My journey was made in winter, and therefore we had a sledge — a covered sledge, but covered with bass-matting, and all the appointments of the most unpretending character, for it had to be sold at the end of the journey, when it would not fetch a high price. It cost little; but it would sell for less: and a reduction of 50 per cent, on twenty shillings is a good deal less than a like reduction on twenty pounds; we would also be more likely to find a purchaser for our vehicle if it were of little value; and it suited the convenience of both of us to travel cheaply, taking two horses instead of three. On arriving at the first station-house we had to exercise the patience of which Mr Wallace speaks. All the horses were out; and we had to wait till some had returned and rested. It was dark. I strolled about the station-house. Feeling hungry, I looked about for my fellow-traveller to get him to order supper for me, as I was but a novice in travelling there. I could find him nowhere; so I went to lie down in the sledge for a change. Lifting the curtain, I found him there busy making his supper on provisions he had brought with him. I said more to myself than to him, laughing as I said it: — ' Holloa, my lad! if you can do that, I can do that too.' And I got out a basket filled with provisions with which some of my friends in St. Petersburg had supplied me. The mention of this recalls the scene of our starting, and one kind face among others now no more. The owner of that face, caring for me as a mother for her son, brought bread, a cake, two tongues, salt — an article most valuable at an al fresco meal, but very likely to be forgotten, and a slab of frozen mincecollops. I was astounded, but I was assured all would be needed before I had completed my journey, And so it was. Morning, noon, and night, when resting for a little at a station-house, I would ask for a hatchet, and, breaking off a lump of frozen collops, give it to the people to heat; and my fellow-traveller was not loth to partake with me of the savoury viands. Here this could not be done; but getting out a tongue, which, though cooked, had not been frozen, I made signs to my fellow traveller that I did not know what to do as I had no knife. Taking the tongue in one hand, and taking hold of the tip of it with the other, he screwed this off and held it out to me. I received it with a laugh; it was my first lesson in rough travelling; I have travelled many thousand miles since, in America, in Africa, and in Europe, but never again have I been at a loss what to do to prepare provisions, and to use them when prepared. I can kindle a fire in the desert, and prepare a carabonaje with the best of them; and eat it with a relish, with no garnishing but salt and pepper. Only once was I placed in any difficulty — and that not from any squeamishness on my part, but from the delicacy of feeling experienced by others. Three of us, with attendants, were crossing the Karoo in South Africa; there was a stretch of eighty-four miles which had to be travelled one day. We had purchased a live fowl at a farm at which we slept the night before. At mid-day, having out-spanned the horses, the drivers were sent with them away some six miles to get water. Neither of my companions could kill a fowl; I volunteered to kill, and strip, and cook, and eat it too, if they would allow me. But they shrunk from letting a minister kill the fowl, and from this delicacy of feeling on their part, we were likely to have to wait for our dinner till the horses returned, were in-spanned, and ready to take us forward on our journey, lest we should be benighted in the feldt. We got out of the difficulty at last by one of the party, not I, pulling off the head with all his might, and throwing it away in the air as if it were a thing polluted. Thanks to my experience at the Russian station-house, I have never perished of hunger from want of a knife and a silver fork, though I may equal the most fastidious in the enjoyment of all the amenities of life.
We stopped an hour or two at Dorpat, that I might visit some of the professors there with whom I was acquainted, and just as we were nearing Konigsberg the English courier overtook us. With him I travelled to Berlin, rejoicing in the well-made and well-kept roads of Prussia, which contrasted greatly with those of Russia, excepting where these were covered with snow, on which I found it pleasant to glide along in the sledge, travelling night and day, sleeping when, and only when, so inclined; and though sometimes upset, always falling soft on the uncrushed snow lining the track — our fur shoobs and wadded caps helping to make the upset more harmless and rather pleasurable than otherwise from the excitement.