there was no supervision over the mail bags after they were deposited
in our cabin. I passed many hours in their companionship, and if
Borasdine and I had chosen to rifle them we could have done so at our
leisure. Possibly an escape from the penalties of the law would have
been less easy.

Our cook was an elderly personage, with thin hair, a yellow beard, and
a much neglected toilet. On the first morning I saw him at his
ablutions, and was not altogether pleased with his manner. He took a
half-tumbler of water in his mouth and then squirted the fluid over
his hands, rubbing them meanwhile with invisible soap. He was quite
skillful, but I could never relish his dinners if I had seen him any
time within six hours. His general appearance was that of having slept
in a gutter without being shaken afterwards.

The day of our departure from Nicolayevsk was like the best of our
Indian summer. There was but little wind, the faintest breath coming
now and then from the hills on the southern bank. The air was of a
genial warmth, the sky free from clouds and only faintly dimmed with
the haze around the horizon. The forest was in the mellow tints of
autumn, and the wide expanse of foliferous trees, dotted at frequent
intervals with the evergreen pine, rivalled the October hues of our
New England landscape. Hills and low mountains rose on both banks of
the river and made a beautiful picture. The hills, covered with forest
from base to summit, sloped gently to the water's edge or retreated
here and there behind bits of green meadow. In the distance was a
background of blue mountains glowing in sunshine or dark in shadow,
and varying in outline as we moved slowly along. The river was ruffled
only by the ripples of the current or the motion of our boat through
the water. Just a year earlier I descended the Saint Lawrence from