We had been strongly advised at the outset of our Siberian travels to provide ourselves with feather pillows, after the manner of the Russians, to use as buffers between our prominent bones and the hard substance of the carriage. Judging that our bedding would suffice, we, with the vanity of ignorance, rejected these good counsels in defiance of the well-known travelling maxim which inculcates the wisdom of taking your cue from the people of the country. Our carcases had been so unmercifully knocked about on the road to Tomsk, that we dared not go farther without pillows. It was not so easy to find them, however; for although Tomsk is said to be celebrated for them we could not hit on the right place to buy them. They are sold at about fourteen roubles per pood (36 lbs.). Our landlady was appealed to, but she avowed that there was not, and never could have been, any such thing in Tomsk, least of all had she any to dispose of. We were actually beginning to despair of pillows when a young Russianised German introduced himself to us, and, as usual in such _rencontres_, the conversation turned on civilisation. We happened to allude to the pillow difficulty, as proving the primitive state of society in Tomsk. On this our friend at once undertook to provide us. He went first to the old lady, and then to the younger members, none of whom he had seen before, and spent full half an hour ingratiating himself with them. The pillow question was in due time gently hinted at, and before very long one, and then another, and another, was produced, until we had pillows to our hearts' content. Delighted with his success, we begged our friend to tell us how he had achieved it. "First," he said, in very good English, "you must beat about the bush with these ---- Russians; you must flatter them and humbug them. Then you must talk about everything but _the_ thing. If you want to buy a horse, you must pretend you want to sell a cow, and so work gradually round to the point in view." He went on to tell us how he had coaxed and cajoled the good people into parting with their pillows, and how he backed up his requests by a touching appeal to their sense of hospitality. "You have two distinguished foreigners in your house, they are very good people, and you ought to treat them with the kindness due to strangers from distant countries. When Russians go to their country they are well treated. But if you refuse this small favour to these people, they will go home and tell their countrymen what beasts the Russians are," &c.