or high-school, for boys, and an 'institute,' or high-school, for girls. Many private teachers find employment in rich families who prefer educating their children at home. Tomsk may be regarded as the most important place in Siberia next to Irkutsk.
"There is a line of water communication between Tomsk and Tumen, a thousand miles to the westward, but of course it is only available in summer. Fifteen or twenty steamboats are engaged in the traffic; they descend the Tom to the Ob, and the Ob to the Irtish, which they ascend to the Tobol. Then they follow the Tobol to the Tura, and the Tura to Tumen. With barges in tow, the journey occupies twelve days; without them it is made in a week. Travellers are so few that it does not pay to run boats for passengers alone, and all the boats in use when I was there were mainly for freight purposes, and had limited space for passengers. If you look at the map of Siberia, you will see that it possesses an excellent system of water communication.
"The only navigation of the Tom that I saw was by a native who had fallen through a hole in the ice and just crawled out. He stood dripping on the edge for a moment, as though uncertain what to do; then, evidently realizing his danger, he sprang on his sledge and rode away, to reach home before he was frozen solid.
"At the suggestion of my companion we decided to go to Barnaool, which lies about three hundred miles south of the main road, and is the centre of the Russian mining region of the Altai Mountains. We remained a day at Tomsk, in order to see the Governor and obtain his permission to leave our route, which was readily granted.
"We started in the evening, and forty-four hours later drove into Barnaool and alighted at the hotel. An officer who left Tomsk a few hours in advance of us, kindly notified the station-masters of our approach, and thus caused them to have horses in readiness. If he had not done so we should have been seriously delayed, as the regulations require only three troikas to be kept at the stations on the side road, while ten are maintained along the great route. For the last part of the way the drivers took us to houses of their friends instead of going to the post-stations. The peasants through Siberia have a good many horses, and are glad to earn money in this way by transporting travellers.
"Barnaool is a prosperous town, depending partly upon the gold-mining interest, and partly upon trade with the Kirghese and other people of Central Asia. It has a Club, a Geographical Society, a large and interesting museum, together with smelting-works, factories, and machine-shops connected with the mining interests. Social conversation has a good deal
