on towards the shores of the frozen sea. Before
the start a pathetic little incident occurred which is indelibly
photographed on my memory. My small supply of reading matter comprised a
"_Daily Mail_ Year Book," and although very loth to part with this I had
not the heart to take it away from a young exile who had become
engrossed in its contents. For the work contained matters of interest
which are usually blacked out by the censor. "I shall learn it all off,
Mr. de Windt," said the poor fellow, as the Chief of Police for a moment
looked away, and I handed him the tiny encyclopaedia. "When we meet again
I shall know it all by heart!" But twelve long years must elapse before
my unhappy friend bids farewell to Verkhoyansk! Nevertheless, the almost
childish delight with which the trifling gift was received would have
been cheaply bought at the price of a valuable library.
CHAPTER VII
THROUGH DARKEST SIBERIA
Let the reader picture the distance, say, from London to Moscow as one
vast undulating plateau of alternate layers of ice and snow, and he has
before him the region we traversed between the so-called towns of
Verkhoyansk and Sredni-Kolymsk. Twelve hundred miles may not seem very
far to the railway passenger, but it becomes a different proposition
when the traveller has to contend against intense cold, scanty shelter,
and last, but not least, sick reindeer. For the first seven or eight
hundred versts we passed through dense forests, which gradually dwindled
away to sparse and stunted shrubs until the timber line was crossed and
vegetation finally disappeared. The so-called _stancias_, filthier, if
possible, than those south of Verkhoyansk, were now never less than two
hundred miles apart. There were also _povarnias_ every eighty miles or
so, but these were often mere shapeless heaps of timber rotting in the
snow. Throughout the whole distance there was no track of any kind and
the sledges were steered like ships at sea, our course being shaped by
compass and an occasional rest-house or _povarnia_, and these were
easily passed unnoticed on a dark night, or after a heavy snow-fall had
concealed their low log walls.
"League on league on league of desolation,
Mile on mile on mile without a change"
aptly describes the long, dreary expanse that stretches from the Yana
River to the Polar Sea, for I doubt if there is a more gloomy, desolate
region on the face of this earth. So sparsely is it peopled th
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