attacks of sleep, which would come on me unawares. These I knew full well to be the forerunners of death, and against them I struggled with all the little strength that remained to me. The craving for something warm to eat or drink was very great; and it was often with the utmost difficulty that I refrained from going into some hut, to beg a little of the turnip broth which they make so much in Siberia. After leaving behind me Verkhouterie--the last town (it is a wooden one) which I was to pass on my way to the eastern slopes of the Ourals, and where I took good care not to stop, I fell in with six young Russians--a meeting which was very fortunate for me, as from them I obtained various pieces of useful information. By their dress, and indeed by their speech, I saw that they did not belong to this part of the country, and that they were not even Siberians. When I asked them, they told me that they came from the government of Archangel, from the district of Mezen, on the very borders of the Frozen Sea; and that they were on their way to the province of Tobolsk, to push their fortunes as veterinary surgeons. These young men had pleasant faces, very fair complexions, and hair so light as to have a silvery tinge, like well-dressed flax. Indeed, had they not had clear blue eyes, they might have passed for Albinos. They told me that the country from which they came was very poor--miserably poor. In short, nothing grew there, either wheat, oats, or barley; and the inhabitants lived on fish, getting bread only from Archangel. The sight of men who had come so far, and come on foot, gave me fresh courage and hope. I, in my turn, could give them many details about Siberia (though not about the districts in which I had dwelt), and I told them where they were likely to find the greatest number of horses. Nature seems often to play strange games in distributing men as she does over this globe. To these miserable dwellers on the most remote shores of the Frozen Sea, Siberia appears as a land of promise--the Eldorado of their dreams of happiness; and thither they emigrate in bands, and in whole families, to look for more lucrative labour and in search of a more clement sky. I do not know how many days I may have spent in thus climbing the woody but snow-clad heights of the Oural chain. The uniformity of the way, and the repetition of the same accidents of travel made me at last lose all count of time. I only know that at Paouda, far set in the heart of the mountains, I dared for the second time since I had left Irbite to sleep in a human dwelling, and that then for the third time since that date I tasted some warm food. Even this little good fortune I owed to a happy chance. I passed through the village very late in the evening, and as I went by a house in which the lights still burnt, I suddenly heard a voice call, ‘Who goes there?’ ‘A traveller.’ ‘Have you far to go?’ ‘Oh, very very far.’