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gress. In some very slight form it may also be said to be in operation all the year long; but May, June, and July are the months during which the crush has commonly been most severe. In every way the Government has offered encouragement to intending settlers they are taken at rates reduced enormously below the thirdclass fares-the actual price which they pay being 3 roubles per 1000 versts.1 Those who come from the more northerly parts are conveyed by steamer from Kazan to Perm for 1 roubles. A formal permission is indeed required in the case of every peasant, for which he may have to wait some time; but this measure is solely to prevent absconding on the part of debtors. Once this has been obtained, the arrangements permit of even the poorest peasant going.

The substance of the regulations that underlie this emigration movement may here be briefly outlined. In the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk a grant of 15 desiatines (desiatine 2.86 English acres) of suitable land is made to every man, and in some cases an additional grant of not more than three desiatines of forest. In the governments of Yenesei and Irkutsk the extent of the grant is determined by the quality of the land. This land is conveyed to the settlers on letters of allotment, and whilst remaining State property, will be for their perpetual benefit. The sale and mortgage of such land is for bidden, and all similar transactions are defined as of no effect. Careful maps have been already prepared in connection with this movement at considerable cost, showing the population and physical features of each region.

Owing to the very slender popu

lation of the Amur district, regulations have been drawn up to permit of the sale of the State lands in that territory. The principal idea underlying these regulations is to ensure that the State lands pass as private property only to those people who really wish and have the powers and capability to work them. The maximum quantity of land that can be sold to one buyer under the new regulations is not defined: all that is stated is that while allotments not exceeding 400 desiatines are to be made by the military governor, petitions for sale of land in larger quantities are to be presented with reasons to the chief of the district. Those who receive an agreement for the sale of land have to deposit one-half of the sum in the local treasury, whereupon an arrangement is made for the delivery of the land for three years' use and profit. To obtain full proprietorship, the following further condition is obligatory-viz., that in the course of three years the buyer shall expend in the working of the land and in furnishing the necessary plant, a sum, for an allotment not exceeding 100 desiatines, of not less than the cost of it on the price of purchase. For allotments from 100 to 400 desiatines the sum thus expended must be not less than twice the cost; above 400 desiatines, four times the cost. non-fulfilment of these conditions, the allotment is taken back, and the money received is kept as rent. The price fixed is 6 roubles the desiatine within 20 versts of the large towns in Eastern Siberia and in certain specially fertile places. At other points the land is sold at the rate of 3 roubles the desiatine, while a small addition is made for survey expenses.

1 I.e., less than 1s. per 100 miles.

For the

In cases of dire extremity, grants of money without interest up to 100 roubles are made; while during the first three years the settler is exempt from taxes. The plan commonly followed is, that on arrival at Tcheliabinsk, on the farther side of the Urals, the settlers are arranged into parties and sent under superintendence to the locality that is to be colonised by them.

That the numbers had been gradually rising each year1 was in no way remarkable; but the sudden increase that set in last spring was quite unlooked for. It partook of the nature of a wild stampede. How it affected the average Russian may be judged from the following incident. A gentleman personally known to myself, while staying at his country residence, was informed one morning that his cook and coachman desired to speak with him. These two men, who had been a lengthy period in his service and were the recipients of no mean wage, astonished him by quietly intimating that they were leaving for Siberia. Having known them many years he ventured to expostulate with them, but his suggestion that perhaps they were discontented with their wage and present circumstances was instantly scouted as quite out of the question. He then shared with them what he knew about the general disorganisation that had overtaken the movement during the early part of May of last year, with its sad attendant circumstances, telling them in all the truth, not so much from any wish to retain them in his service as from his personal interest in them. It was in vain: their only reply was, "Every one is going, and we must go too."

This year the tide set in early, and between the months of January and May 170,000 people had already passed through Tcheliabinsk-in May alone, 100,000; for a period of about a month, the daily number of incomers was 2000. The population of the above-mentioned town is 17,000, and on a certain day in May there were just so many settlers camping out around the station and along the railway-line, waiting for further transportation. The result was that the organisation of the young Siberian railway was quite unable to cope with this immense human flood. There was neither rollingstock nor officials sufficient to conduct the settler-companies to their destination. In time more waggons were got out from Russia, the question was faced, and very soon that large population was moved on-not, however, before cholera, typhus, and other epidemics had broken out, and many had died. The question assumed so serious an aspect that a Secretary of State was sent out to inquire into this matter: having arrived on the spot, he at once gave orders for the cessation of all emigration, and proceeded personally to make fuller investigations and arrangements. As a result, by the end of the summer practically the whole government of Tobolsk had been settled, and the Taiga or virgin forest there is being surveyed and examined with a view to bringing under cultivation land occupied by it. The Secretary's son described to me the interest he had in seeing the different settlements in various stages of growth-some with only four-and-twenty hours of history, others three or four days old, and

