hours out of the twenty-four without tasting any food whatsoever, and without appearing to suffer any diminution of strength; and the universal opinion seems to be, that the less food they receive on this side of starvation, when travelling, the better. Five of these dogs will draw a sledge carrying three full-grown persons and sixty pounds weight of luggage. When lightly loaded, such a sledge will travel from thirty to forty versts in a day over bad roads and through the deep snow, while on even roads it will accomplish eighty to one hundred and twenty. And herein lies the inestimable value of the Kamtschatkan dogs, for the horse would be useless in sledging: in the deep snow it would sink; and it would be unable, on account of its weight, to cross the rivers and streams which are covered only with a thin sheet of ice. [Illustration: A KAMTSCHATKAN SLEDGE AND TEAM.] But travelling with dogs is by no means easy. Instead of the whip, the driver uses a crooked stick with iron rings, which, by their jingling, supply the leader of the team with the necessary signals. If the dogs show symptoms of relaxing in their efforts, the stick is cast among them to rouse them to greater speed; and the driver dexterously picks it up again as his sledge shoots by. In a snow-storm they keep their master comfortably warm, and will lie round about him quietly for hours. They are experienced weather-prophets too, for if, when resting, they dig holes in the snow, it is a certain sign of a storm. The training of these dogs begins at a very early age. Soon after their birth they are placed with their mother in a deep pit, so as to see neither man nor beast; and after being weaned, they are still condemned to a total exclusion from “the madding crowd.” A probation of six months having expired, they are attached to a sledge with older dogs, and being extremely shy, they run at their very fastest. On returning home they undergo another period of pit-life, until they are considered perfectly trained, and capable of performing a long journey. They are then allowed to enjoy their summer freedom. Such a mode of training may render them docile and obedient, but it renders them also gloomy, mistrustful, and ill-tempered. * * * * * Siberia, so far as the valley of the Lena is concerned, and even eastward to the Kolima and westward to the Yenisei, is inhabited by the bold and vigorous race of the Jakuts. Their number is computed at about 200,000, and they inhabit the extensive but dreary province of Jakutsk, with a chief town of the same name.