only that the snow lying on the ground
continually, and the weather being clear, it was never quite dark. Our
horses were kept (or rather starved) under ground; and as for our
servants, (for we hired servants here to look after our horses and
ourselves) we had every now and then their fingers and toes to thaw, and
take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off.

It is true, within doors we were warm, the houses being close, the walls
thick, the lights small, and the glass all double. Our food was chiefly
the flesh of deer, dried and cured in the season; good bread enough, but
baked as biscuits; dried fish of several sorts, and some flesh of
mutton, and of buffaloes, which is pretty good beef. All the stores of
provision for the winter are laid up in the summer, and well cured. Our
drink was water mixed with aqua vitae instead of brandy; and, for a
treat, mead instead of wine; which, however, they have excellent good.
The hunters, who ventured abroad all weathers, frequently brought us in
fresh venison, very fat and good; and sometimes bear's flesh, but we did
not much care for the last. We had a good stock of tea, with which we
treated our friends as above; and, in a word, we lived very cheerfully
and well, all things considered.

It was now March, and the days grown considerably longer, and the
weather at least tolerable; so other travellers began to prepare sledges
to carry them over the snow, and to get things ready to be going; but my
measures being fixed, as I have said, for Archangel, and not for Muscovy
or the Baltic, I made no motion, knowing very well, that the ships from
the south do not set out for that part of the world till May or June;
and that if I was there at the beginning of August, it would be as soon
as any ships would be ready to go away; and therefore, I say, I made no
haste to be gone, as others did; in a word, I saw a great many people,
nay, all the travellers, go away before me. It seems, every year they go
from thence to Moscow for trade; viz. to carry furs, and buy necessaries
with them, which they bring back to furnish their shops; also others
went on the same errand to Archangel; but then they also, being to come
back again above eight hundred miles, went all out before me.

In short, about the latter end of May I began to make all ready to pack
up; and as I was doing this, it occurred to me, that seeing all these
people were banished by the czar of Muscovy to Siberia, and yet, when
t