est cold afterwards
experienced south of Yakutsk was 51 deg. below zero, and that only upon
one occasion. Otherwise it varied from 2 deg. above to 40 deg. below
zero, but even that was sufficient to convert our provisions into a
granite-like consistency, and at first wearisome delays were occasioned
at the post-stations by the thawing out of petrified sardines and tinned
soup converted into solid ice. Milk, frozen and cut into cubes, was
conveniently carried in a net attached to the sleigh, and this, with
tea, was our sole beverage. For a case with a few bottles of Crimean
claret, which we had taken to enliven the first portion of the journey,
was found when broached to contain nothing but fragments of red ice and
broken glass. Even some cognac (for medicinal purposes) was partly
frozen in its flask. On the same day de Clinchamp, removing his mits to
take a photograph, accidentally touched some metal on the camera, and
his fingers were seared as though with a red-hot iron. Perhaps our
greatest annoyance on this voyage was the frequent deprivation of
tobacco, that heavenly solace on long and trying journeys. For at even
40 deg. below zero nicotine blocks the pipe-stem, and cigar or cigarette
freezes firmly to the lips. The moustache also forms a mask of solid
ice, and becomes an instrument of torture, so much so that on the third
day out on the Lena ours were mercilessly clipped.

The post-houses on this road are, as I have said, luxurious as compared
to the accommodation found among the Arctic races of Siberia, but I
fancy those accustomed to "roughing it," as the word is generally
understood in England, would find even a trip as far as Yakutsk rather a
trial. Of course, these establishments vary from the best, which are
about on a par with the labourer's cottage in England, to the worst,
which can only be described as dens of filth and squalor. All are built
on the same plan. There is one guest-room, a bare carpetless apartment,
with a rough wooden bench, a table, and two straight-backed wooden
chairs, and the room is heated to suffocation by a huge stove, which
occupies a corner of the room. The flimsy plank partition is unpapered,
but generally plastered with the cheap, crudely coloured prints sold by
pedlars. Some of these depicted events connected with our recent war in
South Africa, and it is needless to add that the English troops were
invariably depicted in the act of ignominious flight.[7] I purchased
one, in w