Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/114



A RIDE THROUGH THE TRANS-BAIKÁL

BOUT nine o'clock Tuesday evening we returned from the lamasery, and at eleven o'clock on the same night we ordered post-horses at Selenginsk and set out for the Russo-Mongolian frontier town of Kiákhta, distant about sixty miles. We ought to have arrived there early on the following morning; but in Siberia, and particularly in the Trans-Baikál, the traveler is always detained more or less by petty unforeseen accidents and misadventures. We were stopped at midnight about six versts from Selengínsk by an unbridged river. Communication between the two shores was supposed to be maintained by means of a karbás, or rude ferryboat; but as this boat happened to be on the other side of the stream, it was of no use to us unless we could awaken the ferryman by calling to him. Singly and in chorus we shouted "Kar-ba-a-a-s!" at short intervals for an hour, without getting any response except a faint mocking echo from the opposite cliffs. Cold, sleepy, and discouraged, we were about to give it up for the night and return to Selengínsk, when we saw the dark outlines of a low, raft-like boat moving slowly up-stream in the shadow of the cliffs on the other side. It was the long-looked-for karbás. In half an hour we were again under way on the southern side of the river, and at three o'clock in the morning we reached the post-station of Povorótnaya. Here, of course, there were no horses. The station-house was already full of travelers asleep on the floor, and there was