Night was on before we got away from Selenginsk. At 11 o'clock we passed Arbusofské, and at 5 next morning we passed Nijni Ubukunské. A bitterly cold morning was the 9th of October. Passed through a well-peopled valley, in good cultivation compared with what we had seen, though still far short of what it might be. The valley runs north-east to Verchne Udinsk, a considerable town. We did not go round by that town, but turned off at Mohinski into a valley on our left, and struck the Selenga again, keeping on the left bank of the river. We now began to experience the effects of the recent inundations. Although the flood had abated very much, the water in the river was still high, and the flat banks were great marshes. The road had been almost obliterated by the flood, and new tracks had been struck out through the driest parts, over large boulders, deep holes filled with water, and heavy mud. The horses floundered, but struggled bravely, and the yemschiks vociferated for miles, through this impracticable compound of land and water. We were five hours in going sixteen miles. The valley narrows to a steep gorge through which the Selenga forces its way under a shade of overhanging trees that almost conceals it from view. The river was running about four miles an hour, but so smoothly and silently, that the current would have been hardly perceptible but for the floating branches of trees borne on its surface. The scenery is most beautiful. The perpendicular walls of rock that form the gorge are thickly wooded with pine and birch, which, combined with the willows that grow in great luxuriance on the low banks of the river, and seem to stretch their branches almost across the water, give quite a tropical appearance to the valley. The road through the gorge is scarped out of the rock, and rises to a good height above the river. It is narrow in the parts which are entirely artificial, so narrow that in some places there is not room for two vehicles to pass. The grandeur of the scenery faded away before our eyes as we looked down from the height into the deep abyss below. The edge of the precipice is guarded by a rough, strong, wooden parapet, without which, restive horses and drunken yemschiks would inevitably be immolated by the score at this dangerous place.