When I saw it, it was quite covered with a hoar frost. Towards evening, when the sun was disappearing in the horizon, the mass received the expiring rays and became dazzling white. The snow at the same time, disposed to take its hue from the sky, presented a dark blue tint. This fine spectacle, unfortunately, was of short duration. The sun had now gone down, and a feeble, mystic twilight began spreading over this immense plain, which presently became illumined by the aurora borealis, suffusing the whole with its rosy hue.
It would be impossible to depict in words the diverse and ever-varying tints I have witnessed, from time to time, beautifying Siberian landscapes. When the cold is very intense, the play of light that enters on the scene is far too subtile for art to give any conception of it. It is during some of these beautiful transformations I have mentioned that the light vapour in the air freezes; at these times, I have seen shoals of fine crystals, almost imperceptible, swimming in the air, glittering in the sunbeams, and casting their rainbows superimposed on the horizon. As we see these colours in France, generally in a more sombre sky, they are dull in comparison with the lively, fascinating, and mystic hues presented here on an azure of infinite purity.
A cold so rigorous is not without serious inconvenience to poor human beings who venture to brave it. The part of the face around the nose and mouth disappears completely, in a few moments, under a thick icy coating, formed from the moisture of the breath; and as it is necessary to remove this glacial crust from time to time, the operation occasions much suffering.
To prepare at night for sleep, the Siberian wanderers are accustomed to moisten their _bacheliques_, which speedily freeze and stiffen, and thus present a solid partition or case, at a few inches from the face. The respiration then congeals against the inner surface of this improvised wall. But in spite of these precautions, when I awoke in the morning, I found my eyelids completely sealed up with little icicles around the lashes, which I was obliged to dissolve between my warm fingers before I could open my eyes to the daylight.
Another strange effect of cold so intense may be seen on entering a village, at an early hour, when the inhabitants are just lighting their fires. The hot smoky air rising from the chimneys ascends straight up to a certain point, where, becoming rapidly cooled and condensed and meeting with a stratum of equal density, it commences spreading out horizontally, on every side, like a kind of ceiling or canopy, and this, increasing in thickness, obstructs radiation, and thus forms a protecting cloud for the whole village.