Old Barnaul managed to slip on the ice and fall into a hole that had been broken by the horses' feet. A more miserable-looking object, on his emersion from the cold bath, I never saw. In the sledge his clothes became sheets of hard ice, but we were, fortunately for him, delayed for want of horses at the second station from Ishimskaya, so that the old man had time to melt down his congealed habiliments. A good deal of snow fell during the day, but still the roughness of the road was but slightly mitigated thereby. The sledge was comparatively easy, however, the runners lying on two or more hillocks at once, instead of jolting up and down each separate lump, like the wheel of a carriage. During the night we were again stopped, with a number of other travellers, for want of horses, and it was 3 o'clock on the morning of the 1st November ere we entered on the last stage before Tomsk. Our sledges were quite open, and we could but abandon ourselves to the enjoyment of a night scene more gorgeous than fancy ever pictured. The snow had ceased falling, and the sky was clear and cloudless. Not a breath of wind stirred. It was a little past full moon, and the pure white surface of the ground sparkled in the bright moonlight as if it had been strewn with diamonds. Some of the finest constellations were high above the horizon. Orion, Taurus, and Gemini were conspicuous; and Sirius was never seen in greater splendour. Towards daybreak, Venus appeared in all her glory, and completed the most brilliant group of celestial phenomena the human eye ever rested on. There is a peculiar transparency in the Siberian sky, both by night and by day, but it needs a still frosty night to show it off to its best advantage. Long before daylight we passed numerous trains of peasants, with their sledges, driving towards Tomsk with their daily supplies of provisions for the market.