Sledging Through Siberia. 



i 



In the evening I supped with my genial friend, Captain 

 Chytanoff, of the 3rd Siberian Cossacks, and his wife, and we 

 pledged each other in good cognac, expressing mutual hopes that 

 some day we might again meet to renew our acquaintance under 

 happier auspices. 



I had ordered the sledges for 10 o'clock, as the mails had 

 arrived during the day, and fresh horses for the outward journey 

 would not be available earher. There was considerable delay, it 

 being 2 o'clock on the morning of the 7th before I finally 

 started. A number of Russian soldiers, patients in the hospital, 

 came to witness my departure, and when I personally inspected 

 Giyani and tightened his coats and mufflers they could not with- 



Jhold exclamations of astonish- 

 ment. I enquired of Khatim- 

 " ""^ ski the cause, and he informed 



me a Russian officer would 

 never dream of taking such 

 '^ '; trouble with his men, and that 



^ to serve under the British must 



indeed be happiness itself. 

 ^;* -« From Zaisan the route 



I followed to the Trans- 

 Siberian Railway lies through 

 KIRGHIZ AND CAMEL CART. Kokbckti, Ustkhameugorsk. 



Zaminagorsk, Barnaul and 

 down the Ob River to Novo Nicholaevsk, a small town on the 

 railway south of the city of Tomsk, the capital of Western 

 Siberia. It is a total distance of nearly 800 miles, and the 

 road between Kokbekti and Ustkhamengorsk skirts the western 

 slopes of the Altai, some outlying spurs of which it crosses. 



In summer travelhng is done by means of the tarantass, 

 a four-wheeled vehicle, but in winter sledges are in vogue. 

 The traveller can purchase his own sledge and thus obviate the 

 trouble of removing his baggage and himself_^ at ev^ery stage, as 



the post sledges only run on the stage to which they belong. It 



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