d the unavoidable expenses had
reduced his resources so much that he found it necessary to continue
the journey on foot. He slept at Irbite, but was up early, and passed
out of an opposite gate unchallenged.

Now began a long and weary tramp. The winter of 1846 was one of
unparalleled rigor in Siberia. The snow fell in enormous masses, which
buried the roads deep out of sight and crushed solidly-built houses
under its weight. Every difficulty of an ordinary journey on foot was
increased tenfold. Piotrowski's clothes encumbered him excessively,
yet he dared not take any of them off. His habit was to avoid passing
through villages as much as possible, but, if forced to do so to
inquire his way, only to stop at the last house. When he was hungry he
drew a bit of frozen bread from his wallet and ate it as he went
along: to quench his thirst he often had no resource but melting the
snow in his mouth, which rather tends to increase the desire for
water. At night he went into the depths of the forest, dug a hole
under the snow, and creeping in slept there as best he might. At the
first experiment his feet were frozen: he succeeded in curing them,
though not without great pain. Sometimes he plunged up to the waist or
neck in the drifts, and expected at the next step to be buried alive.
One night, having tasted to the full those two tortures, cold and
hunger--of which, as he says, we complain so frequently without
knowing what they mean--he ventured to ask for shelter at a little hut
near a hamlet where there were only two women. They gave him warm
food: he dried his drenched clothes, and stretched himself out to
sleep on the bench near the kitchen stove. He was roused by voices,
then shaken roughly and asked for his passport: there were three men
in the room. With amazing presence of mind he demanded by what right
they asked for his passport: were any of them officials? No, but they
insisted on knowing who he was and where he was going, and seeing his
pass. He told them the same story that he had told the women, and
finally exhibited the local pass, which was now quite worthless, and
would not have deceived a government functionary for a moment: they
were satisfied with the sight of the stamp. They excused themselves,
saying that the women had taken fright and given the alarm, thinking
that, as sometimes happened, they were housing an escaped convict.
This adventure taught him a severe lesson of prudence. He often passed
fifte