NOVO-NICOLAEVSK 111 



being no time to lose, Mr. P. Cattley and myself 

 booked by night mail-train for Tomsk, where I pro- 

 posed to make an exhaustive study of the conditions 

 of Eastern trade. At the same time I intended to 

 avail myself of letters of introduction, which had 

 been very kindly given to me by the President of 

 the Imperial Geographical Society, to the Governor 

 of Tomsk and to Professor Sapozhnikoff of the 

 university of that town. 



With a view to making ourselves acquainted with 

 Russian travelling and Russian travellers we booked 

 second class. It was dark when we boarded the 

 train and the carriages were lighted by candles, but 

 the light was not good and reading was out of the 

 question. We partook of tea and refreshments in 

 company with our fellow-passengers, who hospitably 

 regaled us with whatever they had brought with 

 them, including nuts of which they appeared to keep 

 an inexhaustible stock. Next to cigarette-smoking, 

 which is indulged in by both men and women alike 

 in Russia, the eating of cedar nuts seems to be the 

 most prevalent habit. The floors of the railway 

 carriages were literally carpeted with the shells. The 

 Siberians are as dexterous as monkeys in cracking 

 the shells and extracting the kernels. I tried to 

 emulate their efforts, but with no extralordinary 

 success. The nuts are very small, and, although 

 the kernel, when captured, is agreeable enough to 

 the taste, I managed so frequently to lose it that the 

 result was scarcely proportionate to the labour 

 involved. The late Charles Darwin would, perhaps, 

 have been able to build up his theory without any 

 reference to a missing link if it had been his good 

 fortune to travel with a train-load of Russians 

 plentifully supplied with the native delicacy. The 

 people in our carriage ate nuts for three and four 

 laours at a. stretch, and the quantities consumed in 

 this manner must be enormous. 



