From the fairyland of travellers' tales, through the province of the enterprising member of the Fourth Estate, and finally across the domain of the pushful cyclist, the Siberian route home has during the past few months swum into the ken of the man in the street, and entered the list with the various lines of steamships catering for the needs of this and neighbouring communities, with the result that it now presents itself definitely as an alternative route alike to the busy man, to the family man, or indeed to any man whose time is money' or whose money is limited, when he contemplates a trip home.
"o many of our readers the mention of the Siberian Railway conjures up visions of interminable pages of tame detail from the diary of a nobody, accompanied by bad reproductions of snapshots of say an _unfinished bridge or a Bouriat woman, and we approach the subject merely in the belief that a brief account of the railway in its resent state, as from a Baedeker yet un-ra, may prove of interest to such a3 come under any of the above categories.
The termini are Moscow and Port Arthur, and the time occupied between these two ints is eighteen days, made up in the following manner. The Moscow-Irkutsk trun-de-luxe departs at 10 o'clock p.tn. twice weekly, and arrives at 8 o'clock p.m. on the eighth day succeeding; its comforts and conveniences equal or excel those of the Canadian or American sleeping cars, greater privacy, separate lavatories and better attention perhaps compensating for a weaker cuisine.
For the avoidance of an Irkutsk hotel permission is easily obtainable to spend the night of arrival in the train, since the short three and a half hours' rua down to Lake Baikal is at 6 o'clock on the following morning. The crossing of the Lake takes five hours and is carried out on just such lines as a channel crossing from Dover. Fiom Missovaia, on the other side of the it is exactly three days to the Manchurian frontier; no longer de luxe, the carriage is passably comte-table, and 2 restaurant car is attached to the train one day per week. On the alternate train ample tim is allowed for meals at the station buffets, simple, well-cooked, and inexpensive At the frontier, on the evening of the twelfth day from Moscow, itis well to know a little Russian or to have secured the services of a friendly interpreter. Passport spection, purchase of a new ticket, securing a seat ina new train, anda meal, all in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.