I was not consulted when our telyaga was built, else it would have been wider and longer.  When our small parcels were arranged inside there was plenty of room for one but hardly enough for two.  Borasdine and I were of equal height, and neither measured a hair’s breadth less than six feet.  When packed for riding I came in questionable shape, my body and limbs forming a geometric figure that Euclid never knew.  Notwithstanding my cramped position I managed to doze a little, and contemplated an essay on a new mode of triangulation.  We rattled our bones over the stones and frozen earth, and dragged and dripped through the mud to the first station.  As we reached the establishment our Cossack and driver shouted “courier!” in tones that soon brought the smotretal and his attendants.  They rubbed their half-open eyes and bestirred themselves to bring horses.  The word ‘courier’ invigorates the attaches of a post route, as they well know that the bearer of a courier’s pass must not be delayed.  Ten minutes are allowed for changing a courier’s horses, and the change is often made in six or eight minutes.  The length of a journey depends considerably upon the time consumed at stations.

[Illustration:  A SIBERIAN TARANTASS.]

Here we found a tarantass, neither new nor elegant, but strong and capacious.  We hired it to Nerchinsk, and our Cossack transferred the baggage while four little rats of ponies were being harnessed.  The harness used on this road was a combination of leather and hemp in about equal proportions.  There were always traces of ropes more or less twisted.  It is judicious to carry a quantity of rope in one’s vehicle for use in case of accident.  A Russian yemshick (driver) is quite skillful in repairing breakages if he can find enough rope for his purpose.

The horses, like many other terrestrial things, were better than they appeared, and notwithstanding the bad road they carried us at good speed.  I was told that the horses between Stratensk and Lake Baikal were strangers to corn and oats, and not over familiar with hay.  Those at the post stations must be fed in the stable, but nearly all others hunt their own food.  In summer they can easily do this, but in winter they subsist on the dry grass standing on the hills and prairies.  There is little snow in this region, but when it falls on the pastures the horses scrape it away to reach the grass.  They are never blanketed, in the coldest weather, and the only brushing they receive is when they run among bushes.

In the government of Yakutsk there are many horses that find their own living in winter as in summer.  They eat grass, moss, fish, bushes, and sometimes the bark of trees.  Captain Wrangell tells of the great endurance of these beasts, and says that like all other animals of that region they shed their coats in the middle of summer.