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After visiting the converts, partly for the sake of diverting the curious eyes of the Russians from the great aim of my journey and partly in the traveller's spirit, I turned westward and crossed the Baikal on the ice, and remained a few days in the capital of Siberia, Irkutsk. On returning to Kiachta I found another teacher, and went out for another month into Mongolia and tent life.

Sable is most expensive, and sheepskin the least. Both accomplish the same end, as they contain about equal quantities of heat. The streets of Irkutsk are of good width and generally intersect at right angles. Most of the buildings are of wood, and usually large and well built. The best houses are of stone, or of brick covered with plaster to resemble stone.

It would have been rather to him that the Governor would have addressed himself had he known who the pretended merchant of Irkutsk really was. Kamsk, in fact, by its very situation seemed to be outside the Siberian world and the grave events which troubled it. Besides, Michael Strogoff showed himself little, if at all.

Incompetence in the practical affairs of life is never felt so much as on a journey. I pay more than I need to, I do the wrong thing, and I say the wrong thing, and I am always expecting what does not happen. ... I shall be in Irkutsk in five or six days, shall spend as many days there, then drive on to Sryetensk and that will be the end of my journey on land.

It was not without careful search that Michael managed to discover this tarantass, and there was probably not a second to be found in all Perm. He haggled long about the price, for form's sake, to act up to his part as Nicholas Korpanoff, a plain merchant of Irkutsk. Nadia had followed her companion in his search after a suitable vehicle.

Verkne Udinsk is at the junction of the Ouda and Selenga rivers, three hundred versts from Irkutsk and four hundred and fifty from Chetah. It presents a pretty appearance when approached from the east, when its largest and best buildings first catch the eye. It has a church nearly two hundred years old, built with immensely thick walls to resist occasional earthquakes.

Beyond the fact that from Irkutsk he would have to make for the southern point of Lake Baikal, some sixty miles away, and then strike about south-east for another two hundred through a country inhabited almost entirely by Buriats, the doctor could tell him little.

The consequence was that in Siberia, whilst traversing the insurgent provinces, he would have no power over the relays, either in the choice of horses in preference to others, or in demanding conveyances for his personal use; neither was Michael Strogoff to forget that he was no longer a courier, but a plain merchant, Nicholas Korpanoff, traveling from Moscow to Irkutsk, and, as such exposed to all the impediments of an ordinary journey.

With but a remnant of his former superb strength, and emaciated beyond recognition, he attended a banquet on the night preceding his departure, and on the following morning stood up in his sledge and acknowledged the God-speed of the population of Irkutsk assembled in the square before the palace of the Governor.

The Caucasus had been steaming on for almost two hours, when the young Livonian, addressing herself to Michael, said, "Are you going to Irkutsk, brother?" "Yes, sister," answered the young man. "We are going the same way. Consequently, where I go, you shall go." "To-morrow, brother, you shall know why I left the shores of the Baltic to go beyond the Ural Mountains." "I ask you nothing, sister."