ooking stuccoed hotel--the first
one we had seen in more than twenty-nine months.

CHAPTER XLI

A PLUNGE INTO CIVILISATION--THE NOBLES' BALL--SHOCKING LANGUAGE--
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH--THE GREAT SIBERIAN ROAD--PASSING TEA
CARAVANS--RAPID TRAVEL--FIFTY-SEVEN HUNDRED MILES IN ELEVEN
WEEKS--ARRIVAL IN ST. PETERSBURG

At Irkutsk, we plunged suddenly from a semi-barbaric environment into
an environment of high civilisation and culture; and our attempts to
adjust ourselves to the new and unfamiliar conditions were attended,
at first, with not a little embarrassment and discomfort. As we were
among the first Americans who had been seen in that Far Eastern
capital, and were officers, moreover, of a company with which the
Russian Government itself had been in partnership, we were not only
treated with distinguished consideration, but were welcomed everywhere
with warm-hearted kindness and hospitality; and we found it necessary
at once to exchange calls with high officials; accept invitations to
dinner; share the box of the Governor-General's chief of staff at the
theatre, and go to the weekly ball of the "noble-born" in the hall
of the "Blagorodnaya Sobrania," (Assembly of Nobles). The first
difficulty that we encountered, of course, was the lack of suitable
clothing. After two and a half years of campaigning in an arctic
wilderness, we had no raiment left that was fit to wear in such a city
as Irkutsk, and--worse than that--we had little money with which to
purchase a new supply. The two hundred and fifty dollars with which
we left Okhotsk had gradually dribbled away in the defrayment of
necessary expenses along the road, and we had barely enough left to
pay for a week's stay at the hotel. In this emergency we fell back
upon our telegraph-company uniforms. They had been soaked in the Lena,
frozen into masses of ice, and stretched all out of shape in the
process of wringing and drying at Krestofskaya; but we got an Irkutsk
tailor to press them and polish up the tarnished gilt buttons, and
after spending most of the money we had left in the purchase of new
fur overcoats to replace the dirty, travel-worn _kukhlankas_ in which
we had arrived, we got ourselves up in presentable form to call on the
Governor-General.

The severest ordeal through which we had to pass, however, was the
dance at the hall of the Blagorodnaya Sobrania to which we were
escorted by General Kukel (koo'-kel), the Governor-General's chief of
staff