as there is only one town beyond Barnaul on our route, and from here on we saw no foreigners but one Dane who was exporting butter on a large scale to Europe. Joseph, with our baggage, went on by a slow steamer which took three days to reach Biisk. We drove in two carriages, changing our teams of three horses at stages averaging twelve to fifteen miles apart, through a level country more or less wooded with pine and cultivated at intervals with spring wheat, some of which was just up and some not yet sown. After a day and a half we got to Biisk, about 150 miles, where we got our first view of the Altai Mountains.
Though Biisk is the centre of a large through trade with Mongolia and a town of 10,000 inhabitants, which is the only source of supply for the settlers in a very large part of the mountains, there was m 1898 no tolerable hotel, or bank, and we had to lodge in an empty house which was badly infested by bugs. The streets, like those of Russian country towns m general, were deep either in mud or dust; and the spring was only just beginning.
We found here a Dutch fur merchant, who told us that he had bought many thousands of Mongolian marmot skins at ten copeks (twopence) apiece, which are dyed in Europe and sold under other names. He also had quantities of squirrel, badger, ermine, polecat and other cheap furs, but few sable, and those of poor quality. The only other foreigner in the town was a German commercial traveller.
While at Biisk a boy came to show me a pair of Maral (the Altai stag) horns, which I bought for fifteen roubles. They had only ten points, but were much wider than others I had seen: forty-seven and a half inches across the tray, and thick and heavy, the top points also well developed. After four days’ delay we succeeded in getting all our camp outfit and heavy baggage sent on to a village called Angodai, 350 versts to the south¬ east, and near the Chinese frontier. Beyond this there was then no road possible for wheel traffic. The transport was arranged at a very low rate, as empty carts were going to fetch goods from Kobdo in Mongolia. We started early on June 6th, and ten miles beyond Biisk crossed the Obi just at the junction of the Bija and Katun rivers. The Obi is here quite a mile across, but very shallow, and on the other side the track ran over a level steppe of fertile land, with marshy intervals, which made the travelling very bad to the large village of Altaisk.
At Altaisk great numbers of horses and cattle weie coming in from pasture when we arrived. The Cattle arc very small and stunted, and have no appearance of any distinct type or of care in breeding. The sheep, of which more than half are black or partly so, are also small and bad. The horses are small but very tough and hardy. We drove six hours with the same pair, about fifty versts, crossing some very deep boggy flats and swampy ground. They seemed quite fresh when we got in, except the shaft horse, which always has the hardest place. When well fed, they are often good- looking little horses, about fourteen hands, and very active in rough and also in swampy ground.
On the next day at last we got into the foothills, and began to find both flowers, birds and butterflies. Rhododendron, Chrysanthum, Magasea crassifolia, Anemone sylvestris, Corydalis bracleata and Trollius, were the
