fever."

These words were spoken, as I afterwards discovered, by a very competent
surgeon; but the prophecy was not fulfilled. The promised fever never
came. The only bad consequences were that for some days my right hand
remained stiff, and for a week or two I had to conceal my nose from
public view.

If this little incident justifies me in drawing a general conclusion, I
should say that exposure to extreme cold is an almost painless form
of death; but that the process of being resuscitated is very painful
indeed--so painful, that the patient may be excused for momentarily
regretting that officious people prevented the temporary insensibility
from becoming "the sleep that knows no waking."

Between the alternate reigns of winter and summer there is always a
short interregnum, during which travelling in Russia by road is
almost impossible. Woe to the ill-fated mortal who has to make a long
road-journey immediately after the winter snow has melted; or, worse
still, at the beginning of winter, when the autumn mud has been
petrified by the frost, and not yet levelled by the snow!

At all seasons the monotony of a journey is pretty sure to be broken by
little unforeseen episodes of a more or less disagreeable kind. An axle
breaks, or a wheel comes off, or there is a difficulty in procuring
horses. As an illustration of the graver episodes which may occur, I
shall make here a quotation from my note-book:

Early in the morning we arrived at Maikop, a small town commanding the
entrance to one of the valleys which run up towards the main range