Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1891 — IN ICY REGIONS. [ARTICLE]

IN ICY REGIONS.

Preparations for a Winter Journey is Siberia. Our equipment for this long and difficult journey consisted of a strongly built pa\-oska, or seat less traveling-sleigh .with low runners, Avido outriggers, and a sort of carriage-top Avhich could be closed with a leather curtain in stormy Aveather; a very heavy sheepskin bag six feet wide and nine feet long in Avhich we could both lie side by side at full length; eight oi ten pilloAvs and cushions of various sizes to fill up chinks iu the mass of baggage and to break tho force of the jolting on rough roads; three overcoats apiece of soft shaggy sheepskin so graded in size und weight that avc could adapt ourselves to any temperature from the freezing point to eighty dogreos below; very long and lioaA-y felt boots known in Siberia as vallinki; fur caps, mittens, and a small quantity of provisions consisting chiefly of tea, sugar, bread, condensed rnillk, boiled ham, frozen soup in cakes, and a couple of roasted grouse. After having packed our heavy baggage as carefully as possible in the bottom of the pavoska, so as to make a comparatively smooth and level foundation, avo stuffed the interstices with pillows and cushions; covered the someAvhat lumpy surface to a depth of twelve or fourteen inches with straw; spread down overall our spare overcoats, blankets, and tho big sheepskin bag; stoAved away the bread, boiled lmm, and roast grouse in tho struAV, Avhere Ave could sit on them und thus protect thorn to some extent from the intense cold; and finally, filled the Avliole back of the pavoska with pillows. A temperature of forty degrees below zero will turn a boiled ham into a substance that is as useless for ediblo purposes as the famous “chunk of old rod sandstone” from Tablo Mountain. You can neither cut it, gnaAv it, nor break it in pieces with a sledge-hammer; and unless you lmvo facilities for tluiAving it out, and time enough to Avaste in that Ayay, you can no more get nourishment from it than you could get beef tea from a paleozoic fossil. Having learned this fact from sad expeience, Mr. Frost and 1 Avere accustomed to put articles of food that contained no moisture either under ns or into the sheepskin bag between us, Avhere they Avould not freeze so hard. At ten o'clock Friday morning all was in readiness for a start, and as soon as the driver came with the horses from the post-station Ave sang “Home, Siveet Home” us u prelude to tho next net, Avrnpped up the banjo carefully in a soft rug and put it behind our pilloAvs, took seats in the pa\oska Avith our feet and logs thrust down intothe capacious sheepakin bag, and rode away from the Hotel Deko amid a chorus of good-bys and shouts of “May God grant you a safe journey!” from the assembled crowd of servants and clerks. —[Century.