I had on three shirts, the coloured one being, after the Russian fashion, pulled over the trowsers: I had a waistcoat and trowsers of thick cloth, and over all a little burnous (_armiak_) of sheepskin, well tallowed, which hung down to my knees, while great boots with tops strongly tarred completed my costume. A girdle of red, white, and black worsted was tied round my waist, and over my wig I had one of those red velvet caps, edged with fur, which are worn on holiday time by Siberian peasants of any affluence, and by commercial travellers. Besides all this, I was wrapped in a wide pelisse, of which the collar, turned up and tied by a red handkerchief round the neck, served less to keep out the cold than to hide my face. I carried a bag in my hand, and in it I had put a second pair of boots, a fourth shirt, a pair of blue trowsers, such as are worn in the country in summer, some bread, and some dried fish. A large dagger was slipped into the sheath of my right boot; my money was under my waistcoat in assignats of five or ten roubles; and, to conclude, in my hands, which were covered with stout gloves of skin, with the hair inside, I held a strong knotted stick. Thus equipped I stole away at eventide from the settlement of Ekaterinski-Zavod by a cross-road. It was freezing very hard, and the rime which hung in the air sparkled in the moonlight. I soon passed my Rubicon, the Irtiche, whose frozen shield I crunched under my feet, and with hasty steps, which the weight of my dress alone checked, I took the road to Tara, a small market town at about twelve kilometres from the place where I had been kept. The winter nights, I said to myself, are very long in Siberia; how many miles shall I be able to make before daylight appears to make them aware of my flight? and what shall I do when it dawns? I had hardly crossed the Irtiche when I heard the sound of a sledge coming up behind me. I shuddered, but determined to await the nocturnal traveller, and, as happened more than once during my hazardous wanderings, that which I dreaded as a danger became the unexpected means of saving myself. ‘Where are you going?’ asked the peasant who drove the sledge, and who had drawn up beside me. ‘To Tara. Where do you come from?’ ‘From the hamlet of Zalivina. Give me sixty kopeks (tenpence) and I will take you to Tara, for I am going there myself.’ ‘No; that is too dear, but I will give you fifty kopeks if you like to take me for that.’ ‘Well, so be it; look sharp, my friend!’ I seated myself beside him, and we started at a gallop. My companion was in a hurry to get home; the road covered by snow, which the frost had hardened, was as smooth as a mirror, and the piercing cold seemed to give wings to the horses. At the end of half an hour we were at Tara, where my peasant put me down in one of the streets of the town and went his way. Now alone, I went up to the first posting-house, and called in Russian fashion through the window, as loud as I could: