The city of Tomsk, which is situated on the river Tom, a branch of the Obi, contains over 40,000 inhabitants. Though scarcely as large as Irkoutsk, it is a more imposing place at first sight. The streets are broad and, though unpaved, in good order, notwithstanding the incessant stream of caravan traffic that pours through them in the tea season. The public buildings are fine, even handsome (of two, three, and four stories high), without the draggled, unfinished appearance of those at Irkoutsk and Krasnoiarsk, and there are shop-windows to enliven the appearance of the principal thoroughfares.

The steamer was not to leave for two days, a time we devoted to unpacking and overhauling our clothes. We found them in a sorry plight, while the leather portmanteaus were swollen like drowned dogs after the pitiless storms of rain. We also took the opportunity of writing home to announce our safe arrival so far. Posting letters in Siberia is somewhat wearisome. It took us nearly half an hour to despatch them, and then only by the aid of a Polish interpreter called in by the landlord of the Hotel. I signed my name at least six times before the necessary formalities were completed. Then, would I have them sent with one stamp or two? If the latter and the letter were lost, I might claim ten roubles from the Government, said the hotel-keeper, “Which you probably wouldn’t get,” added the Pole; so I trusted to Providence and sent them with one. All were opened several times by the authorities, one reaching London with no less than five different seals upon it.

Tomsk is built in two parts. The lower portion of the town, consisting nearly exclusively of merchants’ offices, shops, and warehouses, while on the heights overlooking them are the Governor’s palace, Government offices, and private residences of the better class of merchants. But although, as I have said, Tomsk is less depressing than other Siberian cities, the absence of trees or gardens gives the place the usual bare, cheerless appearance. The surrounding country is flat and marshy, and a fruitful cause of malaria and fever during spring and autumn. The summer is the busy season, when the tea from China and Trans-Baikalian merchandise is unloaded from the small carts which have brought it from Irkoutsk, Kiakhta, Stratensk, &c., and shipped on the steamers running by the Tom and Obi rivers to Tiumen. Just outside the town is a huge plain cut up in all directions by caravan roads, and at the extremity of which are the wharves where steamers lie to receive their cargoes. A dreary, desolate place it looked, the dull, wintry day we saw it, but in summer the whole place is alive with caravan carts, while in dry weather an eternal dust-cloud hangs like a pall over the huge plain. The railway which is now being projected between Tomsk and Irkoutsk, will do away with all this. This line completed, the tea will be sent to Wladivostok from China by sea, thence to Stratensk by the Amour river, and on by rail from Irkoutsk to Tomsk and European Russia.

The HÔtel d’Europe afforded us very fair accommodation (for Siberia). The cooking was excellent, and we managed to make ourselves comfortable enough. Tomsk is famed for two delicacies, sterlet and caviare. I have seldom tasted anything to equal the former in flavour, and the caviare, fresh from the fish and eaten a couple of hours after it had been taken, was food for the gods, and as unlike the potted abomination sold in England as can well be imagined. In all other respects, however, the hotel was sadly deficient. Our room swarmed with vermin, and there was not a bath to be had in the place for love or money; the only washing appliance in the hotel being a small tin vessel nailed up against the wall of the corridor, and holding about a pint, a small tap turning on a tiny, trickling stream of water, which ran over one’s hands and on to the floor. I asked our host why he did not provide wash-hand basins for his customers. “They are so dirty,” was the reply, “half the time you are washing your hands in dirty water. By our plan it runs over you fresh and clean!”

We attended a performance at the Opera House of “Barbe Bleu,” but it was poorly performed, and the artists very inferior to those of Irkoutsk. The streets of Tomsk are, unlike those of Irkoutsk, fairly safe after dark, for they are well lit by gas and patrolled throughout the night by a strong force of police. Although invited to a public ball the third evening of our stay, we were unable to put in an appearance, having so many arrangements to make, and the steamer leaving at 4 a.m. the following day. With previous experiences of the manners and customs of Siberians after 12 a.m., we determined not to risk losing it. They must be amusing sights, these Siberian dances. It is not customary to walk about a ball-room, even in the intervals of dancing. Each guest moves about with a sort of dancing step, À la Polonaise. Judging from their evening parties, a Siberian ball-room must become a very fair imitation of a beer garden towards the small hours of the morning, and we were perhaps fortunate in having stayed away.

One is struck at Tomsk by the number of well-turned-out carriages and horses in the streets though the “droshki” or public vehicles are rough, uncomfortable things, in shape something like an Irish jaunting car, with a seat about half a yard broad, to hold two persons sitting back to back. They are not built high from the ground, luckily, for the yemstchiks are perfectly indifferent as to whether their passengers fall out or not, and whirl round corners in the most reckless way. Although the male population are of the same sulky, hangdog-looking appearance as we saw at Irkoutsk, the women were distinctly pretty, and the majority extremely well dressed. But few affected the Siberian costume, the long cloak and white head-handkerchief, so much in vogue in Eastern Siberia, but the smart gowns and neat figures encountered in the streets pleasantly recalled one to the fact that we were once more nearing civilization. I saw women in the Grande Rue of Tomsk, who would have been considered pretty and well dressed in Bond Street, but these were only amongst the upper classes. The peasantry, male and female, are, with few exceptions, hideous.

