ad well groomed and
provided for him that he thought of himself, and recruited his strength
by a hasty meal of bread and meat and a glass of kwass. One hour
afterwards, or at the most two, he resumed with all speed the
interminable road to Irkutsk.

On the 30th of July, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Michael Strogoff,
insensible of every fatigue, arrived at Elamsk. There it became
necessary to give a night's rest to his horse. The brave animal could no
longer have continued the journey. At Elamsk, as indeed elsewhere, there
existed no means of transport,--for the same reasons as at the previous
villages, neither carriages nor horses were to be had.

Michael Strogoff resigned himself therefore to pass the night at Elamsk,
to give his horse twelve hours' rest. He recalled the instructions which
had been given to him at Moscow--to cross Siberia incognito, to arrive
at Irkutsk, but not to sacrifice success to the rapidity of the journey;
and consequently it was necessary that he should husband the sole means
of transport which remained to him.

On the morrow, Michael Strogoff left Elamsk at the moment when the
first Tartar scouts were signaled ten versts behind upon the road to the
Baraba, and he plunged again into the swampy region. The road was
level, which made it easy, but very tortuous, and therefore long. It was
impossible, moreover, to leave it, and to strike a straight line across
that impassable network of pools and bogs.

On the next day, the 1st of August, eighty miles farther, Michael
Strogoff arrived at midday at the town of Spaskoe, and at two o'clock he
halted at Pokrowskoe. His horse, jaded since his departure from Elamsk,
could not have taken a single step more.

There Michael Strogoff was again compelled to lose, for necessary rest,
the end of that day and the entire night; but starting again on the
following morning, and still traversing the semi-inundated soil, on the
2nd of August, at four o'clock in the afternoon, after a stage of fifty
miles he reached Kamsk.

The country had changed. This little village of Kamsk lies, like
an island, habitable and healthy, in the midst of the uninhabitable
district. It is situated in the very center of the Baraba. The
emigration caused by the Tartar invasion had not yet depopulated this
little town of Kamsk. Its inhabitants probably fancied themselves safe
in the center of the Baraba, whence at least they thought they would
have time to flee if they were di