APPENDIX II 315 



about £14 cheaper, and there is no worry with the frontier Custom- 

 house officers. I was helped by the Russian Ambassador, London ; 

 the British Ambassador, St. Petersburg ; the Minister of Ways and 

 Communications ; Prince ScherbatofE, the President of the Russian 

 Imperial Geographical Society ; Professor Sapozhnikoff of Tomsk 

 University and the Governor of Tomsk. It is wise to make the 

 acquaintance of the police at Barnaoul and Bysk and let them know 

 where you are going. Introductions are unnecessary. 



The best hotels are the Hotel d'Europe, St. Petersburg ; Slaviansky 

 Bazar, Moscow. There is only one at Novo-Nicolaevsk. 



You can procure guides at the hotels at St. Petersburg and Moscow 

 to show you the towns. 



If you go in winter, you require particularly thin underclothing 

 and very thick overcoat and firs, as the temperature inside the trains 

 and houses is very warm, whereas outside it is very cold. Warm 

 underclothing is very uncomfortable in the warm trains. In camp 

 you require very warm underclothing ; it cannot be too warm, as 

 you have not the slightest idea of what a winter in Siberia is until 

 you have been through one.' Take plenty of note-books and 

 pencils. Do not attempt to develop photographs except at Tomsk, 

 where you can go to the university. No explorer should visit the 

 Altai without obtaining information from the Tomsk University. If 

 possible he should also give them a lecture on the result of his tour. 

 They are all keenly interested in the Altai. 



The climber should take exceptionally good steel crampons, 

 specially sharpened for the very hard ice, and sharp, long steel nails 

 in Alpine boots, also a particularly sharp ice-axe, somewhat larger 

 and heavier than the largest Swiss Alpine axe of the very best steel, 

 and with a very sharp head. The ordinary Alpine axe would have 

 no effect upon the intensely hard ice. Take an ice-axe as a present 

 to the University professors ; it would be a nice present, and would 

 repay them for their information. 



APPENDIX II 



SKETCH OF SIBERIAN HISTORY 



The history of the Siberian peasant is very different from that of 

 the Russian peasant, which I have alluded to elsewhere. 



After the free Cossacks had conquered Siberia in the sixteenth 

 century, seekers of adventure poured into Siberia in large numbers, 



' Even during the months of May and June there is sometimes frost at 

 night. 



