“On the 8th February, I started. I had on three shirts, one of which, a coloured one, was put over the trousers of thick cloth, and over all, a small burnous (armiack) of sheepskin, well greased with tallow, and coming down to my knees. Large riding boots, well tarred, completed my costume. Around my waist I wore a large sash of white, red, and black wool, and on my wig a round cap of red velvet, trimmed with fur, such as is worn by a well-to-do peasant of Siberia on holidays, or by a travelling merchant. I was moreover well wrapped in a large pelisse, the collar of which being turned up and fastened by a handkerchief tied round it, had as much the effect of keeping out the cold as of hiding my face. A small bag which I carried contained a second pair of boots, a fourth shirt, a pair of blue summer trousers, according to the custom of the country, some bread and some dried fish. In the leg of the right boot, I had concealed a large dagger. The money, which was in notes of five or ten roubles, I placed in my waistcoat, and in my hands, which were covered with large skin gloves, with the hair outside, I carried a formidable, knotty stick.
“So rigged out, at night I quitted the establishment of Ekaterininski-Zavod, by a small by-path. It froze very hard, and the flying sleet glistened in the moonbeams. I had soon passed my Rubicon, the Irtiche, and hurrying rapidly forward, I took the road to Tara, a village twelve kilometres distant from my place of detention. ‘Winter nights,’ I thought to myself, ‘are very long in Siberia: how far can I go before day-break, and before my escape is signalled? What will become of me afterwards?’
“I had scarcely passed the Irtiche, when I heard behind me the sound of a sleigh. I shivered, but resolved on waiting for the nocturnal traveller, and, as it has happened to me more than once during my dangerous peregrination, what I most dreaded as a peril, became a quite unexpected means of escape.
“On the peasant asking me where I was going, I replied ‘To Tara.’
“ ‘Where are you from?’
“ ‘The village of Zalivina.’
“ ‘Give me sixty kopeks (ten sous), and I will take you to Tara, where I am going myself.’
“ ‘No, it’s too much; fifty kopeks if you like.’
“ ‘Very well; get up at once.’
“I took my place next to him; we started at a gallop, and in half an hour were at Tara. Left alone, I asked, according to the Russian custom, at the first house I saw, if I could get any horses.