It says little, however, for the intelligence or civilization of the population of both Tomsk and Irkoutsk, that we were unable to procure a single French or German book at either city. We had not had a single book of any kind to read since leaving Pekin, and were naturally anxious to get something to lighten the tedious and weary hours that lay between us and Tiumen, but, search as we might, could discover no French or German, to say nothing of English, work of any kind. A university has since been founded at Tomsk, and matters may have improved in this respect, but it seemed strange that in a population of nearly fifty thousand souls (many of whom spoke German) there should have been nothing but Russian works obtainable. Although art of all kinds is at a low ebb in most of the Siberian towns, there is one thing in which they certainly do excel——in photography. For clearness and finish some of their productions are equal to those of the best photographers in London or Paris, notably those of Bogdanovitch in Irkoutsk. I was told by the latter that the best are taken in winter time, when the clear, rarefied atmosphere and dazzling sunshine offer excellent opportunities for obtaining good negatives.

We were somewhat staggered by the hotel bill presented us by the host of the HÔtel d’Europe, the total amounting to two hundred and seventy roubles (or nearly 30l.) for barely four days’ bed and board. In vain I protested against the enormity of the items (not one of which, by the way, could I read), in vain threatened sooner than be thus swindled, to stop in Tomsk and bring the matter before a court of justice. But the old Jew was inexorable, and only smiled blandly and rubbed his hands, murmuring now and then, “The gospodin must not lose his temper.” He laughed outright at my threat of bringing the matter into court, his amusement being accounted for by the interpreter, who told us that he, being the chief magistrate, would himself have tried the case. To make matters worse, we had that morning sold the old rascal our tarantass for sixty roubles (about one-third of its real value), on the express understanding that he would charge as little as possible for accommodation.

We set out at 4 a.m. on the morning of the 19th of September for the steamer. Our way was fraught with considerable difficulty, for it was as dark as pitch out on the plain, which was covered in places with deep holes and pitfalls. Though only four versts, it took two hours to do the distance, and we were right glad when, a little before daybreak, the green and red lights of the Kazanetse shone out bright and clear, while at the same time her steam whistle sounded for departure, recalling us to the fact that we were now no longer at the mercy of drunken drivers and broken-down axles, but well within reach of Europe by means of that blessed invention, steam!

The Kazanetse would have been a fairly comfortable boat anywhere. To us, fresh from the discomforts of the road, she seemed positively luxurious. The fleet to which she belonged is one of fourteen vessels, each ranging from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons, and owned by two private individuals, Messrs. Kourbatoff and Ignatoff, who have the contract for carrying mails and prisoners. These vessels are built at Tiumen, and on the same model, the first-class accommodation forward, the roof of the saloon forming an upper deck, while abaft the funnel the decks are roofed over with iron for deck passengers, of whom, on the Kazanetse, there were some three hundred returning to various parts of the Obi district before the closing of that river for navigation. The merchandise is towed in lighters of two and three hundred tons, though drawing but two or three feet of water, for in parts even this huge stream becomes dangerously shallow in the summer months. The steamers burn wood, carried on the deck of the lighters, the consumption per diem being sometimes as much as eighty tons!

It was with a sense of relief that we woke next day to hear the paddle-wheels dashing through the water, and the little steamer shaking with the speed at which she was being driven through the grey misty morning. As usual, washing appliances were nil, but after a steaming glass of tea and two or three “Kalatchi”^[16] and preserves, we found no difficulty in dispensing with such minor details, and felt as we had not once felt since leaving Irkoutsk; thoroughly comfortable. A coal-barge would have been a relief after the incessant shaking and bumping of those fifteen hundred miles. I thought with a shudder how, had we been delayed a week later, we should in a few more days have been ploughing through the deep muddy roads and flooded plains to Tiumen, a distance of quite one thousand versts. Though that by river is nearly four thousand, we would have chosen it, had it been double or treble the distance, in preference to the leaky, bone-shaking tarantass, a vehicle the very name of which I shall ever recall with a shudder!

