Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/78

62 of Eastern Siberia. It was distant only thirty versts from the village of Selengínsk, through which we must necessarily pass on our way to Kiákhta; we could visit it without much trouble, and we decided, therefore, to make it our first objective point.

There are two routes by which it is possible to go from Irkútsk into the Trans-Baikál. The first and most direct of them follows the river Angará for about forty miles to its source in Lake Baikál, and then crosses that lake to the village of Boyárskaya. The second and longer route leads to Boyárskaya by a picturesque "cornice road," carried with much engineering skill entirely around the southern end of the lake, high above the water, on the slopes and cliffs of the circumjacent mountains. The "round-the-lake" route, on account of the beauty of its scenery, would probably have been our choice had it been open to us; but recent floods had swept away a number of bridges near the southwestern extremity of the lake, and thus for the time had put a stop to all through travel. There remained nothing for us to do, therefore, but to cross the lake by steamer.

In view of the near approach of winter, we decided to leave our heavy tárantás in Irkútsk for sale, and to travel, until snow should fall, in the ordinary wheel vehicles of the country, transferring our baggage from one conveyance to another at every post-station. This course of procedure is known in Siberia as traveling na perekladníkh, or "on transfers," and a more wretched, exasperating, body-bruising, and heart-breaking system of transportation does not anywhere exist. If we could have anticipated one-tenth part of the misery that we were to endure as a result of traveling "on transfers" in the Trans-Baikál, we should never have made the fatal mistake of leaving our roomy and comparatively comfortable tárantás in Irkútsk.

Thursday afternoon, September 24th, we ordered horses, stowed away our baggage in the small, springless vehicle