OMSK 267 



St. Petersburg, had givetn me a, letter of introduction to 

 Professor Slofftzoff, who found for us a fric:nd of his, 

 Mr. Hanson, a Dane,*, to act as an interpreter. Professor 

 Slofftzoff is an enthusiastic naturalist. lie; showed us a 

 small collection of birds in the museum. Amonir these 



o 



were several which have not hitherto been recorded east 

 of the Oral Mountains, for example the blackcap, the 

 garden- warbler, and lint icterine warbler ; but as then* 

 are no special labels with these; specimens to authenticate! 

 the localities, the fact of their really having been shot in the 

 neighbourhood of < )msk must be accepted with he'siiation. 

 In museums which profess to be local only, bird-, from 

 distant localities continually creep in by accident, and many 

 errors in geographical distribution are thus propagated. 



I gave the Professor some Sheffield cutlery in ex 

 change! fora curiously inlaid pipe of mammoth ivory and 

 a Hint and steel, the latter inlaid with silver and precious 

 stones. lie told me that both were made by the liuriats 

 in the Transbaikal country, bin the pipe is not to be 

 distinguished from those made on ihe tundras ol ihe 

 north, and I suspect it to be ol Samoyedc origin. 



Twenty years ago Omsk was only a village; now it 

 has thirty to forty thousand inhabitants. This increase 

 is very largely accounted lor by the fact that the :,c,n of 

 government has in the meantime been removed thither 

 from Tobolsk. I'rom Omsk to Tomsk is 877 versts, or 

 585 miles, which we accomplished in eighty live hours, 

 including stoppages an average of io,{ versi.fi an hour. 

 We changed horses thirty seven times. We; had now 

 ge>t into the; full swing of sle;elge; travelling : snow, wind, 

 rain, sunshine, day, night, good roads, bad roads nothing 

 stopped us; on we went like; the; wandering Jew, only 

 with this difference, that we; had a lixeel goal. However 

 rough the; road might be-, 1 could now sleep as sounelly 