But though one felt thoroughly at rest, the unvarying monotony on board the Kazanetse was trying enough, and the winding stream, flat, muddy banks, and slow-going steamer grew intensely depressing after the first two days. The Obi river is neither grand nor picturesque. It is at all seasons a cheerless, dispiriting landscape that meets the eye from Tomsk to Soorgoot, but in late autumn its banks must present the appearance of a howling wilderness. There are few rivers in the world with as many tributaries, or of the same enormous length, as the Obi. The basin of the river contains more than a million and a quarter of square miles, an area nearly two thousand miles in length, and, at the widest part, twelve hundred in breadth. From near the Chinese border, where it has its source, to the Gulf of Obi in the Frozen Ocean, it has over seventy tributaries, not including the Tom and Irtish Rivers, the source of the latter being Lake Zaizan, near the Koochoom Mountains in Chinese Tartary. An idea may thus be gained of what a stupendous volume of water this is. A few days above Tomsk, it presents more the appearance of a succession of large lakes than a river——lakes fringed with low banks of stunted fir and beech-trees, varied by occasional stretches of sandy waste. Early autumn is, perhaps, the best time to see the Obi, for at this season the varied hues of decaying vegetation give a more or less varied look to the dull landscape of dirty green and drab that stretches away, without hut or habitation to mar its solitude, from its shores to those of the Arctic Ocean. The end of October, sees the Obi covered with ice, and no longer navigable. For a great part of the year, however, the water flows on under the ice, which, even as far south as Tiumen, is from three to four feet thick. Navigation is sometimes entirely suspended in twenty-four hours, so suddenly does winter come on. It must not, however, be imagined that the frozen rivers of Siberia present the smooth, unbroken surface of glassy ice which one sees depicted in English pictures, presumably by artists who have never been nearer Siberia than Moscow or Petersburg. The Obi, with its impetuous torrent, is, perhaps, the most uneven and rugged of any; but even on the Yenisei, which is less rapid, it is common enough in winter to see hillocks and miniature cliffs twenty to thirty feet in height, thrown up by the current upon its frozen surface. The effect, with a blue sky and brilliant sunshine, is, I was told, very beautiful; but on dull, days (which, happily for Siberians, are rare), the sight of a frozen, deserted river must be melancholy in the extreme.

We passed but two towns worthy of the name between Tomsk and Tiumen——Soorgoot and Tobolsk. The villages touched at were simply a collection of half a dozen log huts, the dwellings of the employÉs of the steamboat company, and depÔts for the firewood used by their vessels. Of the nomadic tribes inhabiting the banks of the Obi, we saw but little, most of them having already struck their birch-bark tents, and migrated north to their winter-quarters and reindeer. Occasionally, however, we passed an Ostiak encampment, with its half-dozen grimy-looking, triangular tents, savage dogs, and fleet of canoes. The Ostiaks inhabit the vast tract of country lying between the Obi and the shores of the Frozen Ocean. Like the Yakoutz, their neighbours, the Ostiaks subsist entirely upon what they kill. Fish in summer, and game in winter. Like the Yakoutz also, scurvy and a still more loathsome disease, introduced by Russian traders, is slowly but surely stamping them out. They are a good-tempered, hospitable people, fond of trade, but averse to anything like hard work. In summer, when, between the months of June and August, night is unknown in these regions, their chief occupation is fishing, the produce of their nets being salted and sent on to Tobolsk for export to Tiumen, Ekaterinburg, Perm, and European Russia. The Ostiaks number about thirteen thousand in all, and are miserable creatures to look at, with a yellowish complexion, flat faces, and coarse, dark hair. They are, especially skilful in the use of the bow. In shooting squirrels, for instance, they use a blunt arrow, and are careful to hit the animal only on the head, so as not to injure the fur.

During summer, the Ostiaks live entirely upon fish, during the winter months their sole diet is reindeer milk. The costume is not an ungraceful one, and is made of reindeer skin trimmed with bright red or blue cloth and coloured beads, some of the richer ones being hung round with small silver coins, Russian twenty-kopek pieces, &c. It is never safe to approach their encampments alone. I did so once, and had cause to repent it, being attacked by half a dozen huge dogs, who would have made short work of me, had not an old Ostiak woman emerged from a tent upon hearing the disturbance, and beaten them off. The Ostiak breed of dog is not unlike the Mongolian. They are sharp-looking, sagacious creatures of a black and white colour, and are by nature the cleanest that exist, going daily of their own accord to the river and bathing throughout the summer months. In winter they roll themselves in the snow. I thought of buying and bringing one home, but that it would have been a nuisance and expense through Europe.

We anchored one evening off an Ostiak encampment and paid its inmates a visit. It was a curious, weird scene, the broad, sullen-looking river, the crimson sunset through the dark-green fir-trees, the two or three flimsy, tumble-down tents with columns of thin grey smoke rising into the still evening air, while a number of silent, skin-clad forms flitted noiselessly about, getting in the nets and canoes for the night, on the low sandy spit that ran for some yards into the river. Not a sound broke the stillness, for we were quite half a mile from the steamer, and save for the wash and ripple of the stream, the occasional bay of a dog, or cracking of sticks as one of the women gathered fuel for the night, all was silent as the grave. I have never seen a picture of more utter desolation. We intended to enter one of their dwellings, but beat a hasty retreat on coming within ten or fifteen yards of them. The stench was overpowering, and I am not exaggerating when I say that one may smell an Ostiak quite a quarter of a mile off with the wind in the right quarter! It is a smell peculiar to their race, so sickening and overpowering, that I cannot describe it. Russians ascribe it to their invincible repugnance to salt. None will touch it, although it has several times, and at great expense, been distributed amongst them by the Government; and this is no doubt the cause of the majority of the loathsome diseases from which they suffer. Some of the men were pleasant-looking fellows, and their women would have been pretty had they possessed any teeth, which, after the age of fourteen or fifteen, usually loosen and drop out from the same cause. Unlike their neighbours the SamoyÉdes, the Ostiaks are kind to their women. In no race in the world is woman so badly treated as among the former. To be enceinte, even legally, is considered degrading, and the unfortunate mothers are beaten and worried incessantly during the time of pregnancy, and until their child is born. During this period, too, they are tortured until they confess with whom they have been unfaithful, very often naming an utterly innocent person to escape further torment. When they have done so, there is no great result; the husband simply claiming a small sum of money (or its equivalent in fur or brandy) as damages! I was much struck with the likeness between the Ostiaks, as regards their appearance and habits, and the Dyaks of Central Borneo, although of course the latter are a much finer race, both as regards physique and intellect. The dug-out canoes used on the Obi are the same identically in shape and construction, while on the handles of the paddles I found much the same patterns of carving that I had come across among some of the inland tribes in Borneo. This is indeed a case of “extremes meeting.”

