Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/83

Rh out of the encircling arm of the breakwater, started up the lake.

Our fellow-passengers did not number more than twenty or thirty, and most of them seemed to be traveling third class on deck. The only persons who interested me were three or four Chinese traders, in their characteristic national dress, who spoke funny "pigeon Russian," and who were on their way to Kiákhta with about a thousand pounds of medicinal deer-horns.

The eastern coast of the lake, as we steamed slowly northward, became lower, less mountainous, and less picturesque, and before dark the high, snow-covered peaks that we had seen from Lístvinichnaya vanished in the distance behind us. We arrived off Boyárskaya about six o'clock in the evening, but to our great disappointment were unable to land. A strong breeze was blowing down the lake, it was very dark, and the sea was so high that the captain could not get alongside the unsheltered wharf. He made three unsuccessful attempts, and then ran out into the lake and

anchored. We spent a very uncomfortable night on narrow benches in our prison cell of a stateroom, while the small steamer rolled and plunged on the heavy sea, and we were more than glad when morning finally dawned and the