From San Francisco to the mouth of the Amoor I did not see a wheeled vehicle, with the exception of a hand cart and a dog wagon.  At Nicolayevsk there were horses, carts, and carriages, and I had my first experience of a horse harnessed with the Russian yoke.  The theory of the yoke is, that it keeps the shafts away from the animal’s sides, and enables him to exert more strength than when closely hedged.  I cannot give a positive opinion on this point, but believe the Russians are correct.  The yoke standing high above the horse’s head and touching him nowhere, has a curious appearance when first seen.  I never could get over the idea while looking at a dray in motion, that the horse was endeavoring to walk through an arched gateway and taking it along with him.

The shafts were wide apart and attached by straps to the horse’s collar.  All the tension came through the shafts, and these were strengthened by ropes that extended to the ends of the forward axle.  Harnesses had a shabby, ‘fixed up’ appearance, with a good deal of rope in their composition.  Why they did not go to pieces or crumble to nothing, like the deacon’s One Horse Shay, was a mystery.

Before leaving Nicolayevsk I enjoyed a ride in one of its private carriages.  The vehicle was open, its floor quite low, and the wheels small.  We had two horses, one between the shafts and wearing the inevitable yoke.  The other was outside, and attached to an iron single-tree over the forward wheel.  Three horses can be driven abreast on this kind of carriage.

The shaft horse trotted, while the other galloped, holding his head very low and turned outward.  This is due to a check rein, which keeps him in a position hardly natural.  The orthodox mode in Russia is to have the shaft horse trotting while the other runs as described; the difference in the motion gives an attractive and dashy appearance to the turnout.  Existence would be incomplete to a Russian without an equipage, and if he cannot own one he keeps it on hire.  The gayety of Russian cities in winter and summer is largely due to the number of private vehicles in constant motion through the streets.

[Illustration:  TAIL PIECE—­NATIVE WOMAN]

CHAPTER XI.

I arranged to ascend the Amoor on the steamer Ingodah, which was appointed to start on the eighteenth of September.  My friend Anossoff remained at Nicolayevsk during the winter, instead of proceeding to Irkutsk as I had fondly hoped.  I found a compagnon du voyage in Captain Borasdine, of General Korsackoff’s staff.  In a drenching rain on the afternoon of the seventeenth, we carried our baggage to the Ingodah, which lay half a mile from shore.  We reached the steamer after about twenty minutes pulling in a whale-boat and shipping a barrel of water through the carelessness of an oarsman.

At Nicolayevsk the Amoor is about a mile and a half wide, with a depth of twenty to thirty-five feet in the channel.  I asked a resident what he thought the average rapidity of the current in front of the town.