The shores of the Obi river teem with game and wild fowl. I must have seen quite a million duck during the journey from Tomsk to Tobolsk, while in the season wild geese, teal, widgeon, and snipe abound; and I was somewhat surprised to see quantities of sea-gull at this distance from the ocean. There is no lack, either, of bear and wolf in these regions, and smaller ground game, and for one who cared for sport, I can imagine no better hunting-ground. But he would be a bold man who would pitch his tent among this unsavoury race for two or three months. To say nothing of their filthy habits, the tents are seldom free from small-pox.

There were but six first-class passengers besides ourselves on the Kazanetse. M. Sourikoff, a painter of some renown in Russia, his pretty wife, and two little girls, Olga and HÉlÈne, models in miniature of their mother, who were returning from Tomsk to Moscow, after a somewhat extended tour in Siberia, in search of peasant types for a new historical picture, since completed with great success by M. Sourikoff. It was pleasant, indeed, to make the acquaintance of these charming people, who were true Russians (not Siberians), and the long dull evenings passed quickly enough. Although M. Sourikoff spoke but a few words of French, madame was half a Parisienne, and returned every year, for a few weeks to the lovely city she had forsaken for the fogs and mists of Petersburg. We thus had many subjects in common, and this was undoubtedly the pleasantest part of our journey.

There is no fixed time for meals on board these boats. You order your food when and where you like, so passengers are but little thrown together, and as the two remaining ones never appeared to take nourishment at all, or join the Sourikoffs and ourselves at dinner or breakfast, we did not make their acquaintance. They were a queer couple too, one an old gentleman of semi-military appearance, who paced up and down deck all day, wet or dry, smothered up in furs, and seemed to subsist solely on suction. I never saw him eat, but he consumed at least twenty bottles of beer a day, to say nothing of nips of vodka and glasses of tea between whiles. His official cap and numerous decorations gave him the appearance of a general at least. We put him down as returning from an important Siberian military command, and were somewhat surprised to hear at Tiumen that he was a simple government inspector of mines in Siberia, and a civilian. Where he got the medals remains a mystery. Our other fellow-passenger was a lady who might have been any age from twenty to fifty, and whose movements and manner were so singular and weird that Madame Sourikoff christened her “The Sphinx.” She usually spent the whole day locked up in her cabin. It was only at night that she emerged, muffled up in furs, and thick veils, to pace the solitary deck till long after midnight. Only once did I catch a glimpse of her face, a pale and determined, though sad one, framed with jet black hair cut short and square over the temples. When alone one moonlight night, smoking a cigar on deck, I ventured to address the mysterious stranger in French, a language she understood perfectly. Her history was sad enough. She had left her home near Nijni Novgorod “under suspicion” two years ago, a girl of eighteen, to return an old woman. Most of her term of exile had been passed at Krasnoiarsk. It was only at Tomsk that she had learnt the death of her mother, and that her fiancÉ, who had vowed to wait for her return, had married another. “I have nothing to live for now, monsieur,” sobbed the poor woman, “for my step-father was the means of my being sent to that hell upon earth. Let me only ask you to keep my secret, and tell no one on board I have spoken to you. I do not wish for society————I cannot stand it.” Poor soul! I have often since wondered what became of her; whether she returned to a fairly contented, though broken life, or, as is more often the case, lived but to welcome the day when death should end her troubles, and let her forget that she had ever been sent to accursed Siberia.

The cuisine on board the Kazanetse was excellent, a pleasant change from the eternal menus of the past six weeks, “Yaitse,” “Chi,” and “Moloko.”^[17] The “Rabchick” formed part of our daily bill of fare. This is a bird peculiar to Russia and Siberia, something similar to a partridge, and excellent eating. When struggling with the bill of fare, I often thought of a poor Frenchman who left Moscow for Irkoutsk two years since——completely ignorant of the Russian language——and who was told by a friend whenever he felt hungry merely to mention the word “Teliatina,” and they would bring him anything worth eating. Things went well till he reached Tobolsk, when it suddenly dawned upon the poor wretch that all the animal food he had eaten since leaving the Holy City had been composed solely of veal! By the time our friend reached Tomsk he was fairly rabid. Veal is an excellent thing in its way, but “toujours veau,” like “toujours perdrix,” is apt to pall upon the palate after a few weeks! It was only at Tomsk that he came across a French-speaking Cossack officer who was able to change his bill of fare, and history relates that the victim was so overcome with emotion and gratitude that he fell upon his deliverer’s neck and wept for joy!

