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 new settlements, and at all the well built stations along the way we saw a great number of sturdy peasant farmers and their families who looked thoroughly comfortable and contented. We whiled away the hours with bridge and books, and, though the train never made more than two or three stops a day, the time passed quickly. Throughout the journey our car was guarded by stalwart Russian soldiers in most picturesque uniforms, stationed on both platforms, and each time the train stopped this guard was changed with considerable ceremony. Also at every station near an army post Mr.