Note 33 — TRAVELS IN KAMTSCHATKA, &c.

I dismissed my conductors of course. I have not yet mentioned the post charges. While I travelled with M. Kasloff, they were defrayed by him, and I did not pay my share, till I came to quit him. The reader is intitled to a note upon the subject, which I shall here give him.

These charges are called in Russia progonn: a courier pays two kopecks per werst for every horse, and other travellers four kopecks. A kopeck is equal to a French sou, or an English halfpenny. In Kamtschatka and Siberia the expence is less by one half, and as dogs are almost invariably made use of in the peninsula, they are charged at so much per podvod, or team of five dogs. Three podvods, or fifteen dogs, are considered as equal to one horse in Siberia, for which a courier pays a kopeck per werst, and other travellers two kopecks.