52 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



'Their provisions are plentiful and good, and their tariff 

 of charges is moderate. On the whole, a very pleasant 

 week may be spent by an observant man on this river 

 journey. The few towns passed on the way break the 

 monotony of the voyage, and the scenery is not without 

 its peculiar recommendations; though I cannot endorse 

 the opinion of the travellers who say that the river Kama, 

 which we enter a short distance below Kazan, is splendid. 

 Such eulogists must measure their admiration by a lower 

 standard of beauty than do I. 



'Beyond Perm the journey is easy enough to any part 

 of Siberia ; it is certainly a little tedious, but even that 

 depends in a great measure on a man's own resources for 

 amusement, because there is plenty of pretty scenery, hill, 

 wood, and water, which are a delightful compensation for 

 a little jolting about, especially to a traveller from that 

 flatter part of Russia, where even as much as a mole-hill 

 upon the horizon is a natural curiosity, and the wearied 

 eye looks round in vain for a relief to the everlasting 

 monotony of the interminable sandy or grass-grown 

 sfteppe. 



' The finest town I have seen in Siberia is Ekaterine- 

 burg, the frontier town between European and Asiatic 

 Russia, a position which gives it many advantages. Irk- 

 utsk is also a nice town; but Ekaterineburg has the 

 superiority in several respects. It contains a population 

 of 25,000 souls, and is handsomely built, possessing several 

 fine churches, and a great number of brick and stone 

 houses ; among which some deserve to be called rather 

 palaces, also a mint and large mechanical works belonging 

 to the Government. It has also a theatre, a club, and two 

 really good hotels ; and, on the whole, is as unlike a city 

 on the outside borders of civilisation, and in the close 

 neighbourhood of Asiatic barbarism, as it is possible to 

 imagine. I am sure that, when eating the diner a, la carte, 

 supplied by M. Plotnikoff, at the best hotel, I found myself 

 as closely surrounded by the externals of civilisation as I 

 could be in any European city. . . . , 



