It included tea from Kiachta, and vodki or native whiskey from Irkutsk.  There are several distilleries in the Trans-Baikal province, but they are unable to meet the demand in the country east of the lake.  From what I saw in transitu the consumption must be enormous.  The government has a tax on vodki equal to about fifty cents a gallon, which is paid by the manufacturers.  The law is very strict, and the penalties are so great that I was told no one dared attempt an evasion of the excise duties, except by bribing the collector.

The hotel was full of people waiting for the boat, and the accommodations were quite limited.  We thought the tarantass preferable to the hotel, and retired early to sleep in our carriage.  A teamster tied his horses to our wheels, and as the brutes fell to kicking during the night, and attempted to break away, they disturbed our slumbers.  I rose at daybreak and watched the yemshicks making their toilet.  The whole operation was performed by tightening the girdle and rubbing the half-opened eyes.

Morning brought no boat.  There was nothing very interesting after we had breakfasted, and as we might be detained there a whole week, the prospect was not charming.  We organized a hunting excursion, Maack with his gun and I with my revolver.  I assaulted the magpies which were numerous and impertinent, and succeeded in frightening them.  Gulls were flying over the lake; Maack desired one for his cabinet at Irkutsk, but couldn’t get him.  He brought down an enormous crow, and an imprudent hawk that pursued a small bird in our vicinity.  His last exploit was in shooting a partridge which alighted, strange to say, on the roof of the hotel within twenty feet of a noisy crowd of yemshicks.  The bird was of a snowy whiteness, the Siberian partridge changing from brown to white at the beginning of winter, and from white to brown again as the snow disappears.

A “soudna” or sailing barge was anchored at the entrance of a little bay, and was being filled with tea to be transported to Irkutsk.  The soudna is a bluff-bowed, broad sterned craft, a sort of cross between Noah’s Ark and a Chinese junk.  It is strong but not elegant, and might sail backward or sidewise nearly as well as ahead.  Its carrying capacity is great in proportion to its length, as it is very wide and its sides rise very high above the water.  Every soudna I saw had but one mast which carried a square sail.  These vessels can only sail with the wind, and then not very rapidly.  An American pilot boat could pass a thousand of them without half trying.

About noon we saw a thin wreath of smoke betokening the approach of the steamer.  In joy at this welcome sight we dined and bought tickets for the passage, ours of the first class being printed in gold, while Evan’s billet for the deck was in Democratic black.  It cost fifteen roubles for the transport of each tarantass, but our baggage was taken free, and we were not even required to unload it.