CHAPTER XXIX.
Trade between America and China--The first ship for a Chinese port--Chinese river system--The first steamboat on a Chinese river--The Celestials astonished--A nation of shop-keepers--Chinese insurance and banking systems--The first letters of credit--Railways in the empire--The telegraph in China--Pigeon-English--The Chinese treaty CHAPTER XXX.
The great cities of China--Pekin and its interesting features--The Chinese city and the Tartar one--Rat peddlers, jugglers, beggars, and other liberal professionals--The rat question in China--Tricks of the jugglers--Mendicants and dwarfs--"The house of the hen's feathers"-- How small feet became fashionable--Fashion in America and China--Gambling in Pekin--An interesting lottery prize--Executions by lot--Punishing robbers--Opposition to dancing--The temple of Confucius--Temples of Heaven and Earth--The famous Summer Palace--Chinese cemeteries--Coffins as household ornaments--Calmness at death CHAPTER XXXI.
A journey through Mongolia--Chinese dislike to foreign travel--Leaving Pekin--How to stop a mule's music--The Nankow Pass--A fort captured because of a woman--The great wall of China--Loading the pack mules--Kalgan--Mosques and Pagodas--A Mongol horse fair--How a transaction is managed--A camel journey on the desert--How to arrange his load--A Mongolian cart--A brisk trade in wood for coffins CHAPTER XXXII.
Entering the desert of Gobi--Instincts of the natives--An antelope hunt--Lost on the desert--Discovered and rescued--Character of the Mongols--Boiled mutton, and how to eat it--Fording the Tolla river--An exciting passage--Arrival at Urga--A Mongol Lamissary--The victory of Genghis Khan--Chinese couriers--Sheep raising in Mongolia--Holy men in abundance--Inconvenience of being a lama--A praying machine--Arrival at Kiachta CHAPTER XXXIII.
Departure from Kiachta--An agreeable companion--Making ourselves comfortable--A sacred village--Hunting a wild boar--A Russian monastery--Approaching Lake Baikal--Hunting for letters--"Doing" Posolsky--A pile of merchandise--A crowded house--Rifle and pistol practice--A Russian soudna--A historic building--A lake steamer in Siberia--Exiles on shore--A curious lake--Wonderful journey over the ice--The Holy Sea--A curious group--The first custom house--Along the banks of the Angara--A strange fish--Arrival at Irkutsk CHAPTER XXXIV.
Turned over to the police--Visiting the Governor General--An agreeable officer in a fine house--Paying official visits--German in pantomime--The passport system--Cold weather--Streets, stores, and houses at Irkutsk--Description of the city--The Angara river--A novel regulation--A swinging ferry boat--Cossack policeman--An alarm of fire--"Running with the machine" in Russia--Markets at Irkutsk--Effects of kissing with a low thermometer CHAPTER XXXV.
Society in Irkutsk--Social customs--Lingual powers of the Russians--Effect of speaking two languages to an infant--Intercourse of the Siberians with Polish exiles--A hospitable people--A ceremonious dinner--Russian precision--A long speech and a short translation--The Amoorski Gastinitza--Playing billiards at a disadvantage--Muscovite superstition--Open house and pleasant tea-parties--A wealthy gold miner CHAPTER XXXVI.
The exiles of 1825--The Emperor Paul and his eccentricities--Alexander I .-- The revolution of 1825--Its result--Severity of Nicholas--Hard labor for life--Conditions of banishment--A pardon after thirty years--Where the Decembrists live--The Polish question--Both sides of it--Banishments since 1863--The government policy--Difference between political and criminal exiles--Colonists--Drafted into the army--Pension from friends--Attempts to escape--Restrictions find social comforts--How the prisoners travel--The object of deportation--Rules for exiling serfs CHAPTER XXXVII.
Serfdom and exile--Peter I.and Alexander II .-- Example of Siberia to old Russia--Prisoners in the mines--A revolt--The trial of the insurgents--Sentence and execution--A remarkable escape--Piotrowski's narrative--Free after four years CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Preparing to leave Irkutsk--Change from wheels to runners--Buying a suit of fur--Negotiations for a sleigh--A great many drinks--Peculiarities of Russian merchants--Similarities of Russians and Chinese--Several kinds of sleighs--A Siberian saint--A farewell dinner--Packing a sleigh--A companion with heavy baggage--Farewell courtesies--Several parting drinks--Traveling through a frost cloud--Effect of fog in a cold night--A monotonous snow scape--Meals at the stations--A jolly party--An honest population--Diplomacy with the drivers CHAPTER XXXIX.
A Siberian beverage--The wine of the country--An unhappy pig--Tea caravans for Moscow--Intelligence of a horse--Champagne frappe--Meeting the post--How the mail is carried--A lively shaking up--Board of survey on a dead horse--Sleeping rooms in peasant houses--Kansk--A road with no snow--Putting our sleighs on wheels--A deceived Englishman--Crossing the Yenesei--Krasnoyarsk--Washing clothes in winter--A Siberian banking house--The telegraph system--No dead-heads--Fish from the Yenesei--A Siberian Neptune--Going on a wolf hunt--How a hunt is managed--An exciting chase and a narrow escape CHAPTER XL.
Beggars at Krasnoyarsk--A wealthy city--Gold mining on the Yenesei--Its extent and the value of the mines--How the mining is conducted--Explorations, surveys, and the preparation of the ground--Wages and treatment of laborers--Machines for gold washing--Regulations to prevent thefts--Mining in frozen earth--Antiquity of the mines--The native population--An Eastern legend--The adventures of "Swan's Wing"-- Visit to lower regions--Moral of the story CHAPTER XLI.
