Having dined we visited the post-station and ordered horses sent to the house of our host.  The servants filled our tarantass with baggage, while their master filled us with champagne.  The vehicle displayed the best carrying capacity, as it had room for more when our hearts were too full for utterance, save in a half breathed sigh.

We rattled out of Kaporaki’s yard and down to the Nertcha, where we had a ferry-boat like the one at Stratensk, though a little larger.  The horses were detached and remained on the bank until the tarantass was safely on board.  There was not much room for them, but they managed to find standing places.

By the time we were over the river it was night, and the sentinel stars had set their watch in the sky.  We found the road an unpleasant combination of snow, dirt, and water.  We had four weak little horses, and the driver told us they had made one journey to the station and back again since morning.

In the Russian posting system the horses carry loads only one way.  The driver takes your vehicle to the station, where he is allowed to rest himself and horses one hour and then starts on his return.  In ordinary seasons when the traveling is good, each team of horses will make two round trips in twenty-four hours.  This gives them from fifty to seventy miles daily travel, half of it without load and at a gentle pace.

After the third station the road improved, the snow and mud diminishing and leaving a comparatively dry track.  The stations were generally so uncomfortably hot as to put me in a perspiration, and I was glad to get out of doors.  The temperature was about 70 deg.  Fahrenheit, and the air at night contained odors from the breath and boots of dormant moujiks.  The men sleep on the floor and benches, but the top of the stove is the favorite couch.  The stove is of brick as already described, and its upper surface is frequently as wide as a common bed.  Sometimes the caloric is a trifle abundant, but I have rarely known it complained of.

[Illustration:  FAVORITE BED.]

I could never clearly understand the readiness and ability of the Russians to endure contrasts of heat and cold with utter complacence and without apparent ill effect.  I have seen a yemshick roused at midnight from the top of a stove where he was sleeping in a temperature of eighty-five or ninety degrees.  He made his toilet by tightening his waist-belt and putting on his boots.  When the horses were ready he donned his cap and extra coat, thrust his hands into mittens, and mounted the front of a sleigh.  The cold would be anywhere from ten to fifty degrees below zero, but the man rarely appeared to suffer.  In severe weather I hesitated to enter the stations on account of the different temperature of the house and the open air, but the Russians did not seem to mind the sudden changes.