File:The "Overland" to China (1900) (14766470155).jpg

Identifier: overlandtochina00colquoft (find matches)
Title: The "Overland" to China
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Colquhoun, Archibald R. (Archibald Ross), 1848-1914
Subjects: Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel China -- Description and travel
Publisher: London Harper
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Europe might well study. By others again,in past days notably by Kennan, it has perhaps beenpainted in unduly black colors. However this maybe, it is certainly an error to consider the Siberia ofthe end of the nineteenth century as merely a greatconvict settlement; nor would the word Siberia,uttered in sepulchral tones, be a name of such terrorto Russians in general as the usual Nihilist novelwould have us suppose. Since the sixteenth centurya steady stream of immigration, only at first com-pulsory, has been kept up, and with the acquisitionby Russia of the more fertile provinces has grad-ually come an improvement in the convict systemand a distinct voluntary movement, though gravelyhindered by the fact that many unnecessary legalforms must be gone through and of^cial formalitiesbe complied with before a peasant can leave Euro-pean Russia. The old order changeth; but before we saygood-bye to every method of travelling but by rail-way, it may be as well to refer to the various modes 90
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SIBERIA by which, hitherto, distance has been bridged. Mostpicturesque perhaps, save to the unfortunate beingwho is compelled to employ it, is the taiantass, thetypical Russian conveyance, to which reference willbe found elsewhere. If the traveller be suflficientlyexperienced to have avoided any luggage with cor-ners to it, and to provide himself with cushions andrugs innumerable, he may hold on tight while thethree loosely harnessed horses dash down a steep in-cline and bump the cart violently across a corduroybridge of poles, but he will not escape without ashakinor and the bruises which are the lot of theless wary. In the Kirghiz highlands, and amongthe Buriats in Trans-Baikatia, camel-sledges andcarts are in use. The writer in his journey fromKiachta to Peking employed no less than fivemethods — namely, tarantass, telega, camels, camel-carts, and mule litter. As far as railway and sledgetravelling is concerned, much misapprehension hashitherto existed as to the difficulties and

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