106 SIBERIA 



the risks run by the steamers on their passage. 

 The irregularity of the freezing and opening of the 

 riverSj and the absence of means of obtaining infor- 

 mation on the subject by telegraph, the scarcity of 

 the population along the chief rivers, especially the 

 Obi, and the low level of the waters of the Tobol 

 and Tura, are the cause of many accidents, which 

 involve damage or destruction of goods and loss 

 to the shipowners. The connection of the rivers 

 Ket, a tributary of the Obi, and Kass, a tributary of 

 the Yenisei, by a canal, has created another immense 

 waterway, 2,350 miles long, from Tumen in the west 

 to Irkutsk in the east. At present this canal can 

 only be used by steamers from the opening of the 

 navigation on the rivers until June, as, after this 

 season, the water falls so low that only barges with 

 a cargo of 8 tons can use it. The Government are 

 paying special attention to this. Siberia has such 

 a marvellous waterway that if better steamers are 

 built and the low water difficulty can be surmounted 

 there will be no necessity to send anything but 

 perishable goods, such as dairy produce, over the 

 Siberian line. 



Half-way across the bridge we became aware of a 

 number of sledges on the river below us. The ice 

 on the river forms a much better winter highway 

 than the road, which soon gets very rough. I 

 took a snap-shot of the verstman at the end when 

 the train left the bridge, and before I could regain 

 my compartment and get my luggage ready the 

 train had pulled up at the Obi station. Here I 

 was met by Mr. Oswald Cattley, F.R.G.S., who was 

 waiting with a sledge, drawn by two handsome 

 Kirghiz horses, to drive me to his residence, about 

 two miles from the station, at the settlement of Novo- 

 Nicolaevsk. I received a hearty English welcome 

 from his family and was introduced to his son, Mr. P. 



