Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/380

374 Krasnoyarsk, and learned that for the last thirty versts before reaching the city there was absolutely no snow. Very curiously the snow extended up to the door of the station, and disappeared not more than a yard beyond it! Looking one way there was bare ground; looking the other the road was good for sleighing.

"Over cakes and tea we arranged our programme, which resulted in the ladies leaving their vashok until their return to Irkutsk, and riding into town on a telega. My sleigh and the other were unloaded, the baggage was piled into telegas, the sleighs were mounted on wagons which we

hired from the peasants, and with very little trouble the whole difficulty was adjusted. Altogether we were not at the station more than an hour, and at least half that time was taken for lunch."

Fred asked how it happened that there was good sleighing in one direction and hardly any snow in the other.

"It is a climatic peculiarity," Mr. Hegeman explained, "and is not confined to that locality. You remember I mentioned Chetah, the first provincial capital as you go west from the Amoor River. At Chetah very