THE IRRIGATION AGE. 241 



morning walk over part of the estate. Fine coffee that, after the 

 many months of tea, tea, tea, in the Trans-Ural, here was I relishing 

 some pure coffee, as good as that drunk by the vaqueros of the 

 cieras, or sierras, of Mexico, whom since the '94 travels among 

 them I have always regarded as drinking the best and most fragrant 

 on earth. 



PERIODICALS AT TOLSTOI'S. 



A couple of window tables in the room had heaps of newspapers 

 of various climes several English ones among them. Here was the 

 London Daily Chronicle, containing some "letters'' on the trans-Cibi- 

 rian railroad from a "Special Commissioner," who like the majority 

 of other writers, did not know how to spell Cibiria properly, for the 

 proper way is Cibiria, not "Siberia,"' the old way. Cibir now has the 

 termination ia so as to be a generic name including Kamchatka and 

 the Arctic ocean islands. As I had been one year inspecting the 

 great Cibirian railroad and literally knew almost every verse of the 

 road between the Pacific ocean and the Ural mountains more minute- 

 ly, in fact, than any Russian engineer living I was quickly able to 

 detect that the letters were rife with errors. Were they written in 

 Fleet street? There were some copies of the Open Court, of Chicago, 

 and the Liberty Revieiv, of London, and a number of periodicals of the, 

 as a western medico has aptly said, ' 'learned nonsense" type. Talk, 

 talk, talk! Better if their runners did a little useful work, work, 

 work! Those publishers or redactors who think Tolstoi has time to 

 read these efeinera, make a mistake. 



OVER THE ESTATE: THE FIRST MORNING WALK WITH TOLSTOI. 



At 11 or soon after, the graf appeared and off we went afoot over 

 the estate. It abounds in charming views, is well timbered, and has 

 a big orchard. Apples by the ton had been heaped up in the orchard, 

 and were being packed away in boxes. All this business of sale was 

 managed by the son who sold to the city middlemen who of course, 

 pocketed three-fourths of the profits. It would be, I thought, more 

 socialislic capitalistic if the son abolished the middlemen and let 

 the three-fourths profit also go into his own pocket. But that is none 

 of my business. 



Numerous the subjects on which we talked. As in the engineer- 

 ing world I probably "hold the record" for travel both sub- Arctic 

 and ultra-Tropical I could tell Tolstoi a deal about native customs. 

 Some of their proverbs interested him greatly. "You can judge of a 

 people by their proverbs," it had been said. One Hindu saying 

 which was first interpreted to me on the southern slope cf the Hyma- 

 layas in September, '95, impressed him. I give it as semi- original, 

 for perhaps, it has already been pirated (like many other proverbs) 

 from the eastern by the western world. It is this: "Youth a folly; 

 manhood a blunder; old age a regret." 



