We thawed out over a steaming samovar with plenty of hot tea. The lady of the house brought a bottle of nalifka of such curious though agreeable flavor that I asked of what fruit it was made. “Nothing but orange peel,” was the reply. Every Siberian housewife considers it her duty to prepare a goodly supply of nalifka during the autumn. A glass jar holding two or three gallons is filled to the neck with any kind of fruit or berries, currants and gooseberries being oftenest used. The jar is then filled with native whisky, and placed in a southern window where it is exposed to the sunlight and the heat of the room for ten days. The whisky is then poured off, mixed with an equal quantity of water, placed in a kettle with a pound of sugar to each gallon, and boiled for a few minutes. When cooled and strained it is bottled and goes to the cellar. Many Siberians prefer nalifka to foreign wines, and a former governor-general attempted to make it fashionable. He eschewed imported wine and substituted nalifka, but his example was not imitated to the extent he desired.
Our halt consumed three or four hours. After we started an unfortunate pig was found entangled in the framework of my sleigh, and before we could let him out he was pretty well bruised and shaken up. How he came there we were puzzled to know, but I do not believe he ever willingly troubled a sleigh again.
We encountered many caravans of sleds laden with merchandise. They were made up much like the trains I described between Kiachta and Lake Baikal, there being four or five sleds to each man. The horses generally guided themselves, and followed their leaders with great fidelity. While we were stopping to make some repairs near the foot of a hill, I was interested in the display of equine intelligence. As a caravan reached the top of the hill each horse stopped till the one preceding him had descended. Holding back as if restrained by reins he walked half down the descent, and then finished the hill and crossed the hollow below it at a trot. One after another passed in this manner without guidance, exactly as if controlled by a driver.
I noticed that the horses were quite skillful in selecting the best parts of the road. I have occasionally seen a horse pause when there were three or four tracks through the snow, and make his choice with apparent deliberation. I recollect a school boy composition that declared in its first sentence, ‘the horse is a noble animal,’ but I never knew until I traveled in Siberia how much he is entitled to a patent of nobility.
In the daytime we had little trouble with these caravans, as they generally gave us the road on hearing our bells. If the way was wide the horses usually turned aside of their own accord; where it was narrow they were unwilling to step in the snow, and did not until directed by their drivers. If the latter were dilatory our yemshicks turned aside and revenged themselves by lashing some of the sled horses and all the drivers they could reach. In the night we found more difficulty as the caravan horses desired to keep the road, and their drivers were generally asleep. We were bumped against innumerable sleds in the hours of darkness. The outriggers alone prevented our sleighs going to pieces. The trains going eastward carried assorted cargoes of merchandise for Siberia and China. Those traveling westward were generally loaded with tea in chests, covered with cowhide. The amount of traffic over the principal road through Siberia is very large.
When we halted for dinner I brought a bottle of champagne from, my sleigh. It was the best of the ‘Cliquot’ brand and frozen as solid as a block of ice. It stood half an hour in a warm room before thawing enough to drip slowly into our glasses and was the most perfect champagne frappé I ever saw. A bottle of cognac was a great deal colder than ordinary ice, and when we brought it into the station the moisture in the warm room congealed upon it to the thickness of card-board. After this display I doubted the existence of latent heat in alcohol.
Just as we finished dinner the post with five vehicles was announced. We hastened to put on our furs and sprang into the sleighs with the least possible delay. There was no fear that we should lose the first and second set of horses, but the last one might be taken for the post as the ladies had only a third-class padaroshnia. The yemshicks were as anxious to escape as ourselves, as the business of carrying the mail does not produce navodka. The post between Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk passes twice a week each way, and we frequently encountered it. Where it had just passed a station there was occasionally a scarcity of horses that delayed us till village teams were brought.
A postillion accompanies each convoy, and is responsible for its security. Travelers sometimes purchase tickets and have their vehicles accompany the post, but in so doing their patience is pretty severely taxed. The postillion is a soldier or other government employé, and must be armed to repel robbers. One of these conductors was a boy of fourteen who appeared under heavy responsibility. I watched him loading a pistol at a station and was amused at his ostentatious manner. When the operation was completed he fixed the weapon in his belt and swaggered out with the air of the heavy tragedian at the Old Bowery. Another postillion stuck around with pistols and knives looked like a military museum on its travels.
THE CONDUCTOR.