As we approached the Russian frontier we reflected on the savage condition in which we had been living for so long, and were not without some anxiety as to how we should brook the glimmering of civilisation which we might expect to find, even in that remote corner of Christendom. It was also uncertain what reception we would meet with from the Russian officials, for although we had every reason to anticipate cordiality and friendly assistance, still political complications in Europe might have altered the relations of either of our respective countries with the court of Russia, and difficulties might possibly be raised. I had not forgotten the advice of a Russian official, high in the confidence of his Government, to defer my journey till more tranquil times. While indulging in these vain surmises, a smart shower of snow diverted our attention to other matters.

The Chinese town of Maimachin has first to be passed through. It is surrounded by a modern palisade, and looks mean enough externally, but improves vastly on acquaintance. The streets are regular, wide (for China), and tolerably clean. The houses are solid, tidy, and tastefully decorated, with pretty little courtyards, and ornamental screens for their doors, &c. The Chinese settlers have evidently improved by contact with the Russians, for the style of their houses in Maimachin, where the Chinese are only sojourners away from their own country, is superior to what one usually sees, even in fashionable cities in China proper. The yamun, or Government office, is at the far end of Maimachin, and is presided over by a Mongol. Beyond the Yamun is an open square, which is considered neutral ground between Russia and China. On the Russian side of the square we pass through a gate and are in Kiachta, under the wing of the great Russian eagle, which we see paraded everywhere over our heads. The black and white posts, said to have been a pet fancy of that miserable pedant, Paul Petrovitch, that offend the eye everywhere in Russia; the elegant houses with white-washed walls and red or green roofs; the gorgeous churches with tall tapering spires; and the wide streets, with nobody in them, are all taken in at the first glance through the gateway, and establish it beyond doubt that we are really in the territory of the Czars.

With little trouble we found out Mr. Pfaffius, Commissary of the Frontier, an office established in lieu of the governorship which had been abolished. The Commissary received us in a very friendly manner, gave me some letters that had overtaken me from China, files of the "Times" newspaper up to the 5th of August, and finally, to my great joy and comfort, announced that he had instructions from his superiors to facilitate my journey homewards, in consequence of an application from Lord Napier to the authorities at St. Petersburg. Nothing could be more satisfactory, and we had only now to get lodgings and make ourselves easy for a little.

Kiachta itself is but a small place, and contains few inhabitants, except the Commissary and his dependents, and the Russian merchants who are engaged in the China trade. The general population lives at Troitskosarfsk, which is a good-sized town, about two miles from Kiachta. Thither we proceeded with our caravan, and soon fell into comfortable quarters by the kind assistance of my countryman, Mr. Grant. The day was wearing on, and our Mongols were in a hurry to get back to their grazing-ground. The camels were soon relieved of their burdens, but we could hardly realise that they were now unloaded for the last time in our service. The lama called us to count over the packages, and see whether everything was right; he then received the balance of his contract money, and was off. We did not charge him the forfeit he was liable to for the four days' over-time. Tellig received a small present, which gratified him beyond measure, for he never considered that he had done anything to lay us under an obligation to him. We really felt sorry to part from our Mongols, especially the faithful Tellig, and we could not help commiserating them as we thought of the severe season they had to pass on those dreary steppes, so intolerable in September, that one would suppose flesh and blood could not withstand the cruel cold of winter. They had in view a return cargo from a Chinaman in Maimachin, and, after a few days' rest, they would probably be on the march again towards the Great Wall of China. They had no intention of laying up any part of the winter, that being in fact their busiest season, and they would be in Kiachta again about December. What a miserable life it seems to live day and night almost on the back of a stinking camel! And yet these people, in the midst of hardships, are as happy as the day is long.

One of our first objects of inquiry at Kiachta was a Russian bath, which we found in the house where we lodged, and anything so exquisitely luxurious I never experienced, burdened as I was with a month's sand and dust, which we had no efficient means of getting rid of in the desert. The Mongols, indeed, never attempt to wash themselves, being only too glad to get water enough to boil their mutton and make their tea, and that is generally carried from a considerable distance, for a yourt is never found very close to a well. I never could get an explanation of this, but presume it is so ordained by law, to prevent any one family from monopolising a well. Although the Mongols do not wash at all, they did not look so dirty as we did after twenty-four hours travel,—either the dust does not stick to them, or it does not show on their darker-coloured skins. Anyhow, it does not inconvenience them, and all the purifying I have seen them attempt is a rough wipe they occasionally give to their greasy mouths with the skirt of their garment, either calico or sheepskin.

