' In November the peasants come to the woods, each with one or two, sometimes three, of their small pony-like horses, in the last case called troskas, collecting together often as many as 200 to 300 horses from one village. A sort of abode for the winter is then erected in the woods, built of small poles, earth, and straw, which reminds one more than anything of the huts of the Esquimaux and the Laplanders. The building is made in the following manner: earth is thrown up so as to form a round flat cake, 1 foot high, and 12 to 15 feet in diameter. On this platform poles are placed in the shape of a sugar-loaf. On the poles, at the top of which is a little hole for the smoke to escape, is laid straw, and on the straw earth and sand; and in the side of this extraordinary Russian mudhouse there is an opening made for ingress and egress. When ready, 12 to 15 men make it their home for the winter. Furs, rags, and little boxes for provisions are placed all around, and the fire, composed of large logs, with the large saucepan, in the middle. When the work of the day is over, the workmen seat themselves each on his place round the flaming fire, on which the soup, composed of meat, cabbage, and onions, boils; this is the time to see the Russian peasant, and to hear his monotonous chant, reminding one of the inhabitants of some wild country. As for him, he has no delicate nerves, and his smelling organs seem to enjoy the smoky air as it becomes heavier and thicker; he puts his rags round him, stretches himself out on the sandy ground, and, unmindful of storm or cold, sleeps the sleep of the innocent till the morning light, which wakes him up and reminds him it is time to put the primitive harness, generally made of rags and rope, on his poor half-starved horses, and go to his day's work again.
' The catting and driving is done in this way. Every peasant has his axe; he fells his tree, clears off all knots and branches, lays it on his sledge, and drives it to the river. Thus millions of trees are brought down these two rivers in the course of the winter.
' The kind of wood grown here is a sort of redwood fir, sometimes also whitewood. The fir tree grows very fast. A fir tree which requires 120 years and more to ripen in the north of Europe matures here in 80 years. It is, however, coarse, sometimes sappy, and contains a mass of resin and other matters, which makes the smallest knot of a bright red colour. To see the trees standing in the forest is a fine sight when they are straight, and grown high without branches; but cut them down and the charm is gone. Masses of timber, quantities of firewood, chiefly birch, elm, alder, beech, and other kinds of wood, are forwarded down the river during the entire spring and summer; most of it to the Black Sea, but a small part of it is taken up by river to the Baltic, Most of the logs are formed into large rafts. A hole is made in the end of each log, arid they are tied together with bands of willow. This is a clumsy and an expensive way of constructing rafts, besides wasting two to three feet of each log. Two or three rafts are then tied together with willow bands, a little wooden hut is erected, sometimes hardly larger than a dog kennel, on which is a tiny pole with a bit of red or blue cloth as a flag. The three or four men who are in charge of this raft make it their home for the six or seven weeks (sometimes more) that they are on their way to the Black Sea.
' Another way of transporting different kinds of wood down the rivers is in large lighters, sometimes called Berliner, sometimes Barkar. The former are very strongly built, but the latter are of enormous planks 60 to 80 feet long, large enough to load 200 to 300 standards,