. Siberia and the exile system. zero on the fifthdsiy after our departure from Minusinsk, renewed our ac-quaintance with the Tomsk colony of exiles, gave them thelatest news from their friends in the Trans-Baikal and atthe mines of Kara, and then continued our journey home-ward. On the 22d of February—Washingtons birthday—we reached Omsk, stopped there twenty-four hours to restand celebrate, and then went on by what is known as themerchants short cut to Tobolsk. We were again sur-prised in the vicinity of Omsk by the appearance of had of course reconciled our preconceived ideas witht
. Siberia and the exile system. zero on the fifthdsiy after our departure from Minusinsk, renewed our ac-quaintance with the Tomsk colony of exiles, gave them thelatest news from their friends in the Trans-Baikal and atthe mines of Kara, and then continued our journey home-ward. On the 22d of February—Washingtons birthday—we reached Omsk, stopped there twenty-four hours to restand celebrate, and then went on by what is known as themerchants short cut to Tobolsk. We were again sur-prised in the vicinity of Omsk by the appearance of had of course reconciled our preconceived ideas withthe existence of camels in Siberia during the summer, butwe had never stopped to think what became of them in thewinter, and were very much astonished one frosty moon-light night to see three or four of them drawing Kirghissledges. Beyond Omsk we began to meet enormous freight-sledgesof a new type drawn by six or eight horses and loaded withgoods from the Irbit fair. Some of them were as big as a OUR LAST DAYS IN SIBERIA 419. KfRGHIS CAMEL PLEDGES. cottage gable-roof with a little trough-shaped box perchedon the summit for the driver, the merchant, and his great anuual fair at Irbit in Western Siberia is secondin importance only to the world-renowned fair of NizhniNovgorod, and is visited by merchants and traders from 420 SIBEEIA the remotest parts of northern Asia. The freight-sledgesthat go to it and come from it in immense numbers in thelatter part of the winter cnt np the roads in the vicinity ofTiumen and Tobolsk so that they become almost impass-able on account of deep ruts, hollows, and long, dangerousside-hill slides. We capsized twice in this part of the routenotwithstanding the wide spread of our outriggers, and oncewe were dragged in our overturned pavoska down a long,steep hill and badly shaken and bruised before we couldextricate ourselves from our sheepskin bag and crawl and sleep on such a road were of course almost out ofthe question, and I
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