WESTERN SIBERIA AND THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS 



473 



and steeper than the European) on the 

 boundless plains of Siberia, here bare 

 and almost waterless as are those of 

 Arizona, but drearier, for there are here 

 no rocks or hollows to diversify the sur- 

 face, no glimpses of distant peaks to 

 break the level line of the horizon. It 

 is the dullest part of the whole journey 

 from ocean to ocean. 



Irtish, the: westernmost f Siberia's 

 four great rivers 



But presently one conies, at the thriving 

 town of Omsk, which was in 191 8 the 

 headquarters of Admiral Kolchak in his 

 campaign against the Bolsheviks, to the 

 first of the four great Siberian rivers, 

 the Irtish, which, having risen far away 

 to the south in the hills of western Mon- 

 golia, is here on its northern path to join 

 the Obi and send its waters into the 

 Arctic Sea. 



To the Obi itself, an even fuller stream, 

 we come in eight hours more, and see a 

 flotilla of steamers moored to its bank. 

 But of it more anon, for up it one voy- 

 ages to the Altai. From this point on- 

 ward the country is rougher and thinly 

 inhabited, for much of the land is the 

 sort of forest swamp which the people 

 call Taiga. 



On each side of the railway track the 

 woods have been cut back to leave an 

 open space of fifty to one hundred yards 

 wide, so that sparks or coals from the 

 locomotive will not start a conflagra- 

 tion. This open, wide grassy belt is in 

 summer covered with a luxuriant growth 

 of tall flowers on each side of the line, 

 giving the effect of what gardeners call 

 a "herbaceous border," with the railroad 

 track for the gravel walk between the 

 two flower beds. 



Behind stand the pines, with their tall, 

 straight, reddish trunks, contorted boughs, 

 and dark-green foliage, beautiful as are 

 those of the Scottish Highlands. 



THE YENISEI, GRANDEST OF SIBERIAN 

 RIVERS 



After many hours' journey through 

 this delightful parterre, the traveler sees 

 beneath him in a valley, three hundred 

 feet deep, the grandest of all the Siberian 

 rivers, the Yenisei, with the city of 

 Krasnoyarsk lying on the slope between 

 the station and the stream. 



This is the finest view of a river from 

 a railroad I can remember to have seen 

 anywhere. The Mississippi at St. Louis 

 and the St. Lawrence at Montreal are as 

 wide, and may have as great a volume; 

 but their banks are comparatively low. 

 Here the coup d'ceii of the bold heights 

 and the mighty stream filling the long 

 hollow that winds away to the north be- 

 tween rocks and thick woods, is magnifi- 

 cent. 



The stream is seen to advantage from 

 both sides, for the track stoops down 

 more than a hundred feet to cross the 

 valley by a lofty bridge, and rises again 

 as much on the eastern slope, making a 

 wide semicircle. 



Thirty hours more bring us to the 

 fourth river at Irkutsk, that capital of 

 eastern Siberia for which the contending 

 Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik armies 

 fought so long in 191 7 and 191 8. It is 

 the Angara, bearing down a tremendous 

 torrent of clear green water from Lake 

 Baikal, which the train reaches before 

 long. 



BAIKAE, ONE OF THE WORED's GREAT 

 INEAND SEAS 



Lake Baikal is one of the great inland 

 seas of the world, nearly as long as Lake 

 Superior, though not so wide, for in clear 

 weather the eye can reach from the one 

 shore to the other. It fills a bow-shaped 

 depression four hundred miles long, be- 

 tween high mountains dipping steeply 

 into its waters ; and on its coasts there 

 are only wood-cutters and fishermen, 

 with a few hunters. 



Till long past the middle of last cen- 

 tury, some while before the Transconti- 

 nental railroad was built, there was no 

 way from the west into the lands of the 

 Amur River and Manchuria except by a 

 ferry across the lake of some twenty or 

 more miles in the summer, or by sledging 

 over its icy floor in winter, and the 

 travelers of those days loved to describe 

 the midnight drive under a brilliant 

 moon. 



Now the line runs for many miles 

 along its southern shore on a shelf cut 

 out of the steep mountain side, high 

 above the waves, with frequent tunnels 

 through projecting cliffs. 



It was supposed, when fighting began 

 there in and after 1917, that any retreat- 



