104 SIBERIA 



February, 1903, to Tomsk. No answer was received 

 from Tomsk until the receivers wrote from Kainsk 

 on the 1st of March to inquire about it. They were 

 informed that the draft had been sent to St. Peters- 

 burg for exchange and sold at a heavy loss. This 

 is, of course, not the way to. send money to Siberia;^ 

 but it serves as an illustration of the expense of 

 sending a banker's draft. 



The best way to work business there is with your 

 own employee. He is trusted with enough money 

 to enable him to buy the goods, which he then puts 

 on the rail against the railway receipts ; he deposits 

 these, together with an invoice, with the bank, and 

 receives whatever advance the bank may be in- 

 structed to give him. He can then repeat the 

 operation. The agent is trusted with the amount 

 necessary to buy the goods and the responsibility 

 of seeing to the weights and quality of the goods, 

 which the banks do not guarantee to check. The 

 goods are then forwarded to the shippers, who make 

 out a bill of lading, and this is sent to the bank. 

 When the goods arrive at their destination the busi- 

 ness ends, the merchant taking up the bills as the 

 ship arrives in dock. It is astonishing that the 

 enormous volume of business works so well. 



I met two Danish butter merchants in the train 

 on the way to Tomsk who spoke English very well, 

 and with draughts and dominoes the time slipped 

 along very pleasantly in the evenings. The scenery 

 during the day was of the same vast steppe-like 

 character, and the train passed through nothing more 

 interesting until we reached the last station before 

 the Obi, called Krivostichekovo, a name wKich even 

 the Russians did not trouble to pronounce. 



Within the range of this station there are eighteen 

 agricultural settlements, with 28,000 people. Herfe, 

 as everywhere else in Siberia, the peasants refuse 



