the conclusion that his rather dismal prognostic was the true one. As a matter of fact, everything depends upon the condition of the roads, and also as to whether the traveller has supplied himself with a _podorojne_, an official document usually granted to Imperial couriers and to high officials, and which enables its possessor to avoid being detained at the various stations on the road. Fortunately, as I had one of these documents, I was able to make between 90 and 120 miles in twenty-four hours. I cannot describe the scenery by the way as particularly interesting. The road cuts through the forests of pines and larches, and is, as a rule, fairly well kept, and about as broad as the best of our national routes in France. From time to time the wall of verdure opens out to give way to a clearing, along which one perceives rows of wooden houses, indicating the existence of some village or other, the name of which is printed on a post, that also supplies information as to the number of inhabitants of each sex. One soon gets tired of the beauty of the trees, and, to be truthful, also of the rather monotonous convoys of _telegas_ loaded with merchandise, waggons with gold, escorted by soldiers, and of the interminable caravans of emigrants. As one passes the Baikal the road becomes less and less frequented, and more and more monotonous and dreary, especially in the dismal steppe, with its stunted growth, through which flows the Vitim, an affluent of the Lena. The road now meanders through marshy prairies, and is merely indicated by the line of gray telegraph-posts stretching off towards the horizon.