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As a last resort I had a pound of candles and a flask of brandy, but we happily reached a wood-station without using my light baggage. The Korsackoff was an iron boat of a hundred horse power, with hull and engines of English make. Her cabins were very small and as dirty as diminutive. There was no cabin steward, and I sincerely believe there had never been one.
My presentation was postponed to the following day, and as the Russian etiquette forbade my calling on other officials before I had seen the chief, there was little to be done in the matter of visiting. The next morning I called upon General Korsackoff, delivered my letters of introduction, and was most cordially welcomed to Irkutsk.
Like Madame De Stael, he possesses the power of putting visitors entirely at their ease. To my single countrywomen I will whisper that General Korsackoff is of about medium height, has a fair complexion, blue eyes, and Saxon hair, and a face which the most crabbed misanthrope could not refuse to call handsome. He is unmarried, and if rumor tells the truth, not under engagement.
Before daylight we reached a station where a traveling bishop had just secured two sets of horses. Though outside the jurisdiction of General Korsackoff, I exhibited my special passport knowing it could not, at all events, do any harm. Out of courtesy the smotretal offered to supply us as soon as the bishop departed.
There was a cabin on the Korsackoff about eight feet square, with four small rooms opening out of it. Borasdine and I had two of these. My apartment had two bunks and no bedding, but the deficiency was atoned for by a large number of hungry and industrious fleas. Of my blankets and pillow I made my own bed, and slept in it as on the Ingodah.
There was a crowd on the bank similar to the one at Igoon, most of the women and girls standing with their arms folded in their sleeves. Several were seated close to the water and met the same misfortune as those in similar positions at Igoon. The Korsackoff made a much greater swell than the Ingodah, and those who caught its effects were well moistened.
Five minutes before the appointed hour I accompanied a friend to the Governor General's house. As we entered, servants in military garb took our shoobas, and we were ushered into a large parlor. General Korsackoff and many of the invited guests were assembled in the parlor, and within two minutes the entire party had gathered.
The second day from Blagoveshchensk we were where the Amoor flows twenty-five versts around a peninsula only one verst wide. Just above this, at the village of Korsackoff, was the foot of another bend of twenty-eight versts with a width of three.
I could not understand how the Russians felt the cold when it did not affect me, and was a little proud of my insensibility to frost. Conceit generally comes of ignorance, and as I learned, wisdom I lost my vanity about resisting cold. Nearly every day on the Korsackoff I was puzzled at finding laurel leaves in the soup, and did not understand it till I saw a barrel of beef opened.
Very soon they were permitted to go to the larger towns, and once there, those whose wives possessed property in their own right built themselves elegant houses and took the position to which their abilities entitled them. General Korsackoff told me that when he first went to serve in Siberia there was a ball one evening at the Governor General's.
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