looked so worn and haggard that I became seriously alarmed about him. He did not wish, however, to stop in the post-station of Ibrúlskaya, which was already full of travelers sleeping on benches or on the floor, and after refreshing ourselves with tea, we pushed on towards Krasnoyársk.
I cannot remember, in all Siberia, a worse road for wheeled vehicles than that between Áchinsk and Krasnoyársk. I have never, in fact, seen a worse road in my life, and it was not at all surprising that Mr. Frost was prostrated by the jolting, the consequent sleeplessness, and the lack of substantial food. We had been able to get meat at the post-stations only once in four days; we had lived almost entirely upon the bread and tea that we carried with us; and for ninety-six hours we had had only such snatches of sleep as we could get in the tárantás at intervals on short stretches of smooth road, or on benches in the station-houses while waiting for horses. It was some satisfaction to learn, at Ustanófskaya, that General Ignátief, the newly appointed governor-general of Eastern Siberia, who passed over the road between Áchinsk and Krasnoyársk a few days before us, was so exasperated by its condition that he ordered the immediate arrest of the contractor who had undertaken to keep it in repair, and directed that he be held in prison to await an investigation. Mr. Frost and I agreed that it was a proper case for the exercise of despotic power.
We arrived in Krasnoyársk late on the evening of Wednesday, September 2d, after a journey from Tomsk of 370 miles, which had occupied a little more than five days of incessant travel. An abundant supper and a good night's rest in a small hotel near the post-station restored our tired bodies to something like their normal condition, and Thursday afternoon we changed our travel-stained clothing and called upon Mr. Leo Petróvitch Kuznetsóf, a wealthy gold-mining proprietor to whom we had brought a letter of introduction from St. Petersburg. We little anticipated the
