The station-master at Kluchi, to whom I had been recommended, like many other subordinate officials in Siberia, was an exile, who in better days had been a captain in the artillery, and, moreover, the cashier of his regiment. One fine day, in a fit of over-generosity, he unluckily lent a sum of money, abstracted from the cash-box, to a comrade who had lost very considerably at the gaming-tables. Fate avenged the regiment in the shape of an inspector, who inopportunely arrived upon the scene, examined into affairs, and forthwith ended the military career of the unlucky officer. After fourteen years’ exile in Siberia this indiscriminately good-natured individual has become chief inspector of a little railway-station, and adds to his small income by letting out tarantasses to travellers. He sold me for £18 the best of his vehicles, which, I was assured, had recently been used by a distinguished official, but, nevertheless, I had to get rid of it, when I took the steamer on the Amur two months later, for about £7. Jules Verne, in ‘Michael Strogoff,’ has introduced and popularized the tarantass. It is a vehicle without springs, with a body about six feet long, like a trough supported on three broad planks of wood, and mounted upon two very low axles nine to ten feet apart. An immense hood protects the back part of the carriage from the rain, and by buttoning the leathern apron fixed to the front, one can keep one’s self almost hermetically screened from the weather. The tarantass, if it is not particularly comfortable, has the advantage of being very strong. It possesses nothing in the shape of a seat, and one is obliged to lie full-length on a litter of hay or upon the luggage, unless, indeed, from time to time, in order to change position, one cares to sit on the edge of the vehicle or else alongside the coachman. The horses are supplied by the postmasters at the rate of three kopecks, or three farthings, per verst for each horse, and, moreover, one has to pay a fixed tax of about fivepence per horse at each relay. The team consists usually of three horses, and the relays are found at a distance of about sixteen miles apart. The expenses, therefore, for this short distance amount to about five shillings, inclusive of a tip to the coachman, so that there is not much to complain of in that respect. The same tariff applies in winter, but in the intermediary seasons, from March 5 to May 15, and from September 15 to December 1, when the thaw sets in and the roads are very heavy, a fourth horse is needed, and the expense is increased about one quarter. I used frequently to ask Siberians how many miles could be performed in this sort of vehicle. Of course, almost everybody gave me a different answer. One high official in Tomsk informed me that it could undertake as many as 400 versts in twenty-four hours. ‘Do not imagine you can go more than from sixty-five to eighty,’ said the station-master, and as it was he who had sold me my tarantass, I came to