ed as a treat, and wines
and groceries have to pay a land carriage of seven thousand miles.

Here, too, the people drink tea in the style in which it was introduced
in more primitive days into Europe. It is of the kind known as brick
tea, being made up in cakes, and is consumed in great quantities by the
lower orders in Siberia, being made into a thick soup, with the addition
of butter and salt.

On the 27th of the month, they began their journey across Siberia. After
leaving the shore, and boating the river Ochota, to an encampment where
they were to meet their horses, hired at the rate of forty-five rubles a
horse, on an agreement to be conveyed to Yakutsh in eighteen days, they
struck into the country, which exhibited forests of pine, their progress
being about four or five miles an hour. The Yakuti appear to be very
industrious; young and old, male and female, being always occupied in
some useful employment. When not engaged in travelling or farming, men
and boys make saddles, harness, &c.; while the women and girls keep
house, dress skins, prepare clothing, and attend to the dairy. They are
also remarkably kind to strangers, for milk and cream, the best things
they had to give, were freely offered in every village. This was the
10th of July, yet the snow was still partially lying on the ground. From
day to day they met caravans of horses; and one day they were startled
by the shouts of a party at the head of them. Their next sight was a
herd of cattle running wildly in all directions, and the cause was seen
in a huge she-bear and her cub moving off at a round trot. On this
route, the bears are both fierce and numerous. The country had now
become more fertile; there was no want of flowering plants, and the
forests were enlivened by the warbling of birds, which, contrasted as it
was with the deathlike silence of the American woods, was peculiarly
grateful to the ear. In the course of the day, the vexatious incident
occurred of meeting the courier, with the letters from England, which
had been looked for so anxiously on the arrival of the travellers in
Siberia; but the bags of course could not be opened on the road.

The presence of the Cossack, who attended the party, was of great
importance in quickening the movements of the natives; but they seemed
kind and good-natured, full of civility to the strangers, and not
without some degree of education. The Yakuti have a singular mode of
estimating distances. In Germany