Previous  - next

made available in the event of the Muscovite government forbidding
natives of any other countries to leave Russia.

The podorojna is simply a permission to take post-horses;
but Michael Strogoff was not to use it unless he was sure that
by so doing he would not excite suspicion as to his mission,
that is to say, whilst he was on European territory.
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.

To pass unknown, more or less rapidly, but to pass somehow,
such were the directions he had received.

Thirty years previously, the escort of a traveler of rank consisted
of not less than two hundred mounted Cossacks, two hundred foot-soldiers,
twenty-five Baskir horsemen, three hundred camels, four hundred horses,
twenty-five wagons, two portable boats, and two pieces of cannon.
All this was requisite for a journey in Siberia.

Michael Strogoff, however, had neither cannon, nor horsemen,
nor foot-soldiers, nor beasts of burden. He would travel
in a carriage or on horseback, when he could; on foot,
when he could not.

There would be no difficulty in getting over the first thousand miles,
the distance between Moscow and the Russian frontier.
Railroads, post-carriages, steamboats, relays of horses,
were at everyone's disposal, and consequently at the disposal
of the courier of the Czar.

Accordingly, on the morning of the 16th of July, having doffed
his uniform, with a knapsack on his back, dressed in the simple
Russian costume--tightly-fitting tunic, the traditional belt of
the Moujik, wide trousers, gartered at the knees, and high boots--
Michael Strogoff arrived at the station in time for the first train.
He carried no arms, openly at least, but under his belt was
hidden a revolver and in his pocket, one of those large knives,
resembling both a cutlass and a yataghan, with which a Siberian
hunter can so neatly disembowel a bear, without injuring
its precious fur.

A crowd of travelers had collected at the Moscow station.
The stations on the Russian railroads are much used as places
for meeting, not only by those who are about to proceed
by the train, but by friends who come to see them off.
The station resembles, from the variety of characters assembled,
a small news exchange.

The train in which Michael took his place was to set him down at
Nijni-Novgorod. There terminated at that time, the iron road which,
uniting Moscow and St. Petersburg, has since been continued
to the Russian frontier. It was a journey of under three
hundred miles, and the train would accomplish it in ten hours.
Once arrived at Nijni-Novgorod, Strogoff would either take

Previous  - next