376 The University of Caifornia Magazine. 



and ignorant of what we were to do. We waited two miserable 

 hours, (which might just as well have been passed in bed,) 

 made a tour of the huge pits where the iron ore is mined, and 

 then again waited — cold and dismal till lunch and departure. 

 Altogether that Sunday is memorable for its discomforts and 

 mismanagement. Our descent was marked by a break about 

 midway of the forty versts, (twenty-five miles,) at the town of 

 Satuka. We were led into an iron smelting plant where they 

 were just ready to make a run of iron into pigs. The fiery 

 liquid streams were beautiful, and still better, gave out an 

 intense heat, very acceptable to our tired, cold bodies. There 

 was also an outcrop in the town which we had to see, and we 

 proceeded on foot up the main street in the midst of a crowd, 

 containing, I should think, nearly every man, woman and child 

 in the town, certainly not less than three thousand. The mass 

 of brakhas and troikas moving and turning in the broad street, 

 the crowd of staring but very good natured natives made a 

 lively picture, and I was sorry that it was too dark to obtain 

 any photographs of the scene. Wet and tired we reached our 

 train at nightfall, and were glad enough to get on some dry 

 clothes and eat some warm dinner. 



Tcheliabinsk, Asia, A7ignst ijth, iSpj. 

 I find it hard to realize in any adequate degree that I have 

 crossed the Urals, and that Europe is behind me. Last night 

 the sun went down in a golden haze behind the low range of the 

 eastern Ural foothills. I have put the question to myself time 

 and again, to make sure it was so. There is little here to show 

 it. We are again on the Steppe which so far in Siberia differs 

 not at all from the plains of Russia. Only in the weather do 

 we note a marked difference, for after a solid week of rain, fog, 

 damp and discomfort, we are suddenly transported to heat and 

 dust. 



Avgnsi 12, i8gy. 

 Thursday was a memorable day. Leaving Slatonst early, 

 the train pulled up to a small station on the summit of the pass 



