From Pekin to Calais by land . e too quickfor us, for just as we were moving off, two of themcaught sight of the tarantass, and, dashing throughthe crowd, leapt in, to accompany us, Siberianfashion, to the outskirts of the town. One of themhad concealed a bottle of vodka, which he producedwhen we reached the town-gates, and insisted onour drinking with him and his friend. But we werefirm, and they very drunk, so we soon managed togive them the slip. They were sitting in theroad, the last we saw of them, embracing eachother, the empty vodka bottle beside them. It was growing dusk as we left Kia
From Pekin to Calais by land . e too quickfor us, for just as we were moving off, two of themcaught sight of the tarantass, and, dashing throughthe crowd, leapt in, to accompany us, Siberianfashion, to the outskirts of the town. One of themhad concealed a bottle of vodka, which he producedwhen we reached the town-gates, and insisted onour drinking with him and his friend. But we werefirm, and they very drunk, so we soon managed togive them the slip. They were sitting in theroad, the last we saw of them, embracing eachother, the empty vodka bottle beside them. It was growing dusk as we left Kiakhta ;but the cool night-air, rapid motion, and ex-hilarating jingle of the bells as the three sturdylittle horses tore along the hard, level road, sooncleared the cobwebs from our brain, and madeone forget the scenes of debauch of the pastthree days. The entertainments we had attendedleft the same impression on my mind as a head-feast I once witnessed in Central Borneo—a kind ofwonder that human beings, however KIAKHTA TO IRKOUTSK. 353 could become so animal, not to say bestial, intheir minds and habits. I have not exaggeratedthe state of things at Kiakhta, though must, injustice, add that it was the most dissolute anddrunken place we came across. Some excuse, too,must be made for people living in a land with suchsqualid, depressing surroundings, and having abso-lutely no intellectual pursuits. There are two roads from Kiakhta to LakeBaikal; one the old post-road, the other a privateone, made and used by the tea-merchants, or by thosehaving their permission. The latter is a hundredand eighty versts shorter than the old governmentpost-road. By the intervention of Herr R., we werepermitted to use the private road, and luckily, forwe had but three days before us to catch the steam-boat at Moushafskaya, on the eastern shore of thelake. We reached the first stage, twenty versts fromKiakhta, just before midnight. Here we first beganto taste the delights of Siberian p
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