n, is one universal covering to nature, by which the hills,
vales, rivers, and lakes are all smooth and hard is a stone, and they run
upon the surface, without any regard to what is underneath.

But I had no occasion to urge a winter journey of this kind. I was bound
to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways: either I must go on
as the caravan went, till I came to Jarislaw, and then go off west for
Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and so on to Dantzic, where I might
possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage; or I must leave the
caravan at a little town on the Dwina, from whence I had but six days by
water to Archangel, and from thence might be sure of shipping either to
England, Holland, or Hamburg.

Now, to go any one of these journeys in the winter would have been
preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would have been frozen up and
I could not get passage; and to go by land in those countries was far
less safe than among the Mogul Tartars; likewise, as to Archangel in
October, all the ships would be gone from thence, and even the merchants
who dwell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the
ships are gone; so that I could have nothing but extremity of cold to
encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie in an empty town
all the winter. Therefore, upon the whole, I thought it much my better
way to let the caravan go, and make provision to winter where I was, at
Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was
sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz. plenty of
provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house, with fuel enough,
and excellent company.

I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved island, where I
never felt cold, except when I had my ague; on the contrary, I had much
to do to bear any clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without
doors, which was necessary for dressing my food, &c. Now I had three
good vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the
feet, and button close to the wrists; and all these lined with furs, to
make them sufficiently warm. As to a warm house, I must confess I
greatly dislike our way in England of making fires in every room of the
house in open chimneys, which, when the fire is out, always keeps the air
in the room cold as the climate. So I took an apartment in a good house
in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the