Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/153

Rh trail. Three days of riding, walking, and climbing over rugged mountains, in a temperature that ranged from zero to ten degrees below, finally exhausted my last reserve of strength; and when we reached the peasant village of Shílkina at a late hour Sunday night, a weak and thready pulse, running at the rate of 120, warned me that I was near

the extreme limit of my endurance. Fortunately the worst part of our journey was over. Ust Kará, the most southerly of the Kará penal settlements, was distant from Shílkina only ten or twelve miles; the trail between the two places presented no unusual difficulties; and about noon on Monday we dismounted from our tired horses in the large village at the mouth of the Kará River, hobbled with stiffened and benumbed legs into the house of a peasant known to our guide, and threw ourselves down to rest.