At length, after a journey of four hundred versts, Orenburg was reached. At this frontier town, situated almost on the verge of civilization, our traveller was compelled to make a short sojourn. He had letters of introduction to present, which procured him some useful friends; a servant to engage, provisions to purchase, information to collect about the route to Khiva, and his English gold and notes to convert into Russian coin. Through the good offices of a Moslem gentleman, he was able to engage a Tartar, named Nazar—not five feet high—as a servant; and after some delay he obtained from the military chief a podorojoraya, or passport, as far as Kasala, or Fort No. 1. This pass ran as follows: “By the order of His Majesty the Emperor Alexander, the son of Nicolas, Autocrat of the whole of Russia, etc., etc. From the town of Orsk to the town of Kasala, to the Captain of the English service, Frederick, the son of Gustavus Burnaby, to give three horses, with a driver, for the legal fare, without delay. Given in the town of Orenburg, 15th December, 1875.” The next day, Frederick, “the son of Gustavus Burnaby,” with his Tartar servant, took their departure from Orenburg, and in a few minutes were trotting along the frozen surface of the river Ural. Every now and then they fell in with a caravan of rough, shaggy, undersized camels, drawing sleighs laden with cotton from Tashkent; or a Cossack galloped by, brandishing his long spear; or a ruddy-faced Kirghiz slowly caracolled over the shining snow. Three stations were passed in safety, and Burnaby resolved on halting at the fourth, Krasnojorsk, for refreshment. But as the afternoon closed in, the Tartar driver began to lash his weary jades impatiently; as an excuse for his vehemence, pointing to the clouds that were rising before them, and the signs of a gathering snowstorm. Soon the air was filled with flakes; the darkness rapidly increased; the driver lost his way, and, at length, the team came to a standstill, breast deep in a snow-drift. What was to be done? It was equally impossible to go forward or to return; there was no wood in the neighbourhood with which to kindle a fire, no shovel with which to make a snow house; nothing could the belated wayfarer do but endure the bitter cold and the silent darkness, and wait for morning. Burnaby suffered much from the exposure, but the great difficulty was to prevent himself from yielding to the fatal lethargy which extreme cold induces—from falling into that sleep which turns inevitably into death. How he rejoiced when the day broke, and he was able to despatch the driver on one of the horses for assistance; and how he rejoiced when the man returned with three post horses and some peasants, and the road was regained, and the journey resumed, and the station reached at last! There they rested and refreshed themselves, before, with invigorated spirits, they dashed once again into the snow-bound depths of the steppes.