I remained in Irkutsk until snow fell, and the winter roads were suitable for travel.  One day the moving portion of the city was on wheels:  the next saw it gliding on runners.  The little sleighs of the isvoshchiks are exactly like those of St. Petersburg and Moscow,—­miniature affairs where you sit with your face within six inches of the driver’s back, and cannot take a friend at your side without much crowding.  They move rapidly, and it is a fortunate provision that they are cheap.  In all large cities and towns of Russia many isvoshchiks go to spend the winter.  With a horse and little sleigh and a cash capital sufficient to buy a license, one of these enterprising fellows will set up in business.  Nobody thinks of walking in Moscow or St. Petersburg, unless his journey or his purse is very short.  It is said there are thirty thousand sleighs for public hire in St. Petersburg alone, during the winter months, and two-thirds that number in Moscow.  The interior towns are equally well supplied in proportion to their population.

One may naturally suppose that accidents are frequent where there are many vehicles and fast driving is the fashion.  Accidents are rare from the fact that drivers are under severe penalties if they run over any one.  Furthermore the horses are quick and intelligent, and being driven without blinkers, can use their eyes freely.  To my mind this plan is better than ours, and most foreigners living in Russia are inclined to adopt it.  Considered as an ornament a blinker decorates a horse about as much as an eye shade does a man.

With the first fall of snow, I began preparations for departure.  I summoned a tailor and gave orders for a variety of articles in fur and sheep-skin for the road.  He measured me for a coat, a cap, a pair of stockings, and a sleigh robe, all in sheep-skin.  He then took the size of my ears for a pair of lappets, and proposed fur socks to be worn under the stockings.  When the accumulated result of his labors was piled upon the floor of my room, I was alarmed at its size, and wondered if it could ever be packed in a single sleigh.  Out of a bit of sable skin a lady acquaintance constructed a mitten for my nose, to be worn when the temperature was lowest.  It was not an improvement to one’s personal appearance though very conducive to comfort.

To travel by peraclodnoi (changing the vehicle at every station) is bad enough in summer but ten times bad in winter.  To turn out every two or three hours with the thermometer any distance below zero, and shift baggage and furs from one sleigh to another is an absolute nuisance.  Yery few persons travel by peraclodnoi in winter, and one does not find many sleighs at the post stations from the fact that they are seldom demanded.  Nearly all travelers buy their sleighs before starting, and sell them when their journeys are ended.