[Illustration:  OUR FERRY BOAT.]

A wide sand bank where we landed was covered with smooth ice, and I picked my way over it much like a cat exercising on a mirror.  The tarantass was pushed ashore, and as soon as the horses were attached a rapid run took them up the bank to the station.

A temporary track led across a meadow that furnished a great deal of jolting to the mile.  Eight versts from Verkne Udinsk the road divides, one branch going to Kiachta and the other to Lake Baikal and Irkutsk.  A pleasing feature of the route was the well-built telegraph line, in working order to St. Petersburg.  It seemed to shorten the distance between me and home when I knew that the electric current had a continuous way to America.  Puck would put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.  From China to California, more than half the circuit of the globe, we can flash a signal in a second of time, and gain by the hands of the clock more than fourteen hours.

From the point of divergence the road to Kiachta ascends the valley of the Selenga, while that to Irkutsk descends the left bank of the stream.  I found the Kiachta route rougher than any part of the way from Chetah to Verkne Udinsk, and as the yemshick took us at a rattling pace we were pretty thoroughly shaken up.

At the second station we had a dinner of stchee, or cabbage soup, with bread and the caviar of the Selenga.  This caviar is of a golden color and made from the roe of a small fish that ascends from Lake Baikal.  It is not as well liked as the caviar of the Volga and Amoor, the egg being less rich than that of the sturgeon, though about the same size.  If I may judge from what I saw, there is less care taken in its preparation than in that of the Volga.

The road ascended the Selenga, but the valley was so wide and we kept so near its edge that the river was not often visible.  The valley is well peopled and yields finely to the agriculturalist.  Some of the farms appeared quite prosperous and their owners well-to-do in the world.  The general appearance was not unlike that of some parts of the Wabash country, or perhaps better still, the region around Marysville, Kansas.  Russian agriculture does not exhibit the care and economy of our states where land is expensive.  There is such abundance of soil in Siberia that every farmer can have all he desires to cultivate.  Many farms along the Selenga had a ‘straggling’ appearance, as if too large for their owners. Per contra, I saw many neat and well managed homesteads, with clean and comfortable dwellings.

With better implements of husbandry and a more thorough working of the soil, the peasants along the Selenga would find agriculture a sure road to wealth.  Under the present system of cultivation the valley is pleasing to the eye of a traveler who views it with reference to its practical value.  There were flocks of sheep, droves of cattle and horses, and stacks of hay and grain; everybody was apparently well fed and the houses were attractive.  We had good horses, good drivers, and generally good roads for the first hundred versts.  Sometimes we left the Selenga, but kept generally parallel to its course.  The mountains beyond the valley were lofty and clearly defined.  Frequently they presented striking and beautiful scenery, and had I been a skillful artist they would have tempted me to sketch them.