four o’clock in the afternoon
In order to preserve the animals from the attack of the insects , they drove them to the leeward of fires of green wood , which were kept burning night and day , and the pungent smoke of which floated over the vast swamp . When Michael Strogoff perceived that his horse , tired out , was on the point of succumbing , he halted at one of these wretched hamlets , and there , forgetting his own fatigue , he himself rubbed the wounds of the poor animal with hot grease according to the Siberian custom ; then he gave him a good feed ; and it was only after he had well groomed and provided for him that he thought of himself , and recruited his strength by a hasty meal of bread and meat and a glass of kwass . One hour afterwards , or at the most two , he resumed with all speed the interminable road to Irkutsk . On the 30th of July , at four o'clock in the afternoon , Michael Strogoff , insensible of every fatigue , arrived at Elamsk . There it became necessary to give a night 's rest to his horse . The brave animal could no longer have continued the journey . At Elamsk , as indeed elsewhere , there existed no means of transport , -- for the same reasons as at the previous villages , neither carriages nor horses were to be had .