“Have they anything?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No; nothing but mutton.”  Nothing but mutton! I was entirely reconciled.  When it came I made a fine dinner, but he took very little of it.  There are great flocks of sheep belonging to the Bouriats in Eastern Siberia, and they form the chief support of that people.  Curiously enough the Russians rarely eat mutton, though so abundant around them.  Borasdine told me it seldom appeared on a Siberian table, and I observed that both nobles and peasants agreed in disliking it.  While at dinner we caught sight of a pretty face and figure, more to my fellow traveler’s taste than the piece de resistance of our meal.

After dinner we passed over a hill and entered a level region where we found plenty of mud.  About midnight the yemshick exhibited his skill by driving into a mudhole where there was solid ground on both sides.  We were hopelessly stuck, and all our cries and utterances were of no avail.  The Cossack and the driver could accomplish nothing, and we were obliged to descend from the carriage.  We required our subordinates to put their shoulders to the wheels, though the operation covered them with mud.  While they lifted we shouted to the horses, Borasdine in Russian and I in French and English.

Twenty minutes of this toil accomplished nothing.  Then we unloaded all our baggage down to the smallest articles.  Another effort and we were still in our slough of despond.  I retreated to a neighboring fence and returned with a stout pole.  The Cossack brought another, and we arranged to lift the fore wheels to somewhere near the surface.  It was my duty to urge the horses, and I flattered myself that I performed it.

I had the driver’s whip to assist my utterance; the others lifted, while I struck and shouted.  We had a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, and pulled out of the depths.  I attributed no small part of the success to the effect of American horse-vocabulary upon Russian quadrupeds.  When we reloaded it was refreshing to observe the care with which the Cossack had placed our pillows on the wet ground and piled heavy baggage over them.  Borasdine expressed his objection to this plan in such form that the Cossack was not likely to repeat the operation.

The motion of the tarantass, especially its jolting over the rough parts of the route, gave me a violent headache, the worst I ever experienced.  The journey commenced too abruptly for my system to be reconciled without complaint.  Nearly four months I had been almost constantly on ships and steamboats, all my land riding in that time not amounting to thirty miles.  I came ashore at Stratensk and began travel with a Russian courier over Siberian roads at the worst season of the year.  It was like leaving the comforts of a Fifth Avenue parlor to engage in wood-sawing.  At every bound of the vehicle my brain seemed ready to burst, and I certainly should have halted had we not intended delaying at Chetah.