f fragrant hay, to lessen the shock of jolting on a
rough road; spread over the hay a big wolfskin sleeping-sack, about
seven feet in length and wide enough to hold our two bodies; covered
that with two pairs of blankets; and finally lined the whole back part
of the sleigh with large, soft, swan's-down pillows. At the foot of
the sleeping-sack, under the driver's seat, we stowed away a bag of
dried rye-bread, another bag filled with cakes of frozen soup, two or
three pounds of tea, a conical loaf of white sugar, half a dozen dried
and smoked salmon, and a padded box containing teapot, tea-cannister,
sugar-jar, spoons, knives and forks, and two glass tumblers. Schwartz;
and Malchanski bought another _pavoska_ and fitted it up in similar
fashion, and on the 19th of November we obtained from the Bureau
of Posts two _podorozhnayas_, or, as Price called them, "ukases,"
directing every post-station master between Yakutsk and Irkutsk to
furnish us, "by order of his Imperial Majesty Alexander Nikolaivitch,
Autocrat of All the Russias," etc., etc., six horses and two drivers
to carry us on our way.

In every part of the world except Siberia it is customary to start on
a long journey in the morning. In Siberia, however, the proper time is
late in the evening, when all your friends can conveniently assemble
to "provozhat," or, in colloquial English, give you a send-off.
Judging from our experience in Yakutsk, the Siberian custom has the
support of sound reason, inasmuch as the amount of drinking involved
in the riotous ceremony of "provozhanie" unfits a man for any place
except bed, and any occupation more strenuous than slumber. A man
could never see his friend off in the morning and then go back to his
business. He would see double, if not quadruple, and would hardly be
able to speak his native language without a foreign accent. When
the horses came from the post-station for us, at ten o'clock on the
evening of November 20th, we had had one dinner and two or three
incidental lunches; had "sampled" every kind of beverage that our host
had in the house, from vodka and cherry cordial to "John Collins" and
champagne; had sung all the songs we knew, from "John Brown's Body"
in English to "Nastoichka travnaya" in Russian; and Schwartz and
Malchanski were ready, apparently, to make a night of it, send the
horses back to the station, and have another _provozhanie_ the next
day. Price and I, however, insisted that the Czar's ukase to the