There is a certain amount of waste and misspending in the affairs of the Russian Government, but I do not fancy that much of it belongs to the domain. of direct bribery. You must not, of course, apply to all things Russian the same standard that you would apply to all things English. I take it that the customs of the country have sanctioned certain pickings that from our present standard of public morals we would call misappropriations. If so, the people engaged in such pickings must not be judged solely by our standard. But of direct bribery I do not think there is very much, and I think there would be no need for it at all in the case of any foreign adventurer who desired to exploit mineral concessions in Siberia, and who did not desire to exploit them unfairly; but he must not take a very important proposal to a Russian department and expect an immediate answer. Neither need he necessarily seek to do his business through supping at late hours and drinking at all times. However successful the latter plan was, as I have narrated it, that is not equally applicable to all departments and to all conditions. There is a happy medium. But the first thing to be remembered in dealing with a Government is that no Government likes to be hurried, and no department will allow itself to be hurried unless you set about it very dexterously indeed.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOME SIBERIAN TOWNS.

I PASSED through six notable Siberian towns, two of which I saw very thoroughly, as thoroughly as any stranger can expect to see any town where he does not speak the language of the people. The other four towns that I passed through I can only claim to have seen in the sense that an American would see Liverpool on his way to London, but I had the opportunity on the train of talking with people who either lived in those towns or at least knew them very well. Four other towns that should not be lost sight of when writing about Siberia I did not see, because they are on branch lines, and my time, latterly, was limited; but in the cases of the two more important of these I had the good fortune to have their leading characteristics explained to me by men who had lived and traded there. The towns through which I passed were Kiakhta, Irkutsk, Kansk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, and Cheliabinsk. The towns that I passed near without seeing were Tomsk, Ekaterinburg, Tiumen, and Perm. The last-named,

by the way, is in Russia proper, but from its character, trade, and geographical situation it really belongs to the Siberian group.

The characteristics of all these towns are enterprise and progress, in a sense distinct from those qualities as you find them in European Russia, and with somewhat of an analogy to the qualities that you find in American and Canadian towns. In all cases such uncertainty of the future as may be observed in these towns turns upon those great changes in the course of trade that may be expected to come in the wake of the railway. Before dealing with that point generally, it may be convenient to note something briefly of the characteristics of some of these towns. With Kiakhta I have already dealt fully, so it may suffice to repeat here that as a result of the railway, when the railway is completed, Kiakhta must lose the overland tea trade, or most of it. What Kiakhta is to gain instead I do not clearly see. The individual capitalists of Kiakhta may not suffer, since they are engaged in enterprises far beyond Kiakhta; but the town should suffer, or at all events should cease to grow. Irkutsk should lose the same tea trade that Kiakhta loses, but it may gain enormously in its present local trade, for its future lies in the fact that it should be a great river and lake port, receiving and shipping goods for and from the railway. Krasnoyarsk seems to have before it a very great future. Its record dates back

to 1628, when it was established as a military post. Then, much later, it had a burst of prosperity as the centre of an alluvial gold district, and I can easily conceive that, with increased enterprise and with increased capital, the gold washings and the trade dependent upon them may continue for a very long time to come. It may further be noted as a general, although not an invariable, principle, that where alluvial gold is plentiful gold reefs may ultimately be found. But the real strength of Krasnoyarsk lies in its magnificent position on the Yeneisei. should remain the centre of a great river navigation. Coming much further west, we find Cheliabinsk to be a thorough railway town. It is the seat of the administration of the Siberian Railway, with the additional advantage that, while the main line connects Cheliabinsk with the main line through European Russia, there is a branch, with further divergent branches, connecting with Ekaterinburg, Tiumen, and Perm.

It

Ekaterinburg is a town on a navigable river, and in the centre of a mineral district. It was founded in 1723 by Peter the Great, who established ironworks that are important factors in the prosperity of Siberia. Russia, it may be noted here, is now fifth in the list of the world's iron-producing countries, her output in 1897 being over 2,000,000 tons. The remarkable development of recent years has chiefly been in the south and in the Urals, but development

is now proceeding in Siberia, which at present is absorbing such large quantities of the iron from the Urals. The quality of the iron produced is not quite what it might be; but the raw material is all right, and the processes of manufacture will, no doubt, be improved in time. Ekaterinburg is, further, the town to which all Siberian gold is brought in order to be smelted, and adjacent to it there are considerable alluvial gold washings. From Ekaterinburg a railway line runs off to Tiumen, which is situated on a tributary of the river Irtish, and whose past and whose future are based on facilities of river navigation. From Ekaterinburg the same railway extends to Perm, which is in Russia proper, and dates back from the year 1568. Perm also is another centre of river navigation. Turning back again, further eastwards, we find on a branch of the Siberian Railway the town of Tomsk, through which originally the highroad of Siberia passed. Tomsk was a great gold

real value also lies in its

town in its day, but its position as a river-port. It is situated on the Tom, which is a tributary of the river Ob, and the town commands the navigation of both the Irtish and the Ob.

This constant repetition of river navigation may seem tedious, but the position of these towns and the strength of Siberia cannot be understood unless the reader will also remember that there is probably