We were agreeably surprised to find so much refinement in this outpost of Siberia. The houses are mostly large and comfortable. All are built of wood, and mostly of round logs dovetailed together at the ends, and caulked with moss, giving them a massive warm look, even from outside. Those of greater pretensions are faced outside with planed wood, painted white, which, with their red or green painted roofs, give a cheerful air to the whole place. The churches are a great ornament to the town. They are all three built of brick, and white-washed, the tall cupolas being painted green.

The streets are well kept, which is not difficult to do, seeing that the ground is dry, and there is no great traffic to cut up the roads. Several of the streets are provided with wooden side-walks, which are very agreeable to the feet where the planking is sound, but in many places it has given way, exposing dangerous pitfalls to nocturnal or inebriated pedestrians.

Every Russian above the rank of a moujik (peasant) drives in some sort of a vehicle; and there are all sorts in Kiachta, from the droshkie, pure and simple, drawn by one or two shaggy Siberian ponies, to the luxurious carriage of "the swell," mounting a coachman, and perhaps a footman in livery, and drawn by two well-bred showy little horses from the west. The Russians never ride for pleasure or exercise; in this respect resembling the Chinese, who never ride, walk, dance, or do anything that they can afford to pay some one else to do for them. A few of the Kiachta notabilities, who have been put under strict regimen by their doctors, certainly may be seen in the afternoon taking a constitutional, closely muffled up in their fur over-coats, which they hug round them with both hands, greatly impeding the free movement of the limbs. Fast walking would, however, probably be considered derogatory to the dignity of their station. These solitary and sombre-looking figures, covered up to the eyes, look like assassins, and the imagination can easily picture to itself a dagger concealed under the ample folds of the cloak as they pace slowly along in the dusk on the open road between Kiachta and Troitskosarfsk.

The Russians generally have a lurking consciousness that they are but half civilised, and they are quite aware that they are so esteemed by the rest of Europe. Hence they are at unusual pains to maintain punctiliously the external forms of civilised life, mistaking the husk for the kernel. The tailors and milliners of Kiachta are as particular, and their customers perhaps more so, about getting the latest Parisian fashions, as their contemporaries in the most fashionable towns in Europe or even America. A morning visit in a shooting-coat to a merchant in Kiachta would grievously shock his sense of propriety, and if such an outlandish garb were to meet the ultra-refined eyes of his wife, the probable consequences to her delicate system are too serious to contemplate, albeit she is "fat, fair, and forty," and will challenge you in champagne on a proper occasion till all is blue. I had the misfortune to be the innocent cause of an alarming attack to a gentleman, who was civil enough to call at an unexpectedly early hour in the morning, by appearing before him in slippers and a Chinese sleeping-dress. The apparition paralysed him for two minutes, nor did he entirely recover his equanimity during the interview. It is this mistaken notion of what constitutes civilisation that induces the well-to-do Russian to wear expensive furs, simply because they are expensive, and to drink English bottled porter, not because he likes it, but because it costs twelve shillings a bottle.

In the streets and in the bazaar (Gostinnaidvor) a strange mixture of races is seen. The hairy, greasy, drunk-when-he-can Russian moujik; the small-eyed cunning Russian shop-keeper; a sprinkling of fine, dirty, rough-looking Bouriats, a Tartar tribe subject to Russia; a few Mongols who have business,—for their authorities, instigated by the Chinese government, are jealously watchful of their crossing the frontier,—and a few astute Chinese, the most business-like of the whole crowd.

