. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across ry cold the weatherturned to warm, and threatened to spoil our provisions as well as the roads. Winter is by far the best time for travelling in Siberia, though atfirst thought one would suppose the summer preferable. In summer theweather is hot, there are clouds of dust when no rain falls, and longstretches of mud when it does; there are swarms and swarms of mos-quitoes, flies, and all sorts of winged things that trouble traveller andhorse
. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across ry cold the weatherturned to warm, and threatened to spoil our provisions as well as the roads. Winter is by far the best time for travelling in Siberia, though atfirst thought one would suppose the summer preferable. In summer theweather is hot, there are clouds of dust when no rain falls, and longstretches of mud when it does; there are swarms and swarms of mos-quitoes, flies, and all sorts of winged things that trouble traveller andhorses to a terrible degree. There is one kind of fly that drives the horsesinto a frenzy, so tliat they sometimes break away from the carriages or be-come unmanageable. A Russian gravely told me that this Siberian horse-fly could bite through an iron stove-pipe without hurting his teeth, butIm inclined to doubt it. SLEIGHING ON BARE GROUND. 373 Then, too, there are many streams to be crossed by fording or ferry-ing, and often there are long delays at the ferries. Fresh provisions canonly be carried for a day or two at most, and a traveller must load his. SOLDIERS IN SIBERIAN FERRY-BOATS. vehicle with a liberal stock of canned goods or run the risk of a very hardtime. The frost seals up the rivers, causes the mosquitoes, flies, dust, kindred annoyances to disappear, and preserves your provisions for anindeflnite peiiod, except when a thaw comes on. If you ever make ajourney through Siberia, by all means make it in winter. The last hundred miles of our ride, from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk, wasmade over more bare ground than snow. In some places we had five orsix horses to each carriage, and even then our progress was slow. Fort-unately it became cold again, but the sky was cloudless; we longed forsnow to cover the ground and improve the condition of the roads. The last morninof we took breakfast at a station fiftv versts from :374 THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. Krasno
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