24th October.—This morning we were in the Ural mountains, and at about 10 o’clock stopped at Zlataoust, which is the last town in Europe, and where I bought two platinum candlesticks and a small model of a sledge as mementoes. Here also much cutlery was for sale at very low prices, being evidently manufactured in the neighbourhood, while precious stones were offered in the rough state, as taken from the mines, but it was necessary to be a connoisseur before venturing to buy. At Miasse, the next stopping place and the first station in Asia, saw many natives clad in skins, with very yellow and Asiatic looking faces, dirty. Here I bought two crystal eggs as paper-weights. In a booth at one end of the platform saw several stuffed specimens of game found in this neighbourhood. Wapiti, lynx, deer, wolf, fox, etc. Highest point reached by railway about 3,000 feet. Many nice views. Ground covered with snow. Country very thinly populated.
25th October.—Lovely day, no snow but sharp frost. Ponds and streams frozen and a few people skating. At Omsk saw numbers of Asiatics clad in skins, they were ugly, dirty and many pitted with small-pox. Country was level plain, with clumps of silver birch at intervals. Some cultivation, numerous herds of cattle, and a few ponies. Land mostly covered with dry grass about a foot high, like our Norfolk marsh grass. The station at Omsk was on outskirts of town, which looked to be of great size, with many pretentious buildings. Few inhabitants in country.
26th October.—This morning passed Obi, a town of considerable importance. The air was delicious. Snow on ground, with hard frost. Sun bright and warm. Country much nicer—more undulating. Saw men carrying stones for building purposes on a kind of tray with two handles at each end, as fishermen carry nets. China ponies were numerous here. Women and men very ugly and dirty. Sledges in use for carrying litter, hay, wood, etc. To many stations the most delicious milk and cream I have ever tasted were brought in bottles by women and girls, for sale to the passengers, and at very cheap rates. Occasionally also, a few pears and apples of fair quality could be purchased, but the amount of fruit grown seemed to be small.
27th October.—Much warmer, there being a good deal of snow, with bright sun. At about 2 o’clock reached Krasnoiarsk, a considerable town. Shortly after this crossed the river Yenesei on a magnificent iron bridge of several spans. The scenery became very fine in the afternoon, with pleasant hills and trees, all covered with snow. Several China ponies in droves. Sledges. More cultivation. At sundown slowly climbing a range of mountains. Saw many houses built underground with roof and entrance just appearing above snow. Country more pleasing than any seen since entering Russia.
28th October.—Perfect weather—same as yesterday. Country very hilly and beautiful in the snow. Passing up a valley between lofty hills, noticed a corduroy road made of transverse trunks of trees, as seen in Canada. Well built water-towers about 30 feet high at all stations for watering engines. Country looked more thriving here than in European Russia. Better houses, and bright skies instead of lowering ones. Silver birch, pines and firs. At various places en route have seen the old Siberian Road, of bitter memories.
29th October.—Lovely morning with sharp frost. Saw many small houses with only roofs above ground. Many tame pigeons and a few magpies, but hardly any other bird-life. Horses, or rather, ponies, small and poor. Skirted the river Angara for a long distance in early morning. View lovely. Water, where not frozen, clear as crystal. Swift current, which, breaking over boulders, showed that there was no great depth. Saw three small boys clad in furs fishing through a hole made in the snow-covered ice. At 11 o’clock reached Irkoutsk, but saw very little of it as the station is two miles out of the town. At about two o’clock arrived at Lake Baikal, where we left the train and went on board the ferry boat “Baikal,” a remarkable craft with four funnels and twenty windsails, three screws aft and one forrard. It was said that she could plough her way through ice two feet thick at eight miles an hour. I judged her to be about 260 feet long by 50 wide. She has a good saloon wherein refreshments of all kinds can be obtained. The bows of this vessel, from about six feet above the water-line, are wide open, so that as she lay at the wharf trains can steam into her hold, the metals on board and those on shore connecting. She has three lines of metals in the hold, so that three trains, each of about 240 feet in length, can stand abreast. There were twenty or twenty-one trucks aboard to-day, in three rows of six or seven trucks each, but no engines. Most of these trucks were laden with twenty railway metals each, though three or four of them carried merchandize.
No ice on lake. We cast off at a quarter to three in the afternoon and reached Missovaïa on the other side at 5.35, a distance of only 40 miles, this being the narrowest part of the lake, the length of which exceeds 300 miles.
The water was clear and of a steel-gray colour. Hills of perhaps 2,000 feet lined either shore as far as the eye could reach. Presently the setting sun lit up the snow on these mountains with every colour of the rainbow, and we steamed along, as it were, between walls of flaming brilliancy. Soon the placid waters took on the colouring as reflected from the hills, and we were indeed moving in a basin of liquid fire. Many seagulls, appearing as quite old Norfolk friends, followed in our wake.
At Missovaïa we found another train de luxe awaiting us, and it was here, from the warmth of a saloon car, that I first saw a batch of Siberian exiles, although I had previously seen the cars with caged windows wherein they are now transported, instead of having to undergo that weary tramp of 4,000 miles.
It was already dark and the train had not yet started, when I saw a band of armed soldiers surrounding some thirty people carrying bundles, coming along the dimly-lighted platform, and then form up at one end of it, the people being always surrounded by the soldiers. What had especially attracted my attention, or I might not have noticed in the uncertain light of what the band consisted, was a little boy of about 10 or 12 years of age, who was carrying a large bundle which looked like clothing, trying to pass on the wrong side of some palings, when he was roughly seized by the ear by one of the Cossack guards and quickly brought back.