versts, had found only four places where we could obtain poles, and
had passed only three settlements. Unless we could find a better
route than the one over which we had been, I feared that the Siberian
telegraph line would be a failure.

Up to this time we had been favoured with unusually fine weather; but
it was a season of the year when storms were of frequent occurrence,
and I was not surprised to be awakened Christmas night by the roaring
of the wind and the hissing sound of the snow as it swept through our
unprotected camp and buried up our dogs and sledges. We were having a
slight touch of a Siberian _purga_ (poor'-gah = blizzard). A fringe of
trees along the little stream on which we were camped sheltered us
in a measure from the storm, but out on the steppe it was evidently
blowing a gale. We rose as usual at daylight and made an attempt to
travel; but no sooner did we leave the cover of the trees than our
dogs became almost unmanageable, and, blinded and half suffocated
with flying snow, we were driven back again into the timber. It was
impossible to see thirty feet, and the wind blew with such fury that
our dogs would not face it. We massed our sledges together as a sort
of breastwork against the drifting snow, spread our fur bags down
behind them, crawled in, covered up our heads with deerskins and
blankets, and prepared for a long dismal siege. There is nothing so
thoroughly, hopelessly dreary and uncomfortable, as camping out upon a
Siberian steppe in a storm. The wind blows with such violence that a
tent cannot possibly be made to stand; the fire is half extinguished
by drifting snow, and fills the eyes with smoke and cinders when it
burns at all; conversation is impossible on account of the roaring
of the wind and the beating of the snow in one's face; bearskins,
pillows, and furs become stiff and icy with half-melted sleet, sledges
are buried up, and there remains nothing for the unhappy traveller to
do but crawl into his sleeping-bag, cover up his head, and shiver away
the long, dismal hours.

We lay out on the snow in this storm for two days, spending nearly all
the time in our fur bags and suffering severely from the cold during
the long, dark nights. On the 28th, about four o'clock in the morning,
the storm began to abate, and by six we had dug out our sledges and
were under way. There was a low spur of the Stanavoi Mountains about
ten versts north of our camp, and our men said that if we could get