The merchants of Kiachta are mostly reported to be enormously wealthy—several millions of roubles are not considered too much to ascribe to the most prosperous of them. These great fortunes are doubtless for the most part mythical, and as mammon is devoutly worshipped here, and the Russian "swell" has no qualities but wealth to recommend him to the respect of his countrymen, their reputed millions are merely a figure of speech, by which the public mean to express their appreciation of character. That the Kiachta merchants are, on the whole, wealthy, there is no doubt, and the most approved means for attaining that desirable condition seems to be to fail periodically. On those occasions the gentleman makes a journey to Nijni-novgorod and Moscow to see his creditors,—offers them fifty kopeks in the rouble or—nothing. The composition is accepted for various reasons: first, because it would be too much trouble to dispute it, and secondly, because the said creditors have made a good thing out of the connection, and hope to do so again. All this being satisfactorily arranged, the merchant starts afresh in the old line, having in the meantime added "house to house, and field to field." I would not be supposed to insinuate that this is a common practice in Kiachta, but some instances were pointed out to me of Croesuses who had passed through the ordeal more than once, rising higher in public estimation each time, as their worldly prosperity increased. Large profits are made, or rather have been made, in the Kiachta trade, both with China and the west of Russia. Almost every merchant has a shop either in the bazaar at Troitskosarfsk or in Kiachta, and their principle in business is rather to do little with large profits, than to accept smaller profits with a greatly extended trade. They don't seem to try to undersell each other, but rather combine to tax the public heavily for all the necessaries of life. The prices of nearly all articles in the shops are extravagant, even allowing for the expensive carriage their goods have to bear from the great distances most of them have to come. Were they to be content with such profits as would be considered ample in any other civilised country, they would place the necessaries of life, and even luxuries, within the reach of a vast number of people whose means do not at present admit of expensive indulgences, and thereby increase consumption to an extent that would in the long run bring them in greater aggregate profits than they now realise, and indirectly add to the general prosperity and well-being of the place. For one bottle of porter they now sell at three and four roubles, they would sell ten at one-and-a-half or two roubles; and so with other things. But the Russians have no notions of expansion, and the merchants are far behind the Government in commercial enlightenment. The recent measure of opening the Russian sea-ports to the import of tea direct from China, has utterly disconcerted the Kiachta people, who looked on the overland tea-trade through Siberia, with its sure snug profits, as part of their inheritance; and bitter complaints are heard on all sides at such an arbitrary interference with their prerogative. They considered themselves to have a vested right to supply the Russian people with dear tea for ever.

The Chinese of Maimachin are likewise reputed wealthy, and no doubt they are, to judge by their portly figures. This is considered a sure sign of prosperity in China, where rolling in wealth, and rolling in fat, are often considered synonymous terms. I have, however, known the criterion prove frequently fallacious. The Chinese merchants of Maimachin live there without their families, and consider themselves as mere sojourners, although many of them spend the best part of their lives there. They have an unconquerable aversion to moving their families from the spot where they and their fathers were born; and even within the bounds of their own country they rarely migrate for good from one district to another, unless driven to such a step by some potent cause, such as a visitation from the "rebels."

