"The only navigation of the Tom that I saw was by a native who had fallen through a hole in the ice and just crawled out. He stood dripping on the edge for a moment, as though uncertain what to do; then, evidently realizing his danger, he sprang on his sledge and rode away, to reach home before he was frozen solid.
"At the suggestion of my companion we decided to go to Barnaool, which lies about three hundred miles south of the main road, and is the centre of the Russian mining region of the Altai Mountains. We remained a day at Tomsk, in order to see the Governor and obtain his permission to leave our route, which was readily granted.
"We started in the evening, and forty-four hours later drove into Barnaool and alighted at the hotel. An officer who left Tomsk a few hours in advance of us, kindly notified the station-masters of our approach, and thus caused them to have horses in readiness. If he had not done so we should have been seriously delayed, as the regulations require only three troikas to be kept at the stations on the side road, while ten are maintained along the great route. For the last part of the way the drivers took us to houses of their friends instead of going to the post-stations. The peasants through Siberia have a good many horses, and are glad to earn money in this way by transporting travellers.
SUMMER VIEW NEAR BARNAOOL.
"Barnaool is a prosperous town, depending partly upon the gold-mining interest, and partly upon trade with the Kirghese and other people of Central Asia. It has a Club, a Geographical Society, a large and interesting museum, together with smelting-works, factories, and machine-shops connected with the mining interests. Social conversation has a good deal to do with gold and silver and other precious things, and in summer many of the officials are absent at the mining establishments in the mountains. The society is similar to that of Irkutsk, and fully as accomplished and hospitable. They told me I was the first American that had ever been in Barnaool, and I was most heartily welcomed and made to feel at home.
"One day a gentleman invited me to call at his house, and said his daughters were under the impression that Americans were black. 'I will not undeceive them,' said he, 'and if they appear astonished when they see you, you will understand it.'
"When I called at the house and was presented to the family, I was immediately surrounded by three or four little girls, and they looked with great curiosity at my face. Finally one of them sidled up to her mother and said something, of which I caught the words, 'Nee chorney' ("Not black")."
After Frank and Fred had laughed over this little anecdote, their informant explained that the impression that Americans were black was not confined to the family of this gentleman at the foot of the Altai Mountains. He said he had been told of it on several occasions, not only in Siberia but in European Russia; but it was almost always confined to the lower class of people, or to children who had received their information from servants.