1 The figures for the year 1892 were, roughly, 100,000; for 1893, 150,000; for 1894, about 180,000.

others again whose existence dated from several weeks back. Those emigrants who wish to go to the Amur of course perform the journey by sea (forty-five days) from Odessa; but there were families settled in Tobolsk government last summer who had come back overland from that distant country, being discontented with the grant they had received there. In one case a family, after spending all they had (3000 roubles) on the journey to the Amur district and back, had settled down in Tobolsk penniless.

The journey from Tula towards Siberia cannot be called interesting. A painfully flat landscape, monotony of scenery, everywhere the tracks of the settler: that is all. Thus at Riajsk one side of the platform presented the same picture of frightened incarnations of misery, huddling together against the rain that came down in torrents, and crossing themselves at every lightning-flash and thunder-peal. We leave them, and the outlook is replaced by a broad sweep of land that extends on either side to the horizon hedgeless and brown, where the soil has lately been upturned, but verdant also where one may distinguish the young corn. Occasionally we pass through a strip of wood whose trees exhibit a greenness that may almost be felt it is the beginning of the Russian spring. Thereafter we traverse wide plains through which the railway track has been so simply led the telegraph wires decrease in number, and one feels that the world is being left behind. There also, at distances of about 100 yards apart, is stacked in 10-feet lengths the wooden hoarding that in winter serves to shield the line from the fierce drifting of the snow.

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Quickly we fly through the government of Penza, to whose prosperity a multitude of windmills testify. Acres of rye creep close up to the railway track and extend unbroken out of sight. At length we reach the Volga, Russia's "most kindly nurse.' The great waterway seems dark and muddy from the height of the noble iron bridge that through 600 sajens1 spans her breadth. The low left bank, flooded at parts and thickly wooded with small shrubs and trees that hug the river's brink, soon disappears, in contrast with the other bank, in height 100 feet or so, covered with luxuriant vegetation; and you may even see a scrap of sandy beach from which the river has retreated, lying beside the dark current.

Its most

We pass a village. conspicuous object is the church, with whitened walls and two green domes. You notice that it holds a central place; you might almost fancy that the village had grown up around it as nucleus. The wooden huts, with their brown roofs of thatch, lighter in colour where the straw is of more recent date, stand separate in disconnected lines. The roads on which they abut preserve in part their primitive affinity with the surrounding plain

grass-covered where in their breadth they have not yet been trampled underfoot, black where some heavy wheel has rudely cut them up. A few youngsters in bright red shirts lend colour and activity to the scene. On the outskirts of the village each peasant owns a tiny plot, enclosed by stakes, which form the basis of a wall of wickerwork. Inside, you see, perhaps, two horses or a cow; it may be only straw. At the corner you

1 Sajen=7 English feet; the actual length of the bridge is 4375 feet.

will note a little dovecot raised on a pole, surmounted by a branch of birch. This welcome home is for black birds and the sparrows in the winter-time. Nor is this all, for on the extreme border of the small community, separated by a trench from the outer world, is an unkept square extent of land dotted with crosses, blue, black, or white, sometimes of iron, or, again, reduced to a short wooden post: thus does the peasant reverence his dead.

The rate of speed of our naphthastoked train is 30 versts an hour, and in process of time we leave Samara too behind us. The "elevators" form an important feature at the stations in this neighbourhood. These are large metal granaries, in which the produce of the surrounding country is stored. They are often of great height, and in them the grain is tossed about and mechanically sifted, so as to prevent over-heating. Beyond Samara we pass through gently undulating country, which now and again opens out on broader areas of damp reedy ground, which is occasionally monopolised by copses of stunted willow, birch, and oak. The only signs of habitation over long stretches are the lone cabins of the surfacemen. Sunk in the soil, with low roof sloping backwards, their tiny walls buttressed on every side by plank-imprisoned earth, these humble homes strangely testify to the advance of civilisation. Ufa proclaims that we are nearing Asia. As on the Volga, one sees on the river Ufa many house-rafts, capable of supporting a large floating population. Here and elsewhere we pass trainfuls of returning disappointed settlers.

