nd a large fire,
lighted in the centre of the room, and the smoke of which found a vent
through a hole in the roof. They paid no attention to our entrance; but
when I had taken off my cloak, my uniform at once obtained for us the
best place at the hearth. The landlord of this wretched hostelry met my
enquires about supper with a stare of astonishment, and offered me a
huge loaf of hard black bread as the whole contents of his larder. Ivan,
however, presently appeared, having managed to forage out a couple of
fowls, which, in an inconceivably short space of time, were plucked, and
one of them simmering in an iron pot over the fire, while the other hung
suspended by a string in front of the blaze. Supper over, we wrapped
ourselves in our furs, and lay down upon the floor, beds in such a place
being of course out of the question.

Before daybreak, I awoke, and found Ivan and the carriers already afoot,
and in consultation as to the practicability of continuing our journey.
The question was at last decided in favour of the march; the waggoners
hastened to harness their horses, and I went to inspect our carriage,
which the village blacksmith had taken off its wheels and mounted upon a
sledge. Ivan meantime was foraging for provisions, and shortly returned
with a ham, some tolerable bread, and half a dozen bottles of a sort of
reddish brandy, made, I believe, out of the bark of the birch-tree.

At length all was ready, and off we set, our sledge going first,
followed by the carriers' waggons. Our new companions, according to a
custom existing among them, had chosen one of their number as a chief,
whose experience and judgment were to direct the movements of the party,
and whose orders were to be obeyed in all things. Their choice had
fallen on a man named George, whose age I should have guessed to be
fifty, but who, I learned with astonishment, was upwards of seventy
years old. He was a powerful and muscular man, with black piercing eyes,
overhung by thick shaggy eyebrows, which, as well as his long beard,
were of an iron grey. His dress consisted of a woollen shirt and
trousers, a fur cap, and a sheepskin with the wool turned inside. To the
leathern belt round his waist were suspended two or three horse-shoes, a
metal fork and spoon, a long-bladed knife, a small hatchet, and a sort
of wallet, in which he carried pipe, tobacco, flint, steel, nails,
money, and a variety of other things useful or necessary in his mode of
life.