28 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



M. Hedenstrom, who had hv-ed in the Far East, 

 and took no sHght interest in sporting narratives. 

 As a matter of fact, his accounts of shooting in the 

 Amur district contributed greatly to pass the long 

 weary hours of inactivity, and his keen sense of 

 humour, combined with a fertility of imagination, 

 proved a great godsend to our small party. Our 

 other companions were two or three engineers, and 

 a lady on her way to join her husband, one of the 

 constructors of the Manchurian railway. Another 

 fellow-traveller, whom we constantly saw lounging 

 in a corner of the car, and smoking cigarettes in a 

 most tranquil mood, turned out to be a wealthy 

 merchant travelling to his native town with the 

 sole object of receiving the minister to Japan in 

 his mansion at Irkutsk. This act of courtesy, or 

 rather of heroism, for his return ticket implied 6,000 

 miles by rail, will probably remain obscure, as such 

 incidents usually do, in the annals of humanity. 



It is unnecessary to weary the reader with a descrip- 

 tion of the monotonous scenery of the West Siberian 

 steppes ; these have already afforded scope for many 

 a tourist's pen. Suffice it to say that the plains were 

 endless ; a few birches here and there scarcely relieved 

 the monotony ot the scene. Here and there the line 

 crosses immense wastes of marshy land, and if one of 



