THE SETTLEMENT OF NOVO NIGHOLAEWSK. 291 



Of Western Siberia I cannot speak from personal 

 experience. The picture which hngers in my mind 

 from the accounts of other travellers is a simple mono- 

 chrome. Uninterrupted plain from dawn till noon, and 

 from noon till dusk, and from dusk till dawn again, 

 hundreds and hundreds of miles of it. In September a 

 sea of waving golden corn spread out all round, and 

 tree-life in the shape of alder, birch, and willow. My 

 own acquaintance with the line began at the settlement 

 of Novo Nicholaewsk on the right bank of the Ob river, 

 and it is at Novo Nicholaewsk, therefore, that I must 

 ask the reader to step on board the train with me. 



First, however, a word about the settlement itself 

 In countries like Siberia towns spring up as if by 

 magic ; where there was nothing one day there may 

 be as likely as not a town the next, and Novo 

 Nicholaewsk is an apt illustration of this pheno- 

 menon. Nine years ago a vast virgin forest covered 

 the banks of the great Ob river, through which the 

 railway forced its way. Now a settlement of 30,000 

 inhabitants, which is awaiting only an imperial edict, 

 constituting it a town, to become a great deal larger, 

 flourishes on the site of fallen pine and birch, and 

 bids fair ere long to force its way to the forefront of 

 Siberian cities. The advantageous position which it 

 occupies at the junction of the railway and the great 

 Ob waterway, and the fact that it is situated in the 

 heart of the richest of the Siberian governments, are 

 sufficient guarantees of the future which lies before it. 

 A large government biscuit factory for the supply of 

 troops, which is in process of construction, points to 

 the probability of its shortly becoming an important 

 military depot ; and the fact that in one or two 

 instances large buildings of brick are at this moment 

 being raised to replace existing structures of wood, is 



