The Angara at Irkutsk is about six hundred yards wide, and flows with a current of six miles an hour.  It varies in height not more than ten or twelve inches during the entire year.  It does not freeze until the middle of January, and opens early in May.  There are two swinging ferries for crossing the river.  A stout cable is anchored in mid-stream, and the ferry-boat attached to its unanchored end.  The slack of the cable is buoyed by several small boats, over which it passes at regular intervals.  The ferry swings like a horizontal pendulum, and is propelled by turning its sides at an angle against the current.  I crossed on this ferry in four minutes from bank to bank.

There are many public carriages in the streets, to be hired at thirty copecks the hour; but the drivers, like their profession everywhere, are inclined to overcharge.  Every one who thinks he can afford it, keeps a team of his own, the horses being generally of European stock.  A few horses have been brought from St. Petersburg; the journey occupies a full year, and the animals, when safely arrived, are very costly.  Private turnouts are neat and showy, and on a fine afternoon the principal drives of the city are quite gay.  General Korsackoff has a light wagon from New York for his personal driving in summer.

I found here a curious regulation.  Sleighs are prohibited by municipal law from carrying bells in the limits of the city.  Reason:  in a great deal of noise pedestrians might be run over.  In American cities the law requires bells to be worn.  Reason:  unless there is a noise pedestrians might be run over.

“You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

Cossack policemen watch the town during the day, and at night there are mounted and foot patrols carrying muskets with fixed bayonets.  Every block and sometimes every house has its private watchman, and at regular intervals during the night you may hear these guardians thumping their long staves on the pavement to assure themselves and others that they are awake.  The fire department belongs to the police, and its apparatus consists of hand engines, water carts, and hook and ladder wagons.  There are several watch towers, from which a semaphore telegraph signals the existence of fire.  An electric apparatus was being arranged during my stay.

During my visit there was an alarm of fire, and I embraced the opportunity to see how the Russians ‘run with the machine.’  When I reached the street the engines and water carts were dashing in the direction of the fire.  The water carts were simply large casks mounted horizontally on four wheels; a square hole in the top served to admit a bucket or a suction hose.  Those carts bring water from the nearest point of supply, which may be the river or an artificial reservoir, according to the locality of the fire.  Engines and carts are drawn by horses, which appear well selected for strength and activity.  All the firemen wore brass helmets.