be built some day to Kalgan, on the east side of Gobi.

As touching the tea trade of Kiakhta, and the question of how the railway is likely to affect that, it may be noted that such trade could scarcely exist even now but for the fact that the Russian Government, partly perhaps for political reasons, and partly perhaps out of kindness to the Kiakhta interests, gives to Gobi-carried tea special terms which amount in substance to a huge bounty. Thus, the Russian duty charged at Odessa on tea which has come by sea amounts to 20 roubles for each 36 pounds, whereas the Russian duty at Kiakhta is only 23 roubles for 36 pounds. It will be seen that, as nearly as possible, that represents a bonus of half a rouble the pound in favour of tea carried by the overland route. If the overland route is to be considered as including the overland route by railway, it is obvious that, with the facilities of railway transport, and with the fact that the flavour of tea is less damaged by land transit than by sea transit, and with this bonus of half a rouble per pound, the tea trade would be taken entirely from the sea-route, and would be given to the railway.

As there could be no object in loading the Siberian Railway with a huge tea traffic, obtained at the expense of the public taxation, it is presumable that no such bonus, or at all events no such large bonus, will be allowed to tea imported by rail; and in that

case it seems difficult to see why the bonus should be continued to the Kiakhta trade. It would be an odd thing that the taxation on tea should be so arranged as to give, for no apparent reason, a bonus to Mongol caravans as against both the Russian volunteer steamers and the Russian Government railways.

The time of construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, as originally estimated, was about thirteen years, say between 1892 and 1905. During the first six years there have been almost completely finished and opened for traffic no less a distance than 1,900 miles on the western side, and about 500 miles on the eastern side, the total estimated distance being, as I have said, about 5,000 miles. In other words, roughly speaking, one-half of the work has been finished in one-half of the time, subject to the fact that because of the Manchurian deviation the 500 miles on the eastern side cease to be of use as part of the main line. That seems to me a very satisfactory rate of progress, and I do not see why it should not be maintained. It is true that the work hitherto done, having been conducted chiefly from the western end, where there are facilities, and partly from the eastern end, where there is a seaport, has had certain advantages, which cannot be quite paralleled in the section still unopened. As against that, we have to remember that by the deviation into Manchuria Russia

obtains a much easier route than that on which she had calculated, and that during the last six years she has also gained much experience in the art of Siberian railway building. She has trained her men to work, and work is now proceeding much more quickly than heretofore.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RAILWAY JOURNEY.

BETWEEN September 28 and October 6 of last year (1898), I traversed the whole length of the TransSiberian Railway, so far as it is yet constructed. Starting from Irkutsk I ended at Cheliabinsk, the town where the Siberian system connects with the railways of European Russia. Nor did I stop there, for Cheliabinsk is only the terminus in an arbitrary and conventional sense. The real terminus -the terminus at which I arrived on October 10 without any break of journey-is Moscow. It may, therefore, be of interest to give some notes of the whole railroad journey, which occupied between Irkutsk and Moscow exactly three hours less than twelve days and nights of continuous travel.

It was on the eastern side of Lake Baikal-the side furthest from Europe-that I struck the railway in course of construction. Coming from the east, passing through lands sparsely inhabited by a pastoral people, I turned sharp round the corner of a hill, and found myself, as mentioned in a previous

chapter, on the railway track, and in the immediate neighbourhood of a village crowded with thousands of workmen a railway town, as the Americans would put it. It was the town of Masova, on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal.

way.

It may be well to repeat here that Lake Baikal lies right in the path of the Trans-Siberian RailIt cannot be bridged, for it is a sea. It can be and is traversed by considerable steamers, but in winter these steamers cannot ply, for the lake is frozen hard. It cannot be turned save by a very long détour, and that détour the designers of the railway rather shirked, not so much, perhaps, because of its length as because of the difficult character of the ground. The lake lies in a deep basin formed by very steep and rocky hills, and to take the railway round the lake end will involve huge cutting and embankment works. Therefore the temporary scheme has been to construct the railway from Europe to a convenient point on the western shore of the lake, and to arrange to take the traffic across to the eastern shore by means of a boat that shall be at once a ferry steamer and an ice-breaker. The point selected on the eastern shore is Masova-where I struck the railway-and on the western shore the place chosen is called Listvenitchaia, the point at which the Angara River debouches from the lake. These two points are not opposite to each other, the distance between