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Updated: May 19, 2025
The rooms were frequently small and heated to an uncomfortable degree. In one house, notwithstanding the great heat, several children were seated on the top of the stove, and apparently enjoying themselves. The yemshicks and attendants were less numerous than on the great road, but we could find no fault with their service.
Our yemshick took us to his friend at the first station, and this operation was regularly repeated. Occasionally our two yemshicks had different friends, and our sleighs were separately out-fitted. When this was the case the teams were speedily attached out of a spirit of rivalry.
Fourteen yemshicks are kept at every station, and always ready for service. They are boarded at the expense of the smotretal, and receive about five roubles each per month, with as much drink-money as they can obtain. Frequently they make two journeys a day to the next station, returning without loads.
At the cry of "wolf," he was very soon awake, though he did not lose that calm serenity that always distinguished him. The yemshicks continued their search for the road, one of them keeping near the sleigh and the other walking in circles in the vicinity. Our position was not enviable.
Unfortunately it was two o'clock in the morning when we reached the station where she lived. The unfashionable hour and a big dog combined to prevent my visiting her abode. From the mountains to Verkne Udinsk most of our drivers were Bouriats. They were quite as skillful and daring as the Russian yemshicks, and took us at excellent speed where the road was good.
Sometimes when left alone in the carriage he would not permit the yemshicks to attach the horses. On two or three occasions of this kind the Captain was obliged to suspend his tea-drinking and go to pacify his dog. Once as a yemshick was mounting the box of the tarantass, 'Boika' jumped at his face and very nearly secured an attachment to a large and ruddy nose.
The suspended shelf or false ceiling is quite common in the peasant houses, and especially at the stations. The yemshicks and other attachés of the concern are lodged here and on the floor, beds being a luxury they rarely obtain. Frequently a small house would be as densely packed as the steerage of a passenger ship, and I never desired to linger in these crowded apartments.
They do not appear to suffer from the cold; they are never blanketed, and their stables are little better than open sheds. One of their annoyances is the congelation of their breath, and in the coldest weather the yemshicks are frequently obliged to break away the icicles that form around their horses' mouths.
But for rapidity and dash, commend me always to the Siberian yemshicks. On the second morning we stopped at Tulemsk to deliver several boxes that encumbered the sleighs. The servants have a way of putting small articles, and sometimes large ones, in the forward end of the vehicle. They are no special annoyance to a person of short stature, but in my own case I was not reconciled to the practice.
The latter ordered horses from the village without delay. It had been a fete-day in honor of the Emperor, and most of the villagers were drunk, so that it required some time to assemble the requisite yemshicks and horses. A group of men and women from an evening party passed the station, and amused us with native songs.
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