One is out of it on board a Siberian river-steamer if one does not eat nuts, for every one devours day and night, hour after hour, a small kind of cob-nut, very common in Siberia, which to my taste was extremely insipid and flavourless. But we were told by the Sourikoffs it was the proper thing to do, so purchased a pound or so at the first stopping-place, and followed the example of our fellow-passengers. Every one devoured them, from the captain downwards. Even the melancholy exile had her bag of “brousniki,” as they are called, and the beer-drinking inspector furtively produced them every now and then from the depths of his fur-lined “dacha.” When the Siberian is unable to obtain these, he chews a kind of elastic composition made of turpentine, not unpleasant to the taste. The Russians call this “Conversation SibÉrienne,” hardly a compliment to the conversational powers of the inhabitants of Asiatic Russia.

From the day we left Samarof, our northernmost point, the weather became cold and raw, so much so that furs were a daily as well as nightly necessity. Cold and blinding showers of hail and sleet kept us prisoners in the little stuffy saloon of the steamer, and we passed the days sadly enough, staring out of the misty windows at the flat, muddy banks, watching the grey, woolly clouds as they swept across the desolate-looking plains. We had now entered the river Irtish, where navigation is extremely dangerous at this time of the year on account of the dense fogs that prevail between Soorgoot and Tobolsk. Collisions are of frequent occurrence, and it is not to be wondered at. There is no rule of the road as at sea or on most European rivers. Upon meeting a vessel a red or white flag was waved from the bridge to intimate that we should pass to the right or left of it. At night the signal was given by a small hand-lamp. On foggy days and dark misty nights the danger of this system may be imagined, and we got but little sleep at nights for fear of a smash, to say nothing of a deafening fog-horn kept going almost without cessation from sunset till dawn. We only anchored once, however, when the fog became so bad you could literally not see your hand before you. It lasted seven hours, as uncomfortable ones as I ever wish to spend, for eyes, nose, and mouth were choked with the fumes which penetrated even into the saloon. The scenery for a couple of days after leaving Soorgoot was still more desolate and monotonous. The forests of birch and beech disappeared altogether, and were replaced by vast plains of sand, varied by an occasional salt-marsh, the only signs of vegetation being the stunted willows and scrub that fringed the banks of the dirty, muddy-coloured river. Not a living thing is seen in these regions, save at long intervals, perhaps, the encampment of some Ostiak, the tiny tents only accentuating the huge landscape of desolation surrounding it. It gives me the blues even now to recall the shores of the Obi and Irtish on a dull day.

We reached Tobolsk at 5 p.m. on the 25th of September. The night before, just as we were sinking into a sweet sleep, we were all roughly tumbled out of our berths and ordered on deck. “It’s come at last,” said Lancaster, who, like myself, had made up his mind that an accident had happened, for there was a tremendous turmoil and scurrying about on deck, and, looking out of the little port-hole, I made out the red and green lights of a large steamer close alongside. Sourikoff was already on deck. Poor Madame S. and little Olga and HÉlene were sitting on a pile of luggage, their teeth chattering and faces blue with the cold. “Is it not disgraceful?” said the poor little lady, “we have to change steamers.” The winter-quarters of the Kazanetze were, it appeared, at Tomsk; those of the Reutern, the steamer we had just met, at Tobolsk. The latter, having been delayed by the fogs for nearly four days, would not have time to return to her winter port before the closing of the navigation. “The intention was,” said the captain, “to change us at Soorgoot, but these cursed fogs have thrown out all the company’s arrangements.”

We certainly got the worst of the bargain. The Reutern was of precisely the same dimensions as the Kazanetze, and whereas we had but eight first-class passengers all told, she carried sixty or seventy natives of Tomsk, and other riverside towns, who were hurrying back to their homes before the freezing of the Obi. The saloon of the Reutern was, as may be imagined, in a truly disgusting state. The tables covered with grease and cigarette ash, the floor strewn with chicken bones, egg shells, pieces of bread, squashed berries, &c., and although it was past midnight, a great many of the passengers must have been indulging in a meal at the time the Kazanetse hove in sight, for the smell of grease and cooking was intolerable, the windows of the saloon having evidently been closed ever since the Reutern had left Tobolsk. The Siberians have queer notions of eating, and their meals correspond very much with their unfinished mode of life. While on their travels they feed anyhow, no matter how great the facility for obtaining food at proper hours. You will see them, men, women, and children alike, subsist throughout the day solely on tea, bread, or sweet biscuits and berries, and then, as if struck by a sudden happy thought, rouse themselves about midnight, and sit down to a heavy meal of two or three courses, washed down by copious draughts of scalding tea, and preceded by three or four large glasses of vodka. Cigarettes are incessantly smoked during meals. Cigars are unobtainable in Siberia. I tried one at Tomsk, but felt the effects for days afterwards. Russian cigarettes are, in my opinion, better than the Egyptian. They are more aromatic, and certainly less injurious. Those made by Laferme under the name of “Petits canons,” are the best, and are to be bought almost everywhere throughout the Russian Empire, from Kiakhta to Petersburg, Archangel to Merv. They are a beautifully made cigarette, and the price (one rouble a hundred) is reasonable enough.

