as usual under such conditions, ended in a carouse. There was a most interesting collection of different races and nationalities gathered round this place. Besides the wool trader and his wife and other Russian traders, there were two Abakansk Tartars from Central Siberia who were his servants, a local Tartar native of the district, also a servant, and two Kazan Tartar wool traders, who were breaking their journey here on their way to Mongolia. In addition to these, during the evening a sleek-faced Chinaman looked in, but, needless to say, he did not join us in the revels. Sitting down at a table with a samovar of tea and dishes of soup, hot meat and bread, we conversed on all kinds of topics, chiefly those of a more material nature. We discussed the price of food in different parts of the frontier districts, the quality of wool from the Kemchik, and the news which had filtered in about the prospects of the wheat crop in the Minusinsk district north of the frontier. The social atmosphere, in fact, was thoroughly utilitarian, as was only natural in such a wild spot, where one's first considerations are for personal comfort and the satisfaction of immediate bodily necessities.
After the vodka began to go round some Russian love songs and ditties of the Siberian post road delighted the company. Then we became patriotic and toasted each other's sovereigns, and made impromptu speeches in Russian, complimentary to each other's nationality. And so we spent the evening, Russians, Tartars and Englishman, worshipping at the shrine of Bacchus. My interest perhaps mainly centred in the two kinds of Tartars sitting at the table, each in his own stage of Russifica-
