114 
THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 
three miles a day. More than this, the relative rate of marching did not 
fall off but actually increased as time went on. The latter part of this 
particular march, from Nijne-Udinsk to Irkutsk, 312 miles, took 
thirteen days without a halt, an average of just one mile hourly, or 
twenty-four miles a day. During this period of time (thirteen days) 
the batteries had to cross five unbridged rivers. Now these batteries 
were merely typical ones of their kind and offer, therefore, an excellent 
example of the endurance of Russian troops and horses. I have seen 
the men and horses which performed the feat; the latter are much 
smaller than ours and draw a slightly heavier weight than in our 
service. The Russian light field gun and limber weighing over a 
hundred-weight more than with us, while their ammunition wagon 
exceeds ours by 3^ hundred-weight. 
At the risk of wearying you, I will venture to give one more example. 
In the winter of 1895-6, two officers, one surgeon, 240 men and 383 
horses continued their journey eastwards from Nerchinsk, starting 
about the middle of November. There is no road beyond Stryetensk, 
sixty-five miles east of Nerchinsk, and this detachment, composed 
mainly of recruits, marched on the rough ice of the frozen Amur 
river The thermometer fell to 40° below zero Fahrenheit and the 
horses had, of course, no shelter at night. 
After leaving 142 recruits at their station, Blagovyeshchensk, 
the remainder reached Khabarovsk, on the 2nd and 4th of February. 
They had marched 1,386 miles from Nerchinsk in seventy-five days 
including halts, the average length of each day's march being nearly 
eighteen miles, or three quarters of a mile hourly. Only three men 
were sick, but twenty-nine horses had been abandoned on the way, the 
remaining 354 reaching Khabarovsk in satisfactory condition. Thus we 
see that the rate of progression of even a small body of men is less 
than half what one or two people can do with pack transport. 
The above data, therefore, prove beyond doubt that even a moder¬ 
ately equipped railway will transport bodies of men of some size faster 
than an individual driving day and night can possibly travel, while 
the speed on such a line is at least five times more rapid than that 
attainable by marching. Hence the utility of the railway is open to 
no sort of question, for its advantages apply equally well to commerce 
and civilian transport as they do to troops. 
The Siberian line is, therefore, a great step in advance towards the 
development of the multiform resources of the country. But it must 
not be supposed that, prior to its commencement, Siberia was a 
bleak waste. It was certainly cut off from the rest of the world to a 
considerable extent, but it nevertheless contained an industrious and 
intelligent population and many very wealthy merchants. No doubt 
the exiles, many of whom were highly educated men, helped the spread 
of education both by marrying and settling down in the country, and by 
teaching others as a supplementary means of livelihood. 
There are men in Siberia who are entirely self-made. Some of 
them began life as illiterate recruits, but took advantage of the 
regimental schools to acquire some sort of primary education. 