The approach to Tobolsk is picturesque. One felt, on looking at the villages in the suburbs, with their green church spires and neat whitewashed houses, large fields, and grazing-grounds, enclosed by neat wooden railings, that one was indeed approaching civilization. For some two miles before reaching the town itself, the river is lined by rocky, precipitous cliffs topped with dense forests of pine. Here and there huge landslips had taken place. In one instance nearly a quarter of a mile square had sunk bodily into the river, trees and all, looking at the point where it had broken away as clean cut as if it had been done with a knife. The Irtish River is very subject to these convulsions of nature. Its banks in 1753 fell a depth of nearly seventy feet.

Tobolsk is distinctly the prettiest town in Siberia, though perhaps the fact of our being so pleased with it was not altogether unassociated with the thought that it was the last Siberian city (except Tiumen) that we should visit. On first appearance one is reminded not a little of Gibraltar; one portion of the town being built on a steep cliff, the other on the marshy plain, watered by the winding yellow Irtish, and its smaller tributary, the Tobol river. We were to start again at midnight, so lost no time in landing and making an excursion round the city.

It will give the reader some idea of the size of Siberia, when I say that the district or government of Tobolsk alone is nearly eight times as large as Great Britain and Ireland. The population of this vast province are for the most part Russians, Tartars, Ostiaks, and Samoyedes, the two latter aboriginal tribes. The city of Tobolsk was for a long time the capital of the whole of Eastern and Western Siberia, and is rich in historical associations. It belonged up to 1581 to the Tartars, and was then known under the name of Isker, the governor or ruler of the province being a Tartar chief of the name of Kootchoom.

It may be said that Siberia was practically unknown to the inhabitants of European Russia up to the middle of the sixteenth century, for although, previously to this, an expedition had penetrated as far as the Lower Obi, yet its effects were not permanent. Later on, Ivan Vassilovitch II. sent a body of troops across the Ourals, laid some of the Tartar tribes under tribute, and assumed the title of “Lord of Siberia.” Kootchoom Khan, however, a descendant of Chenghiz Khan, punished these tribes for their cowardice, regained their fealty, and thus put an end to further encroachments from Russia. A second invasion, however, ended more favourably for Russian interests, and in a totally unexpected manner. Ivan II. had extended his conquests to the Caspian Sea, and opened up trade with Persia. The merchants and caravans were, however, frequently pillaged by hordes of banditti called Don Cossacks, whom the Czar was finally compelled to attack, killing many, and making prisoners of many more. Some escaped; among the latter being some five hundred freebooters, under the command of a chief named Yermak Timoffeef, who, making their way to Orel, heard of an inviting field of adventure lying east of the Oural mountains. It is not generally known that the enormous country known as Asiatic Russia was conquered and annexed by five hundred men. Yermak, himself an outlaw, conquered, after a desperate battle, the Tartar hordes of Kootchoom Khan, then prince of the Tobolsk province, and became in twenty-four hours transformed from a lawless robber into a prince. But he had the good sense, notwithstanding, to see that he could not hope to hold his enormous empire without assistance. He sent, therefore, fifty of his Cossacks to the Czar of Russia, their chief being ordered to represent to that monarch the progress which the Russian troops under the command of Yermak had made in Siberia, where an extensive empire had been conquered in the name of the Czar. The latter, delighted beyond measure at this fresh acquisition of territory, gave the rebel Yermak free pardon, and at once sent him money and assistance. Reinforced by five hundred Cossacks, Yermak renewed his efforts, formed fresh expeditions, and was enabled to subdue and conquer fresh districts, which had been fomented and incited to rebellion by the conquered Kootchoom Khan. In one of the smaller engagements, Yermak perished, not, it is said, by the sword of the enemy, but, having to cut his way to the water’s edge, he essayed to jump into a boat, and stepping short, fell into the water, when the weight of his armour drowned him.

The stream of conquest flowed apace after the death of Yermak, whose name will live for ever in Russia as one of the greatest benefactors of that country. Tomsk was founded in 1604, and from thence new expeditions were formed by the Cossacks, with the result that Yeneseisk was founded in 1619, and a few years afterwards the city of Krasnoiarsk. Crossing the Yenisei river, the invading army advanced to the shores of Lake Baikal, and in 1620 attacked, and conquered, the populous nation of the Bouriattes. Then, making for the north, they founded Yakoutsk in 1632, and subjugated, though not without difficulty, the powerful Yakout tribe. Having accomplished this, the troops crossed the Aldan mountains, and in 1639 reached the sea of Okhotsk. Thus in less than seventy years was added to the Russian Empire a territory as large as the whole of Europe, whose ancient capital was Tobolsk——thus was an empire comprising nearly the half of Asia conquered and annexed by a simple Cossack and five hundred men. Ought not this to warn us that Russian enterprise is not a thing to be thought lightly of; that in most cases what a Russian, be he noble or moujik, has said “I will do,” he does, be it at the cost of his life.

In the public gardens of Tobolsk is a monument of grey granite, about fifty feet in height, which was erected in 1839. On the base is inscribed, in gold letters, the words, “To Yermak! Conqueror of Siberia.”

