We move our baggage and join the tea caravan. Across the table is a slight, brown-faced man, with an enormous black astrakan cape falling to his ankles, and wearing a jauntily perched astrakan cap on his head. “One of the Cossack settlers,” a friend from the train remarks. Beyond are half a dozen tired-looking women, with dark-gray shawls over their heads. Near them are men with close-fitting _shubas_, or snugly-belted sheepskin coats, fur inside, and rough-tanned black leather outside. Beside the lunch-stand are a couple of young men with huge bearskin caps, short coats, and high leather boots tucked into fleece-lined overshoes. A general at one of the little side tables is talking volubly to a plump dame with furs, which are attracting envy from many sides. The lady merely nods between puffs of her cigarette, and sips her tea. A large fat merchant waddles past, wrapped in a paletot made of the glistening silvery skin of the Baikal seal. The room is stifling, full of smoke, and crowded with people. Yet no one seems to feel the discomfort, even to the extent of taking off the heavy outer coats, which, with the thermometer at twenty degrees below zero, they have worn on the sleigh-ride in, from across the river. Your friends of the train, save those whose possessions were comprised in their multitudinous valises, are all here, fur-coated likewise and sipping tea, waiting, without a thought of impatience, for the baggage to be brought out. At last appears your _nasilchik_. “They are got,” he cries, and balances about himself, one by one, your half-dozen pieces of luggage. Through the noisy, gesticulating, thronging passengers and heaped belongings, he shoulders and squirms a way to the door and into the anteroom. A couple of soldiers are good-naturedly hustling out, from the third-class waiting-room opposite, a little leather-jacketed and very dirty mujik. “I did not owe seven kopecks. I cross myself. I am not a Jew,” he loudly proclaims. “_Nietchevo_,” says the soldier. “Out with him just the same!” The peasants and crowd loafing alongside grin appreciatingly, as the mujik is escorted, collar-held, through the great doors. The porter and yourself follow. A plunging line of sleighs, backed up against the outer platform of the station, extends far up and down the road. Their _isvoschiks_, leaning back, are shouting for fares. In sight are your two trunks. “How much to the Métropole?” you call. The legal fare across the river to the hotel is a rouble, but the Governor-General of eastern Siberia couldn’t tell how much it would be if you didn’t bargain beforehand. “_Piat rubla!_” “_tree rubla!_” come hurtling from all sides.