going again.
And yet these gentle, patient beasts would labour along for hours,
girth-deep in heavy snow, their flanks going like steam-engines, and
never dream of stopping to take a rest unless ordered to do so.

It would weary the reader to enumerate in detail the events of the next
few days. Suffice it to say that half a dozen _povarnias_ were passed
before we reached Ebelach, a so-called village consisting of three
mud-huts. Ebelach is more than seven hundred versts from Verkhoyansk,
and we accomplished the journey in under a week. Only one place, the
_povarnia_ of Tiriak-Hureya, is deserving of mention, for two reasons:
the first being that it exactly resembled the valley of Chamonix,
looking down it from Mont Blanc towards the Aiguilles. I shall never
forget the glorious sunset I witnessed here, nor the hopeless feeling of
nostalgia instilled by the contemplation of those leagues of forest and
snowy peaks, the latter gradually merging in the dusk from a delicate
rose colour to bluish grey. Only the preceding summer I had stood on the
principal "place" of the little Swiss town and witnessed almost exactly
the same landscape, and the contrast only rendered our present
surroundings the more lonesome and desolate. No wonder the Swiss are a
homesick race, or that Napoleon, on his distant campaigns, prohibited,
from fear of desertion, the playing of their national airs. Smoky cities
could be recalled, even in this land of desolation, without yearning or
regret, but I could never think of the sunlit Alps or leafy boulevards
without an irresistible longing to throw reputation to the winds and
return to them forthwith!

The other circumstance connected with Tiriak-Hureya is that the
_povarnia_, measuring exactly sixteen feet by fourteen feet, was already
tenanted by a venerable gentleman of ragged and unsavoury exterior, his
Yakute wife, or female companion, three children, and a baby with a
mysterious skin disease. We numbered sixteen in all, including drivers,
and that night is vividly engraven on my memory. It was impossible to
move hand or foot without touching some foul personality, and five hours
elapsed before Stepan was able to reach the fire and cook some food. But
notwithstanding his unspeakably repulsive exterior the aged stranger
excited my curiosity, for his careworn features and sunken eyes
suggested a past life of more than ordinary interest. He was an exile,
one of the few who have lived to retrace their s