It was getting dusk when we landed, and, hiring droshkis, we set out with the Sourikoffs for a drive through the town. The Tobolsk droshki is a terrible vehicle, a miniature jaunting car built to hold two, and drawn by a horse three or four times too large for it. There is nothing to hold on by, not even a guard-rail, and as the streets of Tobolsk are anything but smooth, and our yemstchik drove at full gallop, it became a matter of considerable difficulty to stick to the ship, especially as my companion was a somewhat stout man, and took up more than two-thirds of the seat. I was not sorry when, the drive over, we arrived at the summit of the hill whereon stands the governor’s and archbishop’s palaces, and cathedral, the latter a fine building in the Byzantine style.

The city of Tobolsk has a population of about 30,000,^[18] and covers an area four versts long by about three broad. Although many stone buildings are springing up in various parts of the city, most of those in the lower town or mercantile parts are of wood. Many of the streets, though narrow and irregular, are paved completely with wooden planks laid crosswise, so that the town presents a tidier and less unfinished appearance than either Tomsk or Irkoutsk. I narrowly escaped being roughly handled when walking in the streets of the lower town, when, all unconsciously, I threw away the lighted end of a cigarette, a proceeding which instantly surrounded me with half a dozen infuriated inhabitants. It took Sourikoff all his time to appease them, and assure them that I was ignorant of the ways of the place, and a stranger to Siberian customs and manners, though, as I assured him, I had frequently done the same thing in other towns, and no notice had been taken. As, however, Tobolsk has been totally destroyed by fire no less than thirteen times, one can scarcely wonder at the anxiety shown by the inhabitants.

The shops were good. Though it was past nine o’clock when we returned to the lower town from visiting the public gardens and Yermak’s monument, most of them were open, and the streets well lit and crowded with people. Perhaps one of the most curious sights in Tobolsk is the “Kamaoulie Koloko,” or, translated literally, “Bell with the ear torn off.” Though so late, we managed to get a sight of this, which is kept in a kind of shed close to the archbishop’s palace, and of which a brief account may not be without interest to the reader.

Russia, during part of the fourteenth century, was governed by the Czar Boris Godorinoff, who by the way had no right whatsoever to the crown. The line which had then reigned for nearly one hundred and fifty years, a long time in those days, was represented by one Prince Dimitri, a boy of twelve years old, but on the death of Dimitri’s father in 1593, Boris raised a revolt, with the result that he was proclaimed Czar, and the boy Dimitri deposed from his rightful position. The seat of government was then at Boglitch, near the site whereon now stands the city of Nijni Novgorod, and to this place Dimitri was sent, so as to be under the immediate supervision of the peasant king. The latter, seeing an evident movement in favour of Dimitri, feared that if allowed to live, the youthful pretender might one day prove troublesome, and determined to have him assassinated. While crossing the market-place, therefore, the boy was seized by some soldiers and stabbed in broad daylight, while the Czar contemplated the scene from the windows of the palace, to see the effect it might have on the population, who, however, evinced not the slightest disposition to protect the young prince or avenge his murder. Only one dissentient tongue was heard, and that an iron one. A priest happening to see the crime from the cathedral belfry, and being a partisan of the Dimitri line, commenced to toll the great bell for the repose of the young prince’s soul, a bell which had always been regarded as sacred, and was only rung on the occasion of the assembling of the council or the coronation or death of a Czar. Infuriated at the priest’s interference, Boris gave orders that he should at once be tortured and executed. Nor was this enough. The bell itself should suffer, and as soon as the ringer had expiated his offence, and lay a mangled corpse on the open market-place, the bell was unhung, carried down from the belfry, and placed beside the body of its ringer. It was then beaten with clubs and sticks by the entire populace, Boris at their head!

But the quaintest part of the story is to come. Siberian exiles in those days were as a rule tortured before setting out for their place of imprisonment. The punishments inflicted were more or less severe, according to the nature of their crime, but all, without distinction, had their nostrils torn off with red hot pincers. This was the distinguishing mark of the exile. The public flogging over, Boris decided that the offending bell should be placed on a cart and exiled to Tobolsk, where it has remained ever since. There was one difficulty, though, the bell had no nostrils. But the czar was a man of infinite resource, and, not without a certain grim humour, so had one of the hangers removed instead! The “Kamaoulie Koloko” is nearly all of silver, and has a deep, beautiful tone. The Tobolskians are exceedingly proud of their trophy. One sees bells everywhere; as signs over the inn doors, as toys, work-boxes, handles of walking-sticks, cigarette-cases, even sleeve-links are made in imitation of the famous “iron exile of Boglitch.” It is as celebrated in its way as the Tun of Heidelberg or Lion of Lucerne.

