Diamonds have been sought in the Urals, and the region is said to resemble the diamond districts of Brazil.  They have been found in but a single instance, and there is a suspicion that the few discovered on that occasion were a “plant.”

We remained two days at Ekaterineburg, repairing sleighs and resting from fatigue.  On account of the holidays, we paid double prices for labor, and were charged double by drosky drivers.  At the hotel, the landlord wished to follow the same custom, but we emphatically objected.  A theatrical performance came off during our stay, but we were too weary to witness it.  Near the hotel there was a “live beast show” almost an exact counterpart of what one sees in America.  Music, voluble doorkeepers, gaping crowd of youngsters, and canvas pictures of terrific combats between beasts and snakes, all were there.

According to our custom we prepared to start in the evening for another westward stride.  The thermometer was low enough to give the snow that crisp, metallic sound under the runners only heard in cold weather.  We took tickets for Kazan, and ordered horses at nine o’clock.  As we left the city, we passed between two monument-like posts, marking the gateway.

Two or three versts away, we passed the zavod of Verkne Issetskoi, an immense concern with a population sufficient to found a score of western cities.  In this establishment is made a great deal of the sheet-iron that comes to America.  The material is of so fine a quality that it can be rolled to the thickness of letter paper without breaking.  Every thing at the zavod is on a grand scale even to the house of the director, and his facilities for entertaining guests.  All was silent at the time of our passage, the workmen being busy with their Christmas festivities.

Leaving the zavod we were once more among the forests of the Urals, and riding over the low hills that form this part of the range.  The road was good, but there were more oukhabas than suited my fancy.

I was on constant lookout for the steep road leading over the range, but failed to find it.  Before leaving New York a friend suggested that I should have a severe journey over the Ural mountains which were deeply shaded on the map we consulted.  I can assure him it was no worse than a sleigh ride anywhere else on a clear, frosty night.  The ascent is so gradual that one does not perceive it at all.  Ekaterineburg stands eight hundred feet above the sea; the pass, twenty-four miles distant, is only nine hundred feet higher.  The range is depressed at this point, but nowhere attains sufficient loftiness to justify its prominence on the maps.  In Ekaterineburg I asked for the mountains.

“There they are,” said the person of whom I enquired, and he waved his hand toward a wooded ridge in the west.  The designated locality appeared less difficult of passage than the hills opposite Cincinnati.

“Don’t fail to tell the yemshick to stop at the boundary.”  This was my injunction several times repeated as we changed horses at the first station.  Eight or ten versts on our second course, the sleigh halted and the yemshick announced the highest point on the road.