464 FROM YENESEISK TO TOMSK 



sparrows and the three common species of swallow 

 abounded. Wagtails were also numerous, all apparently 

 the masked wagtail. Birds of prey were frequently to 

 be seen perched upon the telegraph posts ; of these the 

 larger number were kestrels, but occasionally a large 

 brown buzzard was to be seen. A grey shrike likewise 

 affected the telegraph wires. Magpies, carrion-crows, 

 and ravens also abounded. We reached Krasnoyarsk 

 on Friday, the 24th of August, at ten o'clock at night, 

 having been about fifty-two hours on the way. The 

 journey cost me thirty-eight roubles. 



Here we spent three days very agreeably at the 

 family hotel of Madame Visokovoi. There is an excel- 

 lent club in Krasnoyarsk, where English bottled beer 

 and stout may be obtained at three roubles the bottle. 

 The club is situated in a large garden, where sometimes 

 two or three orange-legged hobbies may be seen together 

 on the wing. 



The engineer of the telegraph office was a German 

 from Berlin, and he gave me some interesting informa- 

 tion about the line, which is leased to a Danish company. 

 It frequently happens when some of the Indian cables 

 are out of order or overcrowded with messages, that 

 from 500 to 1000 English telegrams pass through Kras- 

 noyarsk in a week. The fact of my travelling companion 

 being a telegraph official, and dressed in the government 

 official uniform, gave us free access to all the telegraph 

 offices, and it was great fun chatting freely from time to 

 time with the friends we had left behind us a thousand 

 miles or more. I found in Krasnoyarsk, in consequence 

 of the quantity of baggage I was bringing home, that I 

 should be short of money, so I wired to St. Petersburg 

 for five hundred roubles, and forty-eight hours afterwards 

 had the notes in my pocket. 