A philosophic companion--Traveling with the remains of a mammoth--Talking against time--Sleighs on wheels--The advantages of "cheek"-- A moonlight transfer--Keeping the feast days--Getting drunk as a religious duty--A slight smash up--A cold night--An abominable road--Hunting a mammoth--Journey to the Arctic Circle--Natives on the coast--A mammoth's hide and hair--Ivory hunting in the frozen North--A perilous adventure--Cast away in the Arctic ocean--Fight with a polar bear--A dangerous situation--Frozen to the ice--Reaching the shore CHAPTER XLII.
A runaway horse--Discussion with a driver--A modest breakfast--A convoy of exiles--Hotels for the exiles--Charity to the unfortunate--Their rate of travel--An encounter at night--No whips in the land of horses--Russian drivers and their horses--Niagara in Siberia--Eggs by the dizaine--Caught in a storm--A beautiful night--Arrival at Tomsk--An obliging landlord--A crammed sleigh--Visiting the governor--Description of Tomsk--A steamboat line to Tumen--Schools in Siberia CHAPTER XLIII.
A frozen river--On the road to Barnaool--An unpleasant night--Posts at the road side--Very high wind--A Russian bouran--A poor hotel--Greeted with American music--The gold mines of the Altai mountains--Survey of the mining-district--General management of the business--The museum at Barnaool--The imperial zavod--Reducing the ores--Government tax on mines--A strange coincidence CHAPTER XLIV.
Society at Barnaool--A native coachman--An Asiatic eagle--The Kirghese--The original Tartars--Russian diplomacy among the natives--Advance of civilization--Railway building in Central Asia--Product of the Kirghese country--Fairs in Siberia--Caravans from Bokhara--An adventure among the natives--Capture of a native prince--A love story and an elopement--A pursuit, fight, and tragic end of the journey CHAPTER XLV.
Interview with a Persian officer--A slow conversation--Seven years of captivity--A scientific explorer--Relics of past ages--An Asiatic dinner--Cossack dances--Tossed up as a mark of honor--Trotting horses in Siberia--Washing a paper collar--On the Baraba steppe--A long-ride--A walking ice statue--Traveling by private teams--Excitement of a race--How to secure honesty in a public solicitor--Prescription for rheumatism CHAPTER XLVI.
A monotonous country--Advantages of winter travel--Fertility of the steppe--Rules for the haying season--Breakfasting on nothing--A Siberian apple--Delays in changing horses--Universal tea drinking--Tartars on the steppe--Siberian villages--Mode of spinning in Russia--An unsuccessful conspiracy--How a revolt was organized--A conspirator flogged to death--The city of Tobolsk--The story of Elizabeth--The conquest of Siberia--Yermak and his career CHAPTER XLVII.
Another snow storm--Wolves in sight--Unwelcome visitors--Going on a wolf chase--An unlucky pig--Hunting at night--A hungry pack--Wolves in every direction--The pursuers and the pursued--A dangerous turn in the road--A driver lost and devoured--A narrow escape--Forest guards against bears and wolves--A courageous horse--The story of David Crockett CHAPTER XLVIII Thermometer very low--Inconvenience of a long beard--Fur clothing in abundance--Natural thermometers--Rubbing a freezing nose--A beautiful night on the steppe--Siberian twilights--Thick coat for horses--The city of Tumen--Magnificent distances--Manufacture of carpets--A lucrative monopoly--Arrival at Ekaterineburg--Christmas festivities -- Manufactures at Ekaterineburg--- The Granilnoi Fabric--Russian iron and where it comes from--The Demidoff family--A large piece of malachite--An emperor as an honest miner CHAPTER XLIX.
Among the stone workers--A bewildering collection--Visit to a private "Fabric"-- The mode of stone cutting--Crossing the mountains--Boundary between Europe and Asia--Standing in two continents at once--Entering Europe by the back door--In the valley of the Kama--Touching appeal by a beggar--The great fair at Irbit--An improved road--A city of thieves--Tanning in Russia--Evidence of European civilization--Perm--Pleasures of sleigh riding--The road fever--The Emperor Nicholas and a courier--A Russian sleighing song CHAPTER L.
Among the Votiaks--Malmouish--Advice to a traveler--Dress and habits of the Tartars--Tartar villages and mosques--A long night--Overturned and stopped--Arrival at Kazan--New Year's festivities--Russian soldiers on parade--Military spirit of the Romanoff family--Anecdote of the Grand Duke Michel--The conquest of Kazan--An evening in a ball-room--Enterprise of Tartar peddlers--Manufactures and schools--A police secret--The police in Russia CHAPTER LI.
Leaving Kazan--A Russian companion--Conversation with a phrase book--A sloshy street--Steamboats frozen in the ice--Navigation of the Volga--The Cheramess--Pity the unfortunate--A road on the ice--Merchandise going Westward--Villages along the Volga--A baptism through the ice--Religion in Russia--Toleration and tyranny--The Catholics in Poland--The Old Believers--The Skoptsi, or mutilators--Devotional character of the Russian peasantry--Diminishing the priestly power--Church and state--End of a long sleigh ride--Nijne Novgorod--At the wrong hotel--Historical monuments--Entertained by the police CHAPTER LII.
Starting for Moscow--Jackdaws and pigeons--At a Russian railway station--The group in waiting--The luxurious ride--A French governess and a box of _bon-bons_--Cigarettes and tea--Halting at Vladimir--Moscow through the frost--Trakteers--The Kremlin of Moscow--Objects of interest--The great bell--The memorial cannon--Treasures of the Kremlin--Wonderful churches of Moscow--The Kitai Gorod--The public market--Imperial Theatre and Foundling Hospital--By rail to St.Petersburg--Encountering an old friend.