CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



SPORT IN MONGOLIA. 



A gazelle shot — Pombo's obtuseneas — A long stalk — A flat crawl — 

 An anxious wait — A big ram wounded — Pombo's jubilation — A 

 57-inch horn secured — A long ride in the dark — Ammon plentiful 

 — A pack of wolves — Cold — A 55 inch ram shot — A right-and- 

 left — Chase after a wounded ram — Stupidity of Kalmuks — The 

 wounded ram brought to bag — Preparations for leaving the 

 country — Horn measurements — Smuggling — Reach the Siberian 

 railway ........ 255 



SIBERIA AND ITS RAILWAY. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



CENTRAL SIBERIA. 



The Government of Tomsk — The Altai mining district — Nature of 

 the country — An agricultural land — Three years' famine — The 

 fallow-land system — Absence of English-made goods — The reason 

 — The Siberian village — The Siberian peasant — The vodka curse 

 — The Government vodka monopoly — Vodka statistics — Barnaul 

 — A general store — The Altai highlands — Kosh-Agach — Eusso- 

 Mongol trade— The city of Tomsk — The mystery of Tomsk — 

 Feodor Kuzmitch — The mysterious death of Alexander I. — 

 "Alexander's House" at Tomsk — The university and techno- 

 logical institute — Population and position .... 267 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



The spirit of discovery of the sixteenth century — Yermak — The con- 

 quest of Siberia — The treaty of Nertchinsk — Count Muravieff — 

 Need of communications in Siberia — Early railway schemes — 

 The Perm-Tiumen line built — The imperial rescript of March 

 1891 — The cost of the Siberian railway — The price of a ticket 

 — Western Siberia — The settlement of Novo Nicholaewsk — 

 Dairy-farming — The junction for Tomsk — Deficiencies of the 

 railway track — The monotony of the journey — Irkutsk — Its 

 origin — Its present position — Its chief buildings — The gold- 

 smelting laboratory ....... 282 



