One of the gentlemen I met at dinner had a passion for trotting horses.  He asked me many questions about the famous race horses in America, from Lady Suffolk down to the latest two-twenties.  I answered to the best of my abilities, but truth required me to say I was not authority in equine matters.  The gentleman treated me to a display of trotting by a Siberian horse five years old, and carefully trained.  I forget the exact figures he gave me, but believe they were something like two-thirty to the mile.  To my unhorsy eye, the animal was pretty, and well formed, and I doubt not he would have acquitted himself finely on the Bloomingdale Road.  The best horses in Siberia are generally from European Russia, the Siberian climate being unfavorable to careful breeding.  Kirghese horses are excellent under the saddle, but not well reputed for draught purposes.

I gave out some washing at Barnaool, and accidentally included a paper collar in the lot.  When the laundress returned the linen, she explained with much sorrow the dissolution of the collar when she attempted to wash it.  I presume it was the first of its kind that ever reached the Altai mountains.

[Illustration:  MAKING EXPLANATION.]

We arranged to leave Barnaool at the conclusion of the dinner at the club room.  First we proceeded to the house of Colonel Taskin where we took ‘positively the last’ glass of champagne.  Our preparations at our lodgings were soon completed, and the baggage carefully stowed.  A party of our acquaintances assembled to witness our departure, and pass through a round of kissing as the yemshick uttered ‘gotovey.’  They did not make an end of hand-shaking until we were wrapped and bundled into the sleigh.

It was a keen, frosty night with the stars twinkling in the clear heavens as we drove outside the yard of our hotel.  Horses, driver, and travelers were alike exhilarated in the sharp atmosphere and we dashed off at courier pace.  The driver was a musical fellow, and endeavored to sing a Russian ballad while we were galloping over the glistening snow.

We had a long ride before us.  The wide steppe of Baraba, or Barabinsky, lies between Barnaool and the foot of the Ural mountains.  There was no town where we expected to stop before reaching Tumen, fifteen hundred versts away.  As the luxuries of life are not abundant on this road we stored our sleighs with provisions, and hoped to add bread and eggs at the stations.  Our farewell dinner was considered a sufficient preparation for at least a hundred and fifty versts.  I nestled down among the furs and hay which formed my bed, leaned back upon the pillows and exposed only a few square inches of visage to the nipping and eager air.

A few versts from town we stuck upon an icy bank where the smooth feet of our horses could not obtain holding ground.  After a while we attached one horse to a long rope, and enabled him to pull from the level snow above the bank.  I expected the yemshick would ask us to lighten the sleigh by stepping out of it.  An American driver would have put us ashore without ceremony, but custom is otherwise in Siberia.  Horses and driver are engaged to take the vehicle and its burden to the next station, and it is the traveler’s privilege to remain in his place in any emergency short of an overturn.