At length we come in sight of the Ural Mountains, which figure so largely on our maps. The first sense is that of disappointment.

Although they extend a considerable length from north to south, and their breadth is fully borne in upon our minds by the slowness of the train, it is a remarkable fact that the highest peak only scales 5200 feet. Languidly the train ascends 100 feet of thickly wooded hill-country. Geological inquiry discloses the fact that we are traversing two folds in the earth's crust. Occasionally we pass through deeper dynamite-blown cuttings, and issue out of them only to look up to pine- and fir-clad heights. We strike a muddy river-Yarovka-born in these cooler latitudes. We follow it, and on either side at times the beetling brows give way to meadow-land, in which are set at intervals quiet hamlets. The tiny stations have a desolate appearance, and towards the evening a sublime silence reigns, which is only broken by the tinkling of faint cow - bells, the plaintive cuckoo's cry, or the occasional hum of human voices. Thus we

pursue our way over varying heights, now riding through a cloud of butterflies that were resting by the wayside, now raising frightened wild-duck from some part of Yarovka's shaded banks.

It was early morning when we steamed into Tcheliabinsk. The country had now reverted to the flatness that characterised the western side of the Urals. Birch and beech were still the prominent trees. It was this town that saw the worst features of the emigration fever; but now, in the middle of June, scarcely three hundred remained as witnesses to the past. The platform presented a motley group of interested human beings: swarthy Tartars, sallow Russians, brisk Siberians, Bashkirs, Kirghese, and, to employ another category, the everlasting officer and sundry other petty tchinov

niks. The Bashkirs, like the Kirghese, were originally a nomadic people, but have now somewhat settled down, and make excellent agricultural labourers.

Leaving Tcheliabinsk, we pass through country that indicates considerable population. Much has been reclaimed; much is under cultivation. Still more is level steppe, occasionally broken by strips of shrubby copse or statelier trees. Short posts in black and white, with the imperial eagle, help to mark out the boundaries of the land reserved on either side for the railways. The soil, where it is exposed, proclaims itself to be the far-famed tchernozem or black earth; beneath it in section one makes out the widespreading loess. The villages are of course at a considerable distance from the line: this is the genius of all Russian railways.

Everything becomes simpler as we move farther east. Soon the stations resolve themselves into plain log houses, surrounded by many square yards of birch, that serve as fuel for the locomotives. Kurgan is the first town at which we stop in Siberia proper. From what one can see of it from the station, it has the appearance of being mainly composed of wooden houses; but, characteristically, two white churches with their green domes and roofs obtrude upon one's notice. Here we witnessed the first meeting after ten years of a well-known political exile with his parents and a younger brother, whom he now saw for the first time. A man selling models of convicts at work also reminds us of the peculiar associations that this country has for the civilised world. We have opportunity to stroll about and look around, for the train lingers an indefinite period at each point. To the Rus

sian time is not money, still less to the Siberian. You might for that matter partake of a lengthy repast at every station if there was the wherewithal; but only at special points is provision made, an ominous diagrammatic wine-glass before the name of a station in the time-table indicates the presence of a buffet there. At such a place one is commonly allowed twenty minutes; while elsewhere you will notice a line of tables at a fixed distance from the railroad, behind which stand a number of peasant women in picturesque attire, with milk, quass, bread, butter, and other viands for sale.

Omsk is situated in a bare plain, on two rivers, the Irtish and the Om. As a result the town can be descried from a great way off: at this distance the barracks, Cadet Corps College, and the Church of St Nicholas are the most prominent objects. The bridge across the Irtish is of the type commonly met with along the line iron girders supported on stone piers. The embankment at this point is between 35 and 40 feet high; even yet a staff of men is almost constantly at work keeping it in repair. This was also found to be the case over great lengths of the line farther to the east; the heavy rains are continually washing away in part these huge structures. It is obvious that, in addition to what we may call the temporary demand for workmen, such an immense railway will require a permanent contingent of labourers to clear away snowdrifts and repair the line. To secure this object, it was proposed to introduce navvies from European Russia: steps have been already taken in this direction, and are being carried out successfully. The only distinguishing feature about Omsk station, which was in process of building, is that here

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