Illustration: TAIL PIECE]

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

I remained in Irkutsk until snow fell, and the winter roads were
suitable for travel. One day the moving portion of the city was on
wheels: the next saw it gliding on runners. The little sleighs of the
_isvoshchiks_ are exactly like those of St. Petersburg and
Moscow,--miniature affairs where you sit with your face within six
inches of the driver's back, and cannot take a friend at your side
without much crowding. They move rapidly, and it is a fortunate
provision that they are cheap. In all large cities and towns of Russia
many _isvoshchiks_ go to spend the winter. With a horse and little
sleigh and a cash capital sufficient to buy a license, one of these
enterprising fellows will set up in business. Nobody thinks of walking
in Moscow or St. Petersburg, unless his journey or his purse is very
short. It is said there are thirty thousand sleighs for public hire in
St. Petersburg alone, during the winter months, and two-thirds that
number in Moscow. The interior towns are equally well supplied in
proportion to their population.

One may naturally suppose that accidents are frequent where there are
many vehicles and fast driving is the fashion. Accidents are rare from
the fact that drivers are under severe penalties if they run over any
one. Furthermore the horses are quick and intelligent, and being
driven without blinkers, can use their eyes freely. To my mind this
plan is better than ours, and most foreigners living in Russia are
inclined to adopt it. Considered as an ornament a blinker decorates a
horse about as much as an eye shade does a man.

With the first fall of snow, I began preparations for departure. I
summoned a tailor and gave orders for a variety of articles in fur and
sheep-skin for the road. He measured me for a coat, a cap, a pair of
stockings, and a sleigh robe, all in sheep-skin. He then took the size
of my ears for a pair of lappets, and proposed fur socks to be worn
under the stockings. When the accumulated result of his labors was
piled upon the floor of my room, I was alarmed at its size, and
wondered if it could ever be packed in a single sleigh. Out of a bit
of sable skin a lady acquaintance constructed a mitten for my nose, to
be worn wh