The Russians and Chinese are peculiarly suited to each other in the commercial, as well as in the diplomatic departments. They have an equal regard for truth, for the Russian, spite of his fair complexion, is at the bottom more than half Asiatic. There is nothing original about this observation, but it serves to explain how it is that the Russians have won their way into China by quiet and peaceable means, while we have always been running our head against a stone wall, and never could get over it without breaking it down. The Russian meets the Chinese as Greek meets Greek: craft is encountered with craft, politeness with politeness, and patience with patience. They understand each other's character thoroughly, because they are so closely alike. If some matter has to be negotiated, it is quite understood that each begins as far from the subject as possible: much conversation takes place on both sides; many pipes are smoked, and many cups of tea sipped, while they are beating about the bush. They receive each other's statements for what they are worth, that is, not as being intended to convey any definite signification, but as merely put in for the purpose of concealing their real purpose and to smooth the way to the object in view. Of course much valuable time is lost by this circumlocution, but it is a matter of apparent indifference to either party whether the negotiation is concluded in one day, or three days, or three weeks. They prefer their own way of dealing, and don't understand any other. When either Russian or Chinese meets a European, say an Englishman, he instinctively recoils from the blunt, straightforward, up-and-down manner of coming to business at once; and the Asiatic either declines a contest which he cannot fight with his own weapons, or, seizing the weak point of his antagonist, he angles with him until he wearies him into acquiescence. As a rule, the Asiatic has the advantage. His patient equanimity, and heedlessness of the waste of time, are too much for the impetuous haste of the European. This characteristic of the Russian trading classes has enabled them to insinuate themselves into the confidence of the Chinese; to fraternise and identify themselves with them, and as it were make common cause with them in their daily life; while the European holds himself aloof, and only comes in contact with the Chinese when business requires it,—for all the rest, a great gulf separates them in thoughts, ideas, and the aims of life. The Russians and Chinese are equally low in their tastes; intellectual and manly recreations are equally foreign to them, while eating and drinking, play-going and gambling, are the congenial amusements of both alike. I have been told that the Russian merchants of Kiachta, when they wish to treat each other to something worthy of a highly cultivated mind, order a Chinese dinner in Maimachin, a feast that most Europeans would rather undergo the incipient stages of starvation than come within the smell of. But in this and other things the Russians pay tribute to the superior civilisation of the Chinese, all the more genuine that it is unconsciously done. That the Chinese are the more civilised of the two, I am thoroughly convinced. Their notions of civilisation certainly run in a different groove from those of Christian nations, but it is a spontaneous growth, and genuine of its kind. But the Russians, after all that they have borrowed from their western neighbours, remain barbarians at bottom; and their living in large houses, and drinking expensive wines, serve merely to exhibit, in more striking colours, the native barbarism of the stock on which these twigs of a higher order of life have been engrafted. This does not, of course, apply to the educated gentlemen of Russia, the nous autres, who constitute a higher caste, and who have been largely leavened with foreign blood, but only to the middle and lower ranks. There is no middle class in Russia, as we understand the term, but there is a pretty large number of merchants who have risen from the condition of serfs, many of them very rich, and who must be taken to represent the middle class, but between whom and the gentlemen in uniform there is as impassable a barrier as between a merchant in Japan and a daimio. The Chinese far outstrip the Russians as a nation of shopkeepers, and in commercial matters generally have more enlarged and liberal ideas. Much of this is due to the non-interference of Government with trade. The restrictions of shops to one locality in Russian towns has its advantages and disadvantages; but the licence fees required for admission to the guilds, and for permission to open a shop in the bazaar, are so onerous as to exclude that class of small shopkeepers who are the life and soul of Chinese cities.

The largest building in Kiachta is called the Custom House, but it is no longer used as such, all duties on merchandise having been recently abolished through the enlightened exertions of the present Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, who has done much to develop trade in his government. And truly the whole of that inaccessible region, including the Amoor provinces, is so ill-favoured by nature in its geographical position, and so thinly inhabited by a race who have had all enterprize ground out of them by centuries of oppression, that it is only by coaxing and nursing that prosperity can ever take root and flourish. The old Custom House is now occupied by the chief of postes and some other Government officials. It is situated on an elevation above the town and at the far end of Troitskosarfsk, at as great a distance as possible from the residence of the Commissary of the Frontier, who holds his court at the opposite extremity of Kiachta.

Having much business to transact at both these places, we hired a droshkie by the day at two roubles, an old shabby looking machine, very groggy on the springs, with two wild half-broken ponies tied to it with ropes, and an unkempt moujik on the box. In this turn-out we rattled along the dusty streets of Kiachta, passed by everything we saw excepting costermongers' carts. I felt very small, perched on the old rattle-trap, and had it not been for the "honour of the thing" I would infinitely have preferred walking or riding, but that was not to be thought of in a Russian, and especially a Siberian, town. Our reputation was at stake.

Kiachta lies snugly in a hollow between hills of sand and fir-trees, well sheltered from the northerly winds, and opening out southwards towards Mongolia. A small rivulet runs through the ravine, which turns west through the sandy plain on the Mongol side of the frontier, and falls into the general receptacle of the other rivers we had crossed. Kiachta and Troitskosarfsk are said to contain 20,000 inhabitants, who are pretty well supplied with provisions from the interior. Great numbers of peasants' carts may be seen in the morning bringing in the products of their farms and gardens to market. All the common vegetables are to be had in abundance; good beef and mutton of course, though the Russians, for some unexplained reason, eat very little mutton. The supplies for Kiachta come from great distances, and the peasants start from their homes long before break of day. They generally hunt in couples, the man with his sheepskin coat hung on him, leading the horse and riding by turns, while the good-wife, swaddled up into a round bundle of clothing, and booted to the knees, sits on the top of the cabbages. A large square in the centre of Troitskosarfsk is set apart as a corn and hay market, and is provided with sundry weights and scales sanctioned by the proper authorities. Here the vendors of agricultural produce assemble, and generally manage to get rid of their stocks by an early hour in the afternoon. Everything seems to be sold by weight in Russia, but they can hardly carry this to the same extent as the Chinese, who sell live chickens by weight, and by way of making up for any deficiency stuff their crops with sand, which adds an ounce or two to the aggregate weight, but produces death in a very short time. This trick used to be played off on masters of steamers, who thought to do a service to their countrymen at Shanghae, where provisions were at famine prices, by bringing a few hundred fowls from other ports where they were to be had cheap. The mortality in the middle passage was so great, however, that the second day generally threw a very different light on the venture.

