We soon got tired waiting for better news of the state of the roads between us and Lake Baikal, and determined to start on the 7th of October at all hazards. The steady frosty weather, with occasional falls of snow, gave us warning of winter, and of the uncertainty of getting our heavy carriage over half-frozen rivers. Every day was important at such a critical season, and the motherly counsels of the good old lady we were living with, to postpone our journey till December, when the snow roads would be in perfect order, only made us the more impatient to be off. Had we stayed another day we might have been tempted to give ear to these reiterated remonstrances against tempting Providence by starting at such a time. Some hours were occupied in loading our tarantass, for we discovered to our dismay that the machine, large as it was, was still too small for our baggage and ourselves. After several attempts to dovetail unwieldy boxes into corners and use up all smaller articles as broken stowage, we eventually succeeded, between the inside and the outside of the machine, to get everything on board, and with a severe struggle we squeezed ourselves in, horizontally, between the baggage and the hood of the conveyance. Our padaroshna was for three horses, but when the driver brought them to be harnessed, and saw the load he had to drag, he at once protested against going with less than four. We felt that he was quite right, but to establish a character it was necessary that we should be firm at the outset. To have admitted the necessity for four horses would have exposed us to all manner of impositions at the successive stations, where our ignorance of Russ would have placed us at the mercy of every ruffian of a postmaster. With great misgivings, therefore, we started with our three horses, driven by a Bouriat _yemschik_. The tarantass is a strong roughly made four-wheeled carriage, placed on poles, which rest across the two axletrees. The poles are made of soft wood, but have some spring in them, and the tarantass is at least more comfortable on rough roads than a Chinese two-wheeled cart. The hood comes well forward, and with an apron that comes up nearly to the top, and a curtain that can be let down from the front of the hood, the tarantass can be pretty well closed in.