Though a rising place as far as art and commerce is concerned, Tobolsk is very unhealthy, and is surrounded with vast stagnant marshes, fruitful sources of malaria and fever. There is no spring, and the summer is hot, dull, and rainy, the sun at this season of the year being seldom seen for more than two days together. Scarlet fever and diphtheria are seldom absent, and in the prison, which is built to accommodate three thousand, but is often half as full again, there are occasionally severe epidemics of small-pox and typhus. Cholera is, however, unknown. The winter is perhaps the healthiest season, but even then, when in most parts of Siberia the sun is shining in a cloudless sky, Tobolsk is wreathed in damp mists from the fever swamps surrounding it. It is hard to imagine a more melancholy and depressing place than it must be in the summer months, and prisoners say they would rather be sent to Nertchinsk for ten years, than have to spend two at Tobolsk, although it is so much nearer home and European Russia. A curious discovery was made here in 1862 by the superintendent of police. Some excavations were being made by some workmen in the lower town, when they came upon a number of large subterranean passages running in all directions and obstructed every fifty yards or so by massive iron gates. News of this was at once telegraphed to Petersburg, when, to the surprise of the inhabitants, a message came back, ordering that the places excavated should be closed up at once. As the order came direct from the czar, there was nothing to be said, and the existence of the tunnels, or how they ever came there, remains a mystery to the present day. The passages are said to exist only in the lower town. There are none under the hills where the government buildings are situated, which inclines some to the belief that they were built by some former czar, to be used in case of a revolt. Still it must be rather unpleasant for the good people of Tobolsk to live over a possible dynamite mine!

The voyage from Tobolsk to Tiumen was pleasant enough. Narrowed to a width of scarcely two hundred yards, the blue river meanders lazily through green fields, past pretty villages, neatly built and prosperous-looking, while the ruddy, happy-looking peasantry at work in the riverside meadows were a contrast to the dirty, sullen-looking population further east. A few hours before reaching Tiumen, however, all vegetation disappeared as if by magic, and we entered a sterile, sandy desert. “What a paradise for sportsmen!” said Sourikoff as we watched, from the deck of the steamer, the flocks of geese and ducks, and other wild fowl, wheeling backwards and forwards over the arid plain. The sky was black with them.

About midday on the 28th of September, a glittering speck appeared on the horizon, which presently developed into a confused mass of stone and wooden buildings, spires and golden domes. Two hours later we had moored alongside the busy quay and crowded wharves of Tiumen, realizing to the full that our journey was now practically over, for there within one hundred yards of us was the railway-station and just beyond it the luxurious-looking Pullman car, which was to bear us to Ekaterinburg and thence over the Oural Mountains to Perm. The whistling and puffing of the locomotive made one feel almost at home again. We forgot, in the excitement of the moment, that we were still in Asia, and many a weary mile from Old England!

The line from Tiumen to Ekaterinburg has only been built two years, and belongs to a private company. The cars are all open to each other, on the American principle, the second class being every bit as good as the first class on the Midland or Great Northern Railway in England, and the fares absurdly low. That from Tiumen to Perm, a distance of nearly five hundred miles, is only twenty-eight roubles, first-class (under 3l. sterling), and I can safely say that I have never in any country travelled so luxuriously. The stations are of stone, that at Tiumen being built in the centre of a large and beautifully kept garden. It reminded one of a railway-station in a German Spa, so neat and beautifully kept were the gravel-paths and flower-beds, the fountains and iron seats under the lime-trees. As for the refreshment-room, it was equal to any in France, and far better than any I have ever seen in England. Marble floors, tables spread with snowy cloths and glittering with plate and china, neat, white-aproned waiters, and a pretty barmaid presiding over the huge sideboard, with its tempting array of caviare, pickled salmon, pÂtÉs de foie gras, and forests of champagne and liqueur bottles, was a strange scene for Asia. It was certainly one of the most agreeable disappointments of our voyage, and after a capital dinner À la carte, washed down by an excellent bottle of Medoc, coffee, and kÜmmel, we came to the conclusion that, however behindhand they may be in other matters, the Russians certainly do understand the art of railway travelling. The train was not leaving till 9 p.m., which gave us time for a stroll round the town. Cab fares in these parts are not ruinous. The distance from the railway-station to the town (about three miles) costing us under one shilling English money.

Tiumen is a bare, unfinished-looking place, with a population of thirty thousand, and is situated on the banks of the river Toura, a smaller branch of the Irtish. In the centre of the town is a plain, a dusty waste in summer and muddy swamp in winter, about three miles square. This is surrounded on three sides by wooden and brick buildings. In the centre is a cluster of rough wooden sheds and canvas booths, which is dignified by the name of “Bazaar,” where vodka, provisions of all sorts, clothes, and agricultural implements are sold. Hard by, a circular building, built of rough planks, and covered with gaudy posters representing impossible men performing still more impossible feats, was pointed out to us with evident pride by an inhabitant, as the circus. “There would be a performance that night,” said our new acquaintance, who spoke a few words of French. “Why did we not stay for it and go on the next day? and he would show us round Tiumen after dark.” But we declined the offer with thanks. He was a dirty, rough-looking fellow in Moujik kaftan and high boots, and did not inspire confidence. “Then perhaps your excellencies would like to visit a prison barge. One arrived this morning, and is empty,” was the next suggestion.

We accepted this offer, and accompanied our friend, when the mystery was solved. He was a Polish exile, who, having done his time at Kara, had been permitted to return to Tiumen, for the remainder of his life. Here he managed to scrape up a living by doing odd jobs as porter, droshki-driver, and what not. He had seen better days, he told us, and knew Paris and London well, having once been employed as waiter in an Italian restaurant in the latter city, and had he kept away from Petersburg and politics, would now be living an honest and comfortable life. How many poor wretches in Siberia could, I wonder, say the same thing!

A PRISON BARGE ON THE OBI RIVER.