RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
effect of the tragedy upon our arrival, however, was marked. The town was in a most unquiet state and there were vague rumours of danger to be met on every hand. We were not permitted to go ashore without a heavy guard of bristling Cossacks, and everywhere we went we were under the closest and most careful protection. It was most exciting, though in the midst of the cordial hospitality of our Russian hosts we could not feel that there was the slightest cause for apprehension. As soon as we dropped anchor in the harbour we were welcomed to Vladivostok by the Governor and General Commanding. He assigned Prince Bariatinski, Colonel of a regiment stationed at Vladivostok, to act as Mr. Taft's aide during our stay, and from Saturday until Tuesday he and the Princess, both of whom spoke English, were with us constantly, adding much to our enjoyment. Our visit concluded with a dinner and ball given by the Governor, and the next morning we bade good-bye to the Rainbow and Admiral Hemphill and made our way, surrounded by Cossack guards, to the railway station where the train waited to start on its twelve days' trip across Siberia. The government provided us with a large private car of the armoured variety which contained a number of compartments that were fully as spacious and comfortable as an average steamship cabin and we settled ourselves in them quite as we would have done on a trans-Pacific liner.
The trip across Siberia is exceedingly interesting. One anticipates endless monotony, but only the landscape lacks variety. For days together the train runs along through a country which looks exactly like South Dakota or Nebraska and which is interesting only in its wonderful possibilities. It is one of the world's open spaces, undeveloped but capable of producing anything. I had always imagined Siberia as a country filled with sadness and I expected it to depress me, but it arouses no such feeling. We met trainload after trainload of happy Russian colonists on their way to the
317