Kiachta is also well supplied with excellent fish, the sturgeon among others, from the river Selenga, and it was here for the first time that we indulged ourselves in fresh caviar.

In this town there is a public recreation ground within a neat enclosure, where ladies promenade in the afternoon to inhale the fresh air, or exhibit the latest thing in bonnets, for Russians don't care much for air or exercise. Some retired nooks there are in the enclosure, suggestive of love-making at a more genial season, but they looked dreary enough in September, with a hard frost on the ground, and snow on the neighbouring hills. The whole goes by the name of "the garden," and in the three short months of summer it may possibly show something to justify this appellation. The mere attempt at gardening under such difficulties as a Siberian climate imposes, is creditable to the enterprise of the Kiachtaites, and it were much to be wished that the sun would shine on their efforts. The severity of the weather drives those who have a taste for flowers to cultivate them in their houses, which they do very successfully. Many of their rooms are like greenhouses, furnished round with large flowering shrubs in pots, very pleasant to the eye, whatever may be the effect of so much vegetation on human health. The plants are put out into gardens during the short summer, and withdrawn to the warm rooms when the chill winds give notice that winter is near.

The climate of Kiachta is very cold in winter, and pretty hot in summer. The air is very dry, soil sandy, and little or no rain or snow falls. It lies in lat. 50° 15', and at an elevation of 2200 feet above the sea. The population is reputed to be healthy, and old people of eighty and upwards are as lively as crickets. The houses are very comfortable, so far at least as warmth constitutes comfort, and in severe climates it is undoubtedly the first essential. The massive wooden walls well caulked with moss, which is said to be better and more lasting than oakum, are well adapted to exclude cold. They have all double windows a few inches apart, with the space between filled with cotton wool along the sill. The rooms are heated by large closed stoves or ovens, which are used for cooking as well as warming the house. In general, one stove is made to heat several rooms, being built into the corner presenting one face to each apartment. The great drawback in all this is the absolute want of ventilation, which was to us very trying and disagreeable, but the Russians are accustomed to live in health in the close stuffy atmosphere of their houses. The temperature of their rooms is kept up to about + 16° Reaumur (68° Fahrenheit), and varies but little from that range. They use a great deal of firewood, which is cheap in the neighbourhood of those vast primÆval forests, and in the yards of Kiachta immense stores of this fuel are piled up for winter use.

The Russian manner of living was not quite suitable to us, although more regular than we had lately been accustomed to. They eat but one meal a-day, and that about twelve or one o'clock. The everlasting samovar fills up the morning and evening with its incessant bubbling and spluttering. Much tea-drinking is calculated to take the edge off a ravenous appetite, and in addition to the fluid we were fain to eat all the little cakes that usually accompany the samovar, in order to tide over the long twenty-four hours that interfered between regular meals. The stock dish of the Russians is a vegetable soup, with beef boiled in it. It is called shtchee, and is good or bad, according to the materials available for its manufacture, and the skill of the cook. Our cook in Kiachta was a lady of the mature age of eighty-two, who was justly proud of her attainments. The shtchee is enough of itself to make a substantial meal, as the bouilli is served up with it; but it is generally followed by a solid piece of roast beef. The bread is very good and white, but a strange custom prevails of putting black bread on the table along with the white, for the apparent purpose of showing off by contrast the extreme whiteness of the white, for no one ever touches the black when he can get the other. The real black bread is heavier, and as clammy as if potatoes entered largely into its composition. It is used almost exclusively by the peasants, and is doubly economical, being in the first instance cheap in price, and moreover a very little of it goes a long way, as it resists digestion as long as a hard-boiled egg. The black bread used by the well-to-do classes is a compromise, and is of a black-brown colour, known as demi-blanc.

