ddles,
while the artillery took only as many rounds as the limber-box
would contain. The expedition was made up of 150 Orenburg Cossacks,
sixty mounted riflemen, and a gun, which was taken more by way of
experiment than for any other reason, the authorities being anxious
to know if artillery could be transported in that direction.

The detachment reached Ak-Tiube in six days without _contretemps_,
after a march of 333 miles, and with the loss of only two lame
horses.

_WINTER IN MOSCOW_

_H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS_

Russia in the summer is no more like Russia in the winter than a
camp in time of peace is like a camp in the presence of the enemy.
Moreover, snow is one of the chief natural productions of the country;
and without it Russia is as uninteresting as an orchard without fruit.
One always thinks of Russia in connection with its frosts, and of
its frosts in connection with such great events as the campaign of
1812, or the winter of 1854 in the Crimea. Accordingly, a foreigner
in Russia naturally looks forward to the winter with much interest,
mingled perhaps with a certain amount of awe. He waits for it,
in fact, as a man waits for a thief, expecting the visitor with
a certain kind of apprehension, and not without a due provision
of life-preservers in the shape of goloshes, seven-leagued boots,
scarves, fur coats, etc.

The house I lived in was in the middle of Moscow; and with the
exception of the stoves, the internal arrangement seemed like that
of most other dwellings in Europe. The Russian stoves, however, are,
in fact, thick hollow party-walls, built of brick, and sometimes
separating, or connecting, as many as three or four rooms, and
heating them all from one common centre. The outer sides of these
lofty intramural furnaces are usually faced with a kind of white
porcelain, though in some houses they are papered like the rest
of the wall, so that the presence of the stove is only known in
summer by two or three apertures like port-holes, which have been
made for the purpose of admitting the hot air, and which, when
there is no heat within, are closed with round metal covers like
the tops of canisters. Sometimes, especially in country houses,
the stove, or _peitchka_ as it is called, is not only a wall, but
a wall which, towards the bottom, projects so as to form a kind
of dresser or sofa, and which the lazier of the inmates use not
infrequently in the latter capacity. In the huts the _peitchka_
is