to sit up in. A heavy curtain was fastened to the edge
of this top or hood, and in bad weather it could be pulled down and
buttoned so as to exclude the air and flying snow. When we were seated
in these sledges our legs were thrust down into the long coffin-shaped
boxes upon which the drivers sat, and our heads and shoulders
sheltered by the sealskin hoods. Imagine an eight-foot coffin mounted
on runners, and a man sitting up in it with a bushel basket over his
head, and you will have a very correct idea of a Siberian _pavoska_.
Our legs were immovably fixed in boxes, and our bodies so wedged in
with pillows and heavy furs that we could neither get out nor turn
over. In this helpless condition we were completely at our drivers'
mercy; if they chose to let us slide over the edge of a precipice
in the mountains, all we could do was to shut our eyes and trust in
Providence. Seven times in less than three hours my Kamenoi driver,
with the assistance of fourteen crazy dogs and a spiked stick, turned
my _pavoska_ exactly bottom side up, dragged it in that position until
the hood was full of snow, and then left me standing on my head, with
my legs in a box and my face in a snow-drift, while he took a smoke
and calmly meditated upon the difficulties of mountain travel and
the versatility of dog-sledges! It was enough to make Job curse his
grandmother! I threatened him with a revolver, and swore indignantly
by all the evil spirits in the Korak theogony, that if he upset me in
that way again I would kill him without benefit of clergy, and carry
mourning and lamentation to the houses of all his relatives. But it
was of no use. He did not know enough to be afraid of a pistol, and
could not understand my murderous threats. He merely squatted down
upon his heels on the snow, puffed his cheeks out with smoke, and
stared at me in stupid amazement, as if I were some singular species
of wild animal, which exhibited a strange propensity to jabber and
gesticulate in the most ridiculous manner without any apparent cause.
Then, whenever he wanted to ice his sledge-runners, which was as often
as three times an hour, he coolly capsized the _pavoska_, propped it
up with his spiked stick, and I stood on my head while he rubbed the
runners down with water and a piece of deerskin. This finally drove
me to desperation, and I succeeded, after a prolonged struggle, in
getting out of my coffin-shaped box, and seated myself with indignant
feelings and