rye-bread, another bag filled with cakes of frozen soup, two or three pounds of tea, a conical loaf of white sugar, half a dozen dried and smoked salmon, and a padded box containing teapot, tea-cannister, sugar-jar, spoons, knives and forks, and two glass tumblers.  Schwartz; and Malchanski bought another pavoska and fitted it up in similar fashion, and on the 19th of November we obtained from the Bureau of Posts two podorozhnayas, or, as Price called them, “ukases,” directing every post-station master between Yakutsk and Irkutsk to furnish us, “by order of his Imperial Majesty Alexander Nikolaivitch, Autocrat of All the Russias,” etc., etc., six horses and two drivers to carry us on our way.

In every part of the world except Siberia it is customary to start on a long journey in the morning.  In Siberia, however, the proper time is late in the evening, when all your friends can conveniently assemble to “provozhat,” or, in colloquial English, give you a send-off.  Judging from our experience in Yakutsk, the Siberian custom has the support of sound reason, inasmuch as the amount of drinking involved in the riotous ceremony of “provozhanie” unfits a man for any place except bed, and any occupation more strenuous than slumber.  A man could never see his friend off in the morning and then go back to his business.  He would see double, if not quadruple, and would hardly be able to speak his native language without a foreign accent.  When the horses came from the post-station for us, at ten o’clock on the evening of November 20th, we had had one dinner and two or three incidental lunches; had “sampled” every kind of beverage that our host had in the house, from vodka and cherry cordial to “John Collins” and champagne; had sung all the songs we knew, from “John Brown’s Body” in English to “Nastoichka travnaya” in Russian; and Schwartz and Malchanski were ready, apparently, to make a night of it, send the horses back to the station, and have another provozhanie the next day.  Price and I, however, insisted that the Czar’s ukase to the station-masters was good only for that evening; that if we didn’t take the horses immediately we should have to pay demurrage; that the curfew bell had rung; that the town gates would close at ten thirty sharp; and that if we didn’t get under way at once, we should probably be arrested for riotous disturbance of the peace!

We put on our kukhlankas and fur hoods at last; shook hands once more all around; and finally got out into the street;—­Malchanski dragging Schwartz off to his sleigh singing the chorus of a Russian drinking song that ended in “Ras-to-chee’-tel-no!  Vos-khe-tee’-tel-no!  Oo-dee-vee’-tel-no!” We then drank a farewell stirrup cup, which our bareheaded host brought out to us after we had taken our seats, and were just about to start, when Baron Maidel shouted to me, with an air of serious concern, “Have you got a club—­for the drivers and station-masters?”