434 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF

of Finland, and so on to Dantzic, where I might possibly sell
my China cargo to good advantage ; or I must leave the caravan
at a little town on the Dwina, from whence I had but six days
by water to Archangel, and from thence might be sure of
shipping cither to England, Holland, or Hamburg.

Now, to go any one of these journeys in the winter would
have been preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would
have been frozen up and I could not get passage; and to go
by land in those countries was far less safe than among the
Mogul Tartars; likewise, as to Archangel in October, all the
ships would be gone from thence, and even the merchants who
dwell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter,
when the ships are gone; so that I could have nothing but
extremity of cold to encounter, with a scarcity of provisions,
and must lie in an empty town all the winter. ‘Therefore, upon
the whole, I thought it much my better way to let the caravan
go, and make provision to winter where I was, at ‘Tobolski,
in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was
sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz. plenty
of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house, with
fuel enough, and excellent company.

I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved
island, where I never felt cold, except when I had my ague;
on the contrary, | had much to do to bear any clothes on my
back, and never made any fire but without doors, which was
necessary for dressing my food, &c. Now I had three good
vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to
the feet, and button close to the wrists; and all these lined
with furs, to make them sufficiently warm. As to a warm
house, I must confess I greatly dislike our way in England of
making fires in every room in the house in open chimneys,
which, when the fire is out, always keeps the air in the room
cold as the climate. So I took an apartment in a good house
in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace,
in the centre of six several rooms, like a stove; the funnel
to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come at
the fire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally
warm, but no fire seen, just as they heat baths in England.
By this means we had always the same climate in all the
rooms, and an equal heat was preserved, and yet we saw no
fire, nor were ever incommoded with smoke.

The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be
possible to meet with good company here, in a country so
barbarous as this—one of the most northerly parts of Europe.