he weather being clear, it was
never quite dark. Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground;
and as for our servants, whom we hired here to look after ourselves and
horses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thaw and
take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off.

It is true, within doors we were warm, the houses being close, the walls
thick, the windows small, and the glass all double. Our food was chiefly
the flesh of deer, dried and cured in the season; bread good enough, but
baked as biscuits; dried fish of several sorts, and some flesh of mutton,
and of buffaloes, which is pretty good meat. All the stores of
provisions for the winter are laid up in the summer, and well cured: our
drink was water, mixed with aqua vitae instead of brandy; and for a
treat, mead instead of wine, which, however, they have very good. The
hunters, who venture abroad all weathers, frequently brought us in fine
venison, and sometimes bear's flesh, but we did not much care for the
last. We had a good stock of tea, with which we treated our friends, and
we lived cheerfully and well, all things considered.

It was now March, the days grown considerably longer, and the weather at
least tolerable; so the other travellers began to prepare sledges to
carry them over the snow, and to get things ready to be going; but my
measures being fixed, as I have said, for Archangel, and not for Muscovy
or the Baltic, I made no motion; knowing very well that the ships from
the south do not set out for that part of the world till May or June, and
that if I was there by the beginning of August, it would be as soon as
any ships would be ready to sail. Therefore I made no haste to be gone,
as others did: in a word, I saw a great many people, nay, all the
travellers, go away before me. It seems every year they go from thence
to Muscovy, for trade, to carry furs, and buy necessaries, which they
bring back with them to furnish their shops: also others went on the same
errand to Archangel.

In the month of May I began to make all ready to pack up; and, as I was
doing this, it occurred to me that, seeing all these people were banished
by the Czar to Siberia, and yet, when they came there, were left at
liberty to go whither they would, why they did not then go away to any
part of the world, wherever they thought fit: and I began to examine what
should hinder them from making such an attempt. But my wonder was over
when I ente