[To face [p. 120].
LIFE IN SIBERIA: AN AFTERNOON DRIVE, YENISEISK.
[To face [p. 121].
It is worth while to see the ladies of fashionable society going out for an afternoon drive at Yeniseisk. When the temperature is not too low, say, 15 deg. below zero (Réaumur), one sees many smart sledges about. Four o’clock in the afternoon is the favourite time for driving, and one can then see horses as fine as those of any private carriages in London. The fair occupants of the sledges are, as a rule, too much wrapped up in furs to be seen to advantage, and, as the “grand chic” is to tear along at top speed, but a fleeting vision of beauty is all that is generally obtained, and before you have time almost to recognize who is in the sledge it is already far away.
The city of Yeniseisk at this moment is, of course, of great interest to Englishmen, on account of the scheme for sea traffic between England and the Yenisei—which, if it prove successful, will probably go a long way towards making the fortune of the smart little town—and, if the canal is ever finished which the Government is constructing to connect Yeniseisk with Tomsk, there will exist, by means of the Volga, Obi, Yenisei, Irtish, Angara, and Amoor Rivers, one of the longest water highways of the world, and Chinese and Central Asian goods will be brought direct to the railroad at Tiumen, and thus to the gates of Europe, without transhipment.
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM YENISEISK TO KRASNOIARSK.
My first experience of sledging—A delightful adventure—Krasnoiarsk—The market-place—The High Street.
