282 SIBERIA 



inhabitants do not seem to know that there is any 

 choice of routes. 



That day the thaw began in real earnest, streams 

 running down the middle of every street, whilst every- 

 where there were about six inches of mud. In 

 another week or so a large number of boats would 

 be sailing up and down the river and the large 

 quantities of goods that had accumulated during the 

 stoppage of traffic would be loaded into the steamers 

 and floated down the flooded rivers in company with 

 the drifting ice-flows. Merchants wishing to open 

 offices and all varieties of business people would 

 crowd the first available passenger steamer, and the 

 summer would be here again in all its glory. 



Siberia has altogether 27,843 miles of navigable 

 rivers — 20,000 miles of which are navigable by 

 steamers — and the change of spring brings life every- 

 where on these rivers, and cheap transit for goods 

 and cheap fares for passengers. So the importance 

 of spring to Siberia can hardly be over-estimated. 



Spring even made the gloomy, long-faced peasants 

 appear happier, and a walk in the market-place that 

 evening was sufficient to impress one with the in- 

 creased cheerfulness of manner of the small mer- 

 chants, who were now anticipating renewed business 

 activity after the slackness of trade they had experi- 

 enced owing to the severe and prolonged winter. 

 Birds had already settled in the town and were 

 chirruping songs of gladness, and all the inhabitants 

 seemed to be raised from a depressing dullness to 

 vigour and freshness. 



The marked contrast in character the change in 

 weather had caused made one reflect upon the large 

 effect climate has upon national life and character. 

 Place the average Englishman in the conditions of 

 the Siberians, give him a winter as severe, and he 

 would undoubtedly be quite as morose and lifeless as 



