656 EEPOET — 1880. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1» Latest News of the Royal GeograpJiical Society's East African Expedition 



under Mr. J. Thomson. 



2. Through Siberia, via the Amur and the Ussuri, 

 By the Rev. Henry Lansdell, F.B.G.S. 



This paper described a journey (undel-taken with the object of visiting prisons, 

 hospitals, and charitable institutions, which were found to be in a much better 

 condition than is generally supposed) through Siberia, from the Urals to the 

 Pacific, by a route largely new : namely, from Ekateriueburg to Tobolsk by horses ; 

 thence by steamer on the Irtish and Obi to Tomsk : again by horses to Barnaul, 

 Irkutsk, Kiakhta (steaming across Lake Baikal), across the Trans-Baikal province 

 to the Sbilka: then by steamer to the Amur : down its entire length to Nikolaefsk; 

 and subsequently returning southwards, by the Ussuri, Sungacha, and Sooifoon to 

 Vladivostock. 



On reaching the Obi, on the 62nd parallel, the author found on June 8th compara- 

 tive winter, or leafless spring ; the thermometer falling at night to 35°, but risino- to 

 75° Fahr. by nine a.m. Fine weather set in a week afterwards and continued all across 

 Asia. Here live ducks were offered by the Ostjaks for five farthings each, large 

 fish called yrtss for Hd. a pair, and pike for a farthing each. Milk cost 2^d. a 

 bottle, but young calves in remote villages could be piu'chased for sixpence each. 

 The belt of rich black earth in the region immediately north of the Altai lets for 

 3^d. per acre, and from it wheat may be purchased for about one-twentieth its 

 cost in England. Still further north, in the forest region, rich in excellent timber 

 and fur-bearing animals, meat was bought up wholesale in 1877 at less than a 

 halfpenny per English pound ; whilst in the most northerly region, that of the 

 tundras, the rivers are so full of fish that one of the ordinary difficulties of the 

 natives is to avoid breaking their nets with the weight of the draught. The fish 

 thus caught are, in the winter, frozen and sent more than 2000 miles, to St. 

 Petersburg, where a very moderate price realizes for the fisherman a profit of 

 nearly a hundred per cent. These prices should be borne in mind in connection 

 with the proposed trade between Siberia and England by the rivers Obi and 

 Yenesei, and through the Kara Sea. 



Mr. Lansdell reached Tomsk on the 10th June, having accomplished a journey 

 of 5200 miles in 26 travelling days ; and then made a detour of 600 miles to 

 Barnaul, through a singularly rich and productive country. Irkutsk was reached 

 after a posting journey of 1040 miles, on the 6th July. After crossing Lake 

 Baikal, and making a detour to the Chinese frontier at Kiakhta, the hilly steppes 

 of the Trans-Baikal province were crossed through Chita and Nertchinsk to 

 Stretinsk, In the neighbourhood of Nertchinsk are the mines in which prisoners 

 are popularly supposed to be killed by inches, living amid quicksilver fumes. 

 Inquiry into this matter failed to convince the author that there is a quick- 

 silver mine in Siberia, and when he inquired of released prisoners who had worked 

 in the mines concerning such alleged enormities as keeping them under grormd 

 entirely, they distinctly denied the truth of such charges. The author himself 

 visited the convict gold-mines at Kara, 70 miles down the Shilka from Stretinsk. 

 Kara is a penal colony with upwards of 2000 convicts (including a few for 

 political offences), condemned to hard labour in the gold mines. The labour is done 

 on the surface and consists in digging earth and carting it away to be washed. 

 The hours of convict labour, however, are shorter than those of free labourers in 

 the same mines ; and in the winter, the ground being frozen, the prisoners have 

 little or nothing to do. Their weekly allowance of food weighs nearly double that 

 given to English convicts, and after a certain time they are allowed to live with 

 their wives and families before being settled as colonists. 



The scenery of the Shilka compares by no means unfavourably with the Ehine. 