The Kiachta community is for the most part permanent. The official portion of it is of course migratory, as the Government employÉs look for promotion to other regions, but some of them also settle down in Kiachta and found families. Many of the merchants also move westward, or intend to do so, but the whole substratum of peasants, artisans and tradesmen is a settled population. They talk little of Petersburg and Moscow, and when they do, it is with a kind of distant awe, as if these holy places belonged to a higher world. Irkutsk is the centre of their thoughts, the pivot on which they move. Whatever is defective in Kiachta is sure to be found in perfection in Irkutsk; the best hotels, horses, carriages, doctors, houses, churches, shops—everything—are there. A journey to Irkutsk is not an unfrequent occurrence, but a journey to Moscow is something to be talked about on every convenient occasion for the remainder of one's life-time.

The town was founded in 1728, as an entrepÔt of the caravan trade with China, and to that alone does it owe its importance. Tea has always been much the largest item in this trade, and although Kiachta must continue to command the trade between China and Eastern Siberia, the direct importation of sea-borne teas to the Baltic ports cuts off an important source of prosperity from Kiachta. The mercantile community have, up to last year, endeavoured to compete with their rivals, and pushed into China to purchase the tea in the same markets; but the conditions of the trade are so much altered that they are deprived of their former facilities for bartering Russian produce, and in other respects the caravan trade is too heavily weighted ever to compete successfully with the long sea route. Even in Russia, wedded as the masses are to prejudice, common sense must gain the day in the end, particularly where roubles and kopeks are in question.

We did not grudge ourselves a few days' rest at Kiachta, considering we had accomplished the most tedious part of the journey, and henceforward would get over the ground as fast as horses' legs could carry us. But no such luck was in store for us. The first news we had from the commissary and others, was that the whole country between the shores of the Baikal lake and Kiachta was inundated by the flooding of the river Selenga. It seemed that our adverse fortune was to follow us along the whole journey. We need not have been surprised, however, at the intelligence we received of the condition of the Selenga, since into it all the rivers we had crossed in Mongolia discharge themselves. The post from Europe was long overdue, and no news had been received from the Baikal for ten days. We were constrained perforce to remain quiescent until the waters should subside, and a day or two after our arrival a courier who came with the missing mail reported a slight improvement in the communication, he having succeeded in carrying the mail in small boats from station to station. Our time was not, however, misspent, for we had a number of preparations to make for our journey. In the first place we had to exchange our Chinese silver into Russian paper money. We were prepared of course to lose on this operation, but were agreeably surprised to find we had got off with only about one per cent. For one tael of sycee we received 2r. 15kop., which, at the then value of three shillings to the rouble, gave us 6s. 5⁴/₁₀d. for our tael, which was worth roundly 6s. 6d. We had then our ponies and carts to dispose of, and my pony was quickly sold for ten roubles, of which my share was eight, that is twenty-four shillings for what cost thirty-two,—so far so good. But, when we came to offer the carts for sale, difficulties presented themselves. No one had ever heard of such articles being sold in Kiachta. This seemed strange, for the Chinese—if not the Russians—use no other conveyance in their frequent journeys to China. The carts are made only in China, and therefore ought to be at a premium in Kiachta. But the Russians were not to be reasoned with in this way, but maintained that it was hopeless to attempt to sell our carts, and we abandoned the idea. We happened, however, to mention the subject to some Chinese in Maimachin, and having persuaded them to come to Troitskosarfsk, and see the articles, we concluded a bargain, on the eve of our departure, for sixty-five roubles, about half what they cost.

It was necessary to our comfort to purchase a tarantass, or large travelling carriage. It was possible to travel without one, using the kibitka, or small carriage, provided at the post-stations; but that mode of travelling involved the annoyance of changing at every station, which, with our huge amount of baggage, would have been intolerable. We had some trouble to find a tarantass, and when we had got one it was not quite what it should have been—indeed we should have done better to have used the post kibitkas as far as Irkutsk, and bought a tarantass there, where we would have had a better selection.

In Maimachin we purchased some goat skins, with hair twelve inches long. These we had sown together into a sack for each of us to put our legs into when sitting in the carriage; a very simple contrivance, well worthy of the attention of all travellers in those regions in cold weather, and which contributed in no small degree to our comfort on the road.

