INTERIOR OF A RUSSIAN INN.
"We could rely upon the stations for the samovar with hot water, and for bread and eggs," was the reply, "the same as in the tarantasse journey I have already described, but everything else that we wanted had to be carried along. We had our own tea and sugar, likewise our roast-beef, cabbage-soup, and pilmania."
"What is pilmania?"
"The best thing imaginable for this kind of travelling. It consists of a piece of cooked meat—beef or mutton—about the size of a grape, seasoned and wrapped in a thin covering of dough, and then rolled in flour. We had at starting nearly a bushel of these dough-covered meat-balls frozen solid and carried in a bag. When we reached a station where we wished to dine, sup, or breakfast, we ordered the samovar, and said we had pilmania, before getting out of the sleigh. A pot of water was immediately put on the fire and heated to the boiling-point; then a double handful of our pilmania was dropped into the pot, the water was brought to the boil again and kept simmering for a few minutes. The result was a rich meat-soup which Delmonico could not surpass.
"The bag containing the frozen pilmania seemed to be filled with walnuts. Our cabbage-soup was in cakes like small bricks, and our roast-beef resembled red granite. We carved the beef with a hatchet, and then thawed out the slices while waiting for the samovar. We had partridges cooked and frozen. With all the articles I have named for dinner, what more could we wish, especially when we had appetites sharpened by travelling in the keen, pure air of Siberia?"
"Wasn't there danger, while you were in the stations eating your meals, that things would be stolen from the sleigh?" was the next interrogatory by one of the youths.