The remnant of our stores, &c., tent, saddles, and such like, had to be abandoned in Kiachta, and we could only make room in the tarantass for a little brandy, and some tins of bacon, and smoked tongues. Hitherto we had trusted nothing to the chance supplies of provisions that might be found on the road; but now, being in a civilised (?) country, we depended solely on its resources, such as they were.

We had no trouble with our papers in Kiachta, and our luggage was never looked at; neither did we require to take out a Russian passport, but merely had to get our Peking ones visÉd for Irkutsk by the master of police, which formality enabled us to obtain from the chief of the posts a padaroshna, or pass for post-horses, which are entirely under Government control. In addition to this, Mr. Pfaffius supplied us with a special pass, to give greater effect to the padaroshna, and to ensure us proper attention from the various station masters as far as Irkutsk. This document was to be exchanged for a similar one, which we hoped to obtain from the higher authorities at the provincial capital. We experienced the greatest civility and ready assistance from all the Russian officials with whom we came in contact in Kiachta, and the bugbear of troublesome interference by the authorities vanished away.

We soon got tired waiting for better news of the state of the roads between us and Lake Baikal, and determined to start on the 7th of October at all hazards. The steady frosty weather, with occasional falls of snow, gave us warning of winter, and of the uncertainty of getting our heavy carriage over half-frozen rivers. Every day was important at such a critical season, and the motherly counsels of the good old lady we were living with, to postpone our journey till December, when the snow roads would be in perfect order, only made us the more impatient to be off. Had we stayed another day we might have been tempted to give ear to these reiterated remonstrances against tempting Providence by starting at such a time.

Some hours were occupied in loading our tarantass, for we discovered to our dismay that the machine, large as it was, was still too small for our baggage and ourselves. After several attempts to dovetail unwieldy boxes into corners and use up all smaller articles as broken stowage, we eventually succeeded, between the inside and the outside of the machine, to get everything on board, and with a severe struggle we squeezed ourselves in, horizontally, between the baggage and the hood of the conveyance. Our padaroshna was for three horses, but when the driver brought them to be harnessed, and saw the load he had to drag, he at once protested against going with less than four. We felt that he was quite right, but to establish a character it was necessary that we should be firm at the outset. To have admitted the necessity for four horses would have exposed us to all manner of impositions at the successive stations, where our ignorance of Russ would have placed us at the mercy of every ruffian of a postmaster. With great misgivings, therefore, we started with our three horses, driven by a Bouriat yemschik. The tarantass is a strong roughly made four-wheeled carriage, placed on poles, which rest across the two axletrees. The poles are made of soft wood, but have some spring in them, and the tarantass is at least more comfortable on rough roads than a Chinese two-wheeled cart. The hood comes well forward, and with an apron that comes up nearly to the top, and a curtain that can be let down from the front of the hood, the tarantass can be pretty well closed in.

The "horses" are only ponies, a little over thirteen hands high, strong shaggy little brutes, full of beans and of great endurance. They are harnessed, or rather tied, to the vehicle, or, as the Russians like to call it, the equipage, in the loosest possible manner. A stout steady one is put in the shafts without any traces, the collar being secured to the forward part of the shafts by strong leather bands. A wooden tree arched over the collar and fixed to the shafts by its two ends, has a bearing rein running from the top, and kept rather tight on the horse's mouth. A bell is also suspended from the top of this cumbrous-looking apparatus, which denotes to all whom it may concern that it jingles over a post-horse. The bell is an intolerable nuisance on the road, but it is of some use in arriving at a station to announce the important event to the station-keeper, who peradventure may be asleep.

The other horses are attached by rope traces to the axletrees, or any part of the outside of the tarantass which may be available for making fast a rope. Each horse is independent of the others, and any, except the middle one, may get off the road, kick, fall, or do what he likes, without disturbing the general equilibrium. The favourite number of horses in Russia is three, which they call a troilki—they all go abreast, whether the number be two or six. Everything about the "turn out" is of the loosest and rudest construction—the wheels have plenty of scope, and oscillate three or four inches on the axle, so as to be easily oiled. Something is constantly going wrong—the wonder is that the whole arrangement does not break down on the road beyond the hope of remedy; but the Russians are very clever at making shifts, and with the constant demands that are made on their resources, their